My writing teacher thinks this poem is much too vague, so therefore a little clarity: it is about trying to shoot dope (specifically hydromorphone, a very short lived high when injected) in a public bathroom. The assignment was to start with an image and stay with it until "the lift", as he calls it.
Very open to criticism, though this poem was written in a panicked and self-conscious state of trying to finish the damn thing for a class of intimidating poets. A little nervous self-criticism and time constraints can actually produce some decent art sometimes.
____________
A public rest stop is a yellow place to die
where bile mists off humming fixtures
A concrete den, a smell of shit
a trough for piping urine.
Outside there's dusk,
a shivering and sore twilight
a much deserved frigid frost.
A car in a locked lot waits in the blue.
And what you have is all that saves:
a dogged will
digging holes in milk.
A sweaty palm
a blood soaked rag
a thirst for curious nausea.
At last: spot on,
a rush through Eden
a tease of numbing thunder.
And dumped in the bramble,
your mistress is sailing
she laughs at all your lust.
Very open to criticism, though this poem was written in a panicked and self-conscious state of trying to finish the damn thing for a class of intimidating poets. A little nervous self-criticism and time constraints can actually produce some decent art sometimes.
____________
A public rest stop is a yellow place to die
where bile mists off humming fixtures
A concrete den, a smell of shit
a trough for piping urine.
Outside there's dusk,
a shivering and sore twilight
a much deserved frigid frost.
A car in a locked lot waits in the blue.
And what you have is all that saves:
a dogged will
digging holes in milk.
A sweaty palm
a blood soaked rag
a thirst for curious nausea.
At last: spot on,
a rush through Eden
a tease of numbing thunder.
And dumped in the bramble,
your mistress is sailing
she laughs at all your lust.
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