Parsifal at the Threshold of Light

1. The Communion of the New Flesh

Body:

oil and rubbed firm,
polished and scented,
like sacrifice
readied for some pagan feast.

I burn on your altar,
midsummer, know the union
of devouring,

two flesh become one,

nudes steaming in the night air,
fluorescence and shadow echoing
down the empty city's cloistered
corridor,

and you stare
as through a tunnel,
the light
uncertain at the far end.

Into your mouth, curl of your tongue:
take, eat —
this is my body

torn for you.

2. The Lotus-Eater Tells of the Grail

Inasmuch as ye
drink the body

Electra: She
who moves through
New Jerusalem
pulsing lights and neon
tires scream like savage lovers
flesh ripped from their backs

carbon monoxide and the million
small smells festering in storm-drains

and scatterlings struck dumb
wine in threadbare pockets
streetcorner bells
kneeling eyes lifted toward
transubstantiation

rapture trickles
from slack mouths.

The Magi haven't bathed in weeks;
chilling the corner at Crack Street
and Elm,

hypin' the come
of a very green day.

Another little brother bites pavement,
dopplers off

to the pumping place.

Take, drink,
this do in remembrance of me.

Celebrants, we wallow in a plague of tongues:
leather whores Black
English White English Spanish
Chinese English Arab English.

The prodigals of Babel
are staggering home, gentlemen —
and something must be done!

Give me your tired, your poor...

The subway crowd
tightens a little around
rush hour,

maybe gets a little crazy, you know?
But never a dull moment
wears thin after awhile.
Exhilarating...ennui... spare change? spare change?

shhhh, lover;
tedium makes me hot.

White noise,

always its reptilian
scraping against dream's doorstep,
every sound of every city,
every stench, every color technology
knows to make light flash,

a zillion gigawatt altar
for the lords of stimulation

Johnson's beating his goddamned kids again.
You wanna turn the fuckin' TV
up a little? God, I love that little
nigger son of a bitch.

What comes on
after this?