I Fail As a Celibate

By Jerome Rothenberg
Despair leaves
a dry spot
the passage of light
through my veins.
I fail as a celibate.
The smell of honey
fills my throat.
I lose touch with
my bone when
it stiffens.
Sometimes
I find a place
to spring
& spike you
while you cry.
I try to rev things up
although I hate
the sound of flying.
Gagging leaves
the breath
no exit.
Then the chest puffs out,
no longer hapless,
in the face of
everything aloof
& distant,
where the world begins.
I go on craving
hostile to the ones like you
who bind me.
I surrender any
knowledge of the cave
in which I hide
from light.

Copyright Credit: "I Fail As a Celibate" By Jerome Rothenberg, from A Book of Witness: Spells and Gris-Gris, copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 by Jerome Rothenberg. Used by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.
Source: A Book of Witness: Spells and Gris-Gris (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 2003)