you need satan more than he needs you



william klein, Candy Store, Amsterdam Avenue, New York, 1954-55

Yellow Tulips
-- by eileen myles

I was walking along the sidewalk
in all the daily pain
& miserable faces & awful air.
Up above in a flower box
were yellow tulips, too real
to be real, so big
and sexual looking in
that funny way flowers
always are. I guess
they were like heads
poking in from another
world. How do you
like Wednesday, you
beautiful things?

A Raspberry Sweater
-- by Frank O'Hara

to George Mongomery

It is next to my flesh,
that's why. I do what I want.
And in the pale New Hampshire
twilight a black bug sits in the blue,
strumming its legs together. Mournful
glass, and daises closing. Hay
swells in the nostrils. We shall go
to the motorcycle races in Laconia
and come back all calm and warm.

Song
-- by Frank O'Hara

I am stuck in traffic in a taxicab
which is typical
and not just of modern life

mud clambers up the trellis of my nerves
must lovers of Eros end up with Venus
muss es sein? es muss nicht sein, I tell you

how I hate disease, it's like worrying
that comes true
and it simply must not be able to happen

in a world where you are possible
my love
nothing can go wrong for us, tell me

The Fine Rain
-- by James Tate

the poker game went on into the wee hours
of the morning. I lost everything I had and
then some. Don offered me a ride home but I
wanted to walk. there was a very fine rain
coming down, warm. it woke me up and rinsed
the sense of loss off me. I had lived my
whole life in this neighborhood. I knew every-
one. everyone dreams, but none escape, darting
glances, the lucky day to come.