On the ships

on the ships we went dancing and laughing, joy with sweet patient fungus
in the alley behind the fender of my aging heart —
        into nothing
I shall scatter with lavish pride whole troops of stars flaming on the bartendin bitch down at — different times
a feeling comes –
my splayed-out compact car half-sunk
she sang to me
        enter the room
to tell the lowlier ones of sights and deeds and thus make a graveyard around an enormous act
retreat
nothing is long and straight
disgorge
        also a colonial custom
leo and lance
ah, that word disdain forbids me to sing
for brawn, I don’t die exactly but with a knife in your mind
began shrill and metallic
bar jammed in the dead leaving sheaves of brier and harebell to bloom again
I could deserve a new lord
fruit for food gave thee all the laws