Poem 533

The dark deep reaches of the night … the very opposite of an erotic fantasy …

( Title borrowed from James Joyce … )

Ulysses In Nighttown

I've started to dream I'm with various women
I see at work
first it was the hugely fat woman I sometimes
say good morning to
                                           she lay back
hardly looking at me and shifted her legs
so the fat of her thighs rolled apart
but as I knelt and held her knees
I remembered AIDS straddled her instead
and pushed myself between her breasts
trying to hold them as they plunged
like weighty pudding bags into her armpits
thick brown nipples creased across
like bruised shut eyes aureoles
like vivid wounds

next a bony woman from the third floor
long stringy hair bulging eyes half anorexic
dry as if she could neither bleed
nor love she smelt of rancid smoke and took me
as just something else to imbibe
but her friends invaded the room before I could finish
and I had to go on feeling nothing
her face turned to the side laughing

last night it was the little punk who serves
in the cafeteria and never looks at you
her hateful school tattoos and white scalp
between dyed hair 
                                      her psychiatric chatter
and way she picked at herself

it's all about duty
                                   I know that much
each time I wake it's with this
serviceable erection
nothing more