This when I was--
I meant to revise.
Just cut out a word and I forgot.
So we'll see.
There's a rhyme that I don't want here,
but somebody said it's all right.
So we'll do it.
This is really from my Bible reading period.
Ezekiel and the wheels with eyes on them and things like that.
When I call somebody-- like I refer to people as wheel.
Like a circle represents a free spirit of man,
like esoterically.
And actually, when I say wheel in a ditch,
I mean like the spirit of each of us trapped.
Maybe not the body, but what is the essence
of each man trapped somehow.
"Jericho."
"The question mark in my belly stretches kicks me
and I push back the sheet, watching you undress.
You put on the black mask and lie on your side.
I open the small sack of peppermint
sticks you always bring and take one out.
I suck it as you rub my shoulders, breasts
and with one hand around the hollows
beneath carved by seven months of pregnancy,
stopping when your palm covers my navel.
You groan, wetting my hip as I slide
the peppermint across my lips.
So I'm just 15, but I've seen others like you,
afraid, apologizing because they need something maybe
nobody else does.
You can demand, handing out the money, the sweets.
Ashamed to climb your ladder of trouble, don't be.
Make it to the top.
You'll find a ram's horn there, blow it seven times.
Yell God damn and watch the miniature hells
walking around below you on two feet all fall down."
Ladder-- ladder of trouble.
If you read-- see The Carrier of Ladders
by Merwin, which nobody seems to like but me.
He's taking a little--
there's a little quote in it from a Dahomey song.
I can't remember it exactly.
The bearer of the dead says to the carrier of ladders,
it is a day of something.
It is a day of trouble.
Anyway, that's where I sort of get ladder of trouble.
I like that.