When One has Lived a Long Time with Diarrhea

Been sick. Very. Parody of Galway Kinnell


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When One has Lived a Long Time with Diarrhea
When one has lived a long time with diarrhea
one waters night-crawlers on sunny sidewalks,
one waters neglected flowers, one pours new
empathy upon all dehydrated beings in need with
desperate half-empty organs pumping from
memory: the pale Monarch butterfly with stiff
tongue, no tears of gods to revive, the chained dog
panting in dementia’s heat-waves, the dried
twig with closed bud, diseased guts of spring,
High fever, all dream-danger unleashed, all colors,
all phantoms crowd and slam-dance till the stars dim
when one has lived a long time with diarrhea
When one has lived a long time with diarrhea
one squirts out poems into the toilet bowl black,
the brain pleads to unseen beings behind the curtain
the body has shaken the pen from the hand
shaken the hand from the work, it’s time for the
articulation of orifices, it’s time to be eloquent
with the mouth while the mouth has moisture
these works will be perfect and final as they are,
will contain nothing superfluous or sentimental
these are the brevities of tombstone Shakespeares
best work, last work and the riches of sleep are deep
when one has lived a long time with diarrhea
When one has lived a long time with diarrhea
the composition of the soul is no longer a mystery:
“as above so below” pours out of your sore anus,
shit-gods in soiled nightgowns play slip n’ slide out
of your ass: fuck metaphysics! fuck science!
O deep laughter of sickness, the stink and struggle!
Belief’s time to matter has expired: so goddamn tired!
The big bad wolf’s at the door: this little piggy ate
applesauce, bananas, white toast, lost hope,
got too thin, house blew in, too weak to goddamn
god--one’s too weak to goddamn anything
when one has lived a long time with diarrhea




When one has lived a long time with diarrhea
one waters the bones of Whitman, the mighty
fortress of the self shrinks, what’s left in the toilet
bowl sings, merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily life is but--
what’s beneath the pillow-sweat does not stir, I shall
hear no fly buzzing thereafter, no hot poet waits in
a glass carriage to spirit me home, I go to become
the jack-o-lantern’s grin, this is it, the final poem
of self at self’s end: the worm, the Whitman, the soul
are not entwined with lilac, star and rose--
what could’ve been better no longer matters
when one has lived a long time with diarrhea