Three Poems

Fin De Siècle

Don't look, but the sun is setting and the leaves
Out there on the silver birches have turned gold:
You can almost hear them, jangling in the wind!
Why not paint that? Oh but you see, I do -
Searching your curves and hollows, yet with this
Decay staining the atmosphere, this chill,
This fog in the soul's crevices.

And then, you know, I regard you with desire,
Which is the desire of art, and that includes
The desire for it to end, for you to leave
And for the night to come.
                                      Well, shall I go
To The Green Monkey for the décolletage
Of that girl who hangs around there, the gas light
Finding a coarser gold between her breasts
...