It was good getting drunk in the undulant city.

Whiskey lopping off the day’s fear.

 

Dawn came with an element of Xanax.

Dusk came and I dumbed myself down.

 

Where there were brides, grooms--

bored boysoldiers with iphones and guns.

 

I’m a soft target, you’re a soft target,

and the city has a hundred hundred thousand softs.

 

The pervious skin, the softness of the face,

the wrist inners, the hips, the lips, the tongue,

 

the global body,

its infinite permute softnesses.

 

~

 

Soft targets, soft readers, drinkers,

pedestrians in rain--

 

In the failing light we walked out

and now we share a room with it

 

(would you like to read to me in the soft,

would you like to enter me in the soft,

 

would you like a lunch of me in the soft,

in its long delirium?)

 

The good news is we have each other.

The bad news is: Kalashnikov assault rifles,

 

a submachine gun, pistols, ammunition,

and four boxes packed with thousands of small steel balls.

 

 

~

 

O you who want to slaughter us, we’ll be dead soon

enough what’s the rush.

 

And this our only world.

As you can see it has a problem.

 

As you can see the citizens are hanging heavy.

The citizens’ minds are out.

 

Eros, eros, in Paris we stayed all night

in a seraphic cocktail haze

 

despite the blacked out theater,

the shuttered panes.

 

Tonight we’re the most tender of soft targets,

reclining by the river pulpy with alcohol and all a-sloth.

 

Monsieur can we get a few more?

There are unmistakable signs of trouble,

 

but we have days and days still.

Let’s be giddy, maybe. Time lights a little fire.

 

We are animal hungry down to our delicate bones.

O beautiful habits of living, let me dwell on you awhile.