why the parasite poems?
to cleanse my colon of semi-colons
and to free a mind blown apart by brain storms.

§

I would that you were a cockroach
caught beneath my shoe 
and held in place by gum
so that I can jump up and down
joyfully and for once not worry about 
where you are or when you'll next attack
the sound of crunch 
is better than 
the smell of lunch
though you wouldn't know this 
now that your screeching bats 
have fallen on the grass
like bunts

§

Is there somewhere a younger hostage
ignorant of your game?
from whom new blood can be taken and extracted
and who could use a teeth mark tattoo 
like the discreet ones you used to do 
before your age caught up with you
and rendered forth the awful truth
that you haven't much else besides excuses,
lies and more 
and baggage bigger than the door
though it flies first class on another's dime
money cross collateralized against your time
were you less wicked you'd have 
paid it 
rather than the goldfish that 
the master baited

§

The roots grow 
out of my ears
but you only caress 
the leaves
which fall from 
the branches 
of my bank

§

My roots have raged 
that they have been forced to carry you
the undercarriage of my estate 
will be summer in a fall or two
unless it fails to get up 
but getting up is child's play 
once the boil on the leech erupts
and once the diamondback has rattled on 
and spilled his bitter cups

§

Better off in Iraq I would be
beneath an arrow falling 
from the tree 
that shelters me
from minefields blooming 
expectations blow up
when business is booming 
the common sense and values
that served once as pavilions 
within which rested some gratitude
now 
bounce one payment, 
rest the stallions
and the cough from your chest
is all attitude

§

Every night the leeches sleep 
and dream of greater speed

§

Whose venom drips from the vipers fangs 
if not the leeches from which it hangs 
pierced, now swollen 
its will now wandering, disjointed 
the fate that it had once appointed
its host when it was young 
and prone to boast 
about the head his ghost
had anointed 
when the butter was sweet 
and the crust was fresh
before it became dry toast
so delicious is a squirming leech
plucked from beneath the skin 
of someone else's peach

§

I scrappled with a piece of star 
and pulled it by its hair to the floor
and chased the worms out of the apple core
and used them as fresh bait 
now they squirm inside a bass' gills
like nympethamines
or like gilded lilies, spoiled from debate
which line the barrel 
of fishes bellies
pulled out the next day as caviar
pisces falling, vertigo rising 
I swallow the light from her star

§

There you are: 
a pampered pastel parasite 
latched on to your host
and daring to hiss at his joy 
newly resurrected from 
the haunts of continuum
and patched back on his 
freshly painted shield
once attended by heralds 
thereafter pursued by your 
jinxes and tumbling perils 
seemingly connected 
by its root to your mouth 
which sucks dry 
what it cannot hope to merit
unless you can find 
a way to scare it

§

Your reputation has been very expensive to maintain !
may it now fall to its rightful station
your train can roll now on its own steam 
and now you can blow smoke on someone else's dream
and steal pineapples from your own plantation 
and profit from your own scheme 
though that amounts to work :
DON'T SCREAM!
(and stop being a jerk)

§

….anyway 
our youth never belonged to us,
only to our imaginations

§

A morbid slug 
lounging on a grave stone
couldn't read the writing 
on the marble beneath its weight:

here lies 
Jake Mc Gilly 
born with hard luck 
so he laughed himself silly
made a fortune 
lost a fortune
then found love 
and so found 
another fortune

§

Another read:

here lies 
Lucinda Prill 
she'd still be alive
had she kept herself still
no one dances with 
dark scorching lightening 
who isn't in pantomime 
a death wish fighting

§

An apple once spit out a worm
which was hanging on by the ropes 
it may have been in Putney Green 
or perhaps it was Putney Swopes 
I just know it would be peachy keen 
if its eye line moved out of my scopes 
and 
I will swallow a lot less bullshit 
when its hands get out of my throat

§

In the end the parade 
winds down starved
of attention 
for its own charade 
and blown upon 
by winds not just 
of indifference
but by flatulence 
as well
and once the bull 
has been stripped 
of its cow bell 
even his farts 
were measured in parts 
and sold as 
anonymous smell 
as disaffected whiff 
a drum major 
tapping out 
a scratch and sniff 
on the ground 
before it swells
and gathering up 
in martial time 
the ashes in the blood 
before they gel

§

Even young parasites know 
that it is a free fall 
it's the crash landing 
you pay for

§

The jacks have dropped their swords
at the last pub before the house of lords
even revolutionaries have to eat 
and mend their stockings before they meet 
that fate, which counsels late 
which ropes are stranglers 
and which ropes are cords 
that either send us beneath 
or pull us up from the boards
these questions are often 
left hanging 
but to the boards 
rope is rope 
and banging is banging

§

Hunters care not for mystic birds 
who may be phoenixes sleeping 
they don't want reality tweaks 
only the meat they are bent on keeping 
when dead eye meets corona 
crashing beaks
begin to wail 
like the blubbering 
tears of Jonah…

§

…why would Beelzebub shiver 
from the loss of birds? 
too many eyes are on the sparrow,
the fragrance of feathers will be gone 
by tomorrow 
and the arrows of sorrow 
make hummingbirds quiver 
who eat sweet things when 
they eat their words 
or when promises can't deliver 
and this is as the devil prefers,
to pass his sentence watching proud 
hawks play hide and seek
in the clouds

§

NOTHING IS PREMATURE!
Or else the time lords could not endure
the pain of trying to hold back the doors
whose prime allure is in stoking the fires before
the track has figured out how to pull in the slack 
before bouncing newborns, who come as trains 
(though waxed)
have landed too hard upon a terrain 
that would saddled the side walk 
and seal the cracks 
before joy took root in their coddling form
JAGGER WAS BORN IN A CROSS FIRE HURRICANE 
bullshit is usually born in a dust storm
whether cold or warm 
and spirals out like pollen 
sung by suits whose lips are pursed 
and whose allergic eyes are sullen

§

…he crawled into consciousness
still on his knees
but now on the shoulders of men

COPYRIGHT SANANDA MAITREYA – MILANO 3TH JANUARY 2005 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED