one for walter
5

I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you,
And you must not be abased to the other.

Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat,
Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not
even the best,
Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.

I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning,
How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn'd over upon me,
And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue
to my bare-stript heart,
And reach'd till you felt my beard, and reach'd till you held my feet.

Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass
all the argument of the earth,
And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,
And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own,
And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women
my sisters and lovers,
And that a kelson of the creation is love,
And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields,
And brown ants in the little wells beneath them,
And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heap'd stones, elder, mullein and
poke-weed.

from song of myself


i'm fucking trying out here, and i want everything all at once. i know. i know. i know i cannot have it i want what i cannot have, what i want does not exist for me. i want to be better. better. faster stronger, sharper, i cannot be everything now, why not now?

i want the soft rush of wind pass my ears and the raw streak of torn skin on my calf from the chain of the blue bike that i threw down on the overpass to leap, finally to be free, for just one instant

i want the cold water to lick over the ridges of my ribs, to make me suck in one last bitter cold breath, one head spinning cold breath before the ice grabs my temples and thrusts its tongues into my eardrums and pulls my head under forcibly like a promise ruthlessly keeping itself

i want, if this must fail, for you to do me one last favor. please carry me to alaska and nail me to a glacier, let me just cool off the hot burn on my mouth, my neck, my wrists and fingers

yours, truly