REQUIEM for Aristotle, a good lizard 1/11/1999

                I was walking down Amsterdam avenue

 under a waning moon when I felt you

 cross the gates.

                I did not know it then

but oh

     so perfect

When I dream of your world

   I see giant, proud-sized lizards

draping royally over mountains in the sunshine,

   Arizona hot every day.

Food and warmth, all to satisfy.

                A ceiling on my world; 34th street rivers and blankets

                                                all flowing,

                                                and the sand...

                My world is a rooftop kingdom,

    composed of layers, and tilting heads, and raw sex,

 full moons every night, empty bottles and dirty ashtrays

and electricity pulsing through the soul of everyone...

                                and the peace...

Our worlds came together in a small

     cynical room in Queens.

You were always quiet, but your weight

    was in your eyes.

Did you close them when I came out of the shower?

Did you turn your head when I masturbated?

Or did you not care at all,

    and who could, with a bellyful of spinach and carrots,

       a place to sleep and rock to lay on.

And now your cage is at my back, empty, gathering dust,

                But still I feel your soul on me,

    watching without judgment, and it feels human.

2)

Millennium....

Millennium....?

Is it all your fault?

Have you started your chaos yet?

I demand an explanation, Millennium. You’re wanted for questioning.

1999 comes along and my iguana decides to

    up and check out?

What’s going on here?

                Why do I address you as a person?

Why does my silly guilt pop up in bed?

Why do my closest friends make me watch them?

When did denial come into fashion?

Why is my ink frozen?

Is it from the biting cold, the fingernails scraping frost off of my back

    in primal patterns with cigarettes, still lit, in between lusty fingers?

When did this become commonplace?

Where is the coy premonition of March?

Is it really a whole winter away?       

Are we really going to make it?

Why am I asking questions?

After all, Millennium, it is you and I who

   are the harbingers of the new age

 not these silly dotted fish-hooks that stain my meaningful pages.

I have inadvertently taken a month off

     and I have tossed the evidence in the garbage,

          such a fitting end to this.

3)   A new world to consider;

   I imagine criss-crossing cars and lives, auburn snowflakes

         and wanton passions and bare legs fucking;

A universe of its own out-there and in my head at the same time.

      The anticipation of being prepared,

         Like music, like

   love.

It is difficult to walk around naked

    with all of this,

 with you,

in the January starlight,

 what with the sky falling and the wind chill factor

     and a freshly shaved head

  and the Empire State building, looming

  in the background like the father we never had,

gone at midnight to leave us to our day

    and all its implications:

Laws of mathematics

 and music

and brushstrokes

and words,

   shaded crevices that suck me in and hold me

   squeeze around my cock

 and call me perfect and true,

   my name

  my cheek, my sunshine

eclipsed only by this beard,

this odor waffling up from my underarms in

imperfect spirals caused by the bouncing

N-Train

always to Brooklyn in the beginning,

always to Queens in the end.

4)

 Aristotle, you came and went

     like tide.

 And now, you are just one more life headline

to brood over.

So what, to deal, to deal

more cards, like more tomorrows, laid on the table.

And as for you,

 Millennium, even though

   you look like death

      through the cigar haze

   I’m not convinced.

I think you’re bluffing.

I raise and I call