farewell the flesh

if fucking is life
i must be dead
if fucking is so political
i am apolitical
and under the bed
jerking off and fitting
must've had more jerks
than hot meals
and more hangovers too
if fucking is communion
i am incommunicado
totally disconnected
not even a thread
hanging like the burr of nail
she loved across her breast

(a pastoral scene)

strange wooden trees
three crosses
that's kenneth patchen
he was a christian pacifist
and loved his wife so sweetly
fucked her all the time
even through the pain
everyone's fucking everyone
or getting fucked it seems,

(who cares ? not me ?)

if fucking is animal
i must be a higher being
licking the trough
and gutters at dawn
if getting fucked is karmic
i'm in nirvana
and hate the view
if fucking were everything
i'd be nothing
not even born
or the ache i bear for you
from down here
i can see and hear and smell
everyone fucking
in two decades
i have seen a million
cocks and cunts and assholes gaping
a flickering, disconnected scream

(i think they stole my love)

if you don't want to fuck
i'd understand but please
don't fuck me over
i'm already deeply scarred
and scared
don't get me wrong
i have fucked before,
more than my quota
the lost names and faces
even fucking now
and you know if fucking came easy
i'd be a natural
lions fucking foxes birthing lambs-
(a nature scene)
they even fucked in the camps and seminaries
i hear
some even die fucking but not me
i am a unicorn
and if you see me in the glade walk by
the birds and bees splendidly alive
come to carnivale

by Paul Harrison