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Page 207

Seraphim, Cherubim, Archangels -- I can never remember
the others -- let's see, Thrones, Dominions, Powers...
at the bottom, mere angels. I don't know where poets belong;
if, truly, we create, then we are above them all, angels
being merely messengers of the word.

And what are these names? Celestial secretaries, deputy
secretaries, assistant secretaries, officers and dogs' bodies?
(Whence these hierarchies? Ah, we can't help
filling in the blankness.)

Do the Thrones LOOK like thrones or SIT on thrones?
I often write poems while on the toilet. And, living
in Virginia, I write by light from "Old Dominion Power."
Embarrassing to think of, but people often die
on their toilets (or worse, someone else's -- you can tell
I'm bored with angels?). It's Shitterdammerung,
Twilight of the Toilets. That last squeeze does it.
The heart gives out, soul squeezes right up out of the head,
like a slick bar of soap squeezed in the hand.

Someone else has to deal with the slumped form.
Husband, wife, embarrassed by the bare ass once
embraced, its soft heat now embered (just a flush),
soon embiered; by throes thrown from the throne.

I think I'd rather pop off in flagrante delicto
(or fragrant delighted licking): My love, let's die
together, good missionaries, one beast with
two asses, mooning the world both ways (leave ‘em
laughing), each savoring the other's last breath
while a hundred million stranded sperm
wring their handlessnesses, moaning,
"NOW where are we supposed to go!"

Note: In stanza 4, the flesh of the recently dead has lost most of its warmth, so may be compared to an ember (embered) (BRRR!) and will soon be in a coffin on a bier – embiered. In stanza 5, "good missionaries" – that is, making love in the missionary position, which, I suppose, is not how missionaries did it, necessarily, but is what they told the natives was the only decent way to do it. Any position that is Emissionary suits me. (Sending sperm out on a Mission Implausible?) [An Emissionary position pertains only to sex via Email – between an E-male and a FE-male.]

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