from The Martini Mansion by Brian Waniewski

1.

In his underwear I not even tent that tricky twitch—
Flex & feline stretched the tempter takes his time
O his mouth goes Y bold arms high he arches out

Have I in each character found some friction once
Or not contènt in a leg forsook for his costly scent
A whiff of green dungs the ding-dong’s ride anon

And now will I have the highest heaven or naught
Soon-to-be memento mori—my sad staff do stay
Your way interrogate, speak, speak to love harsh-

Ly till honeyed bends before him it be not refused
Rosy-cheeked the cherub he hilt-highs then will it
Melt and me stand where had emptied out his eye

For him I wonder do I want so dumbly once more
Fawns my heel to lick the laurels hence for roses
If only were I he & he me would I ask how much

from The Martini Mansion by Brian Waniewski

2.

I think on him & thinking fly—we wet in the garden hosed down so skins slip to touch-
Bared bodies’ both & single whim him to hear I do me broken scream he & back I come.

Not once but many nights’ novas can he fold greater than eight therein to your bathetic I
Off Sir Tum-tum wiped with scented whites & drooly done half-flaccid breath become I

Snore I lie beside hating why wanting how knowing so broke who I am to you—not him.
Freely I tell you too much to make more dear myself who you dear might make but delay

Your lips always love and paper kisses and promises too inky spring when all I am is sex
Whose sinking value days take of me kept by troth to bilk this time, this place, dear, you.

The stars, the stars, I will recall them sundry & tell your jealousies a shape on the ceiling
If there they must be the constellation I call out tonight: 2 better boys by moonlight fuckt.

from The Martini Mansion by Brian Waniewski

3.

Think me ugly, unkind, old, accursed,
Fat what has today but sun it swelters
& sweats well choose I on the rocks
No—straight-up my suffering and sit.

Wicked moral marauder me you think
I cannot see, but so seeing you suffice—
Go, know the light too like its shadow,
In one the other seek a self too smitten

Too proud, purblind, hapless, hard, he.
The hours’ attributes I list listing more
To have you less be mine or no I grant
That largess like a net so baited be hid

In my aspect as mine in yours did find
Itself the spider bride always spinning
The city closed, the sentence bleeding
Between us though I starve is yours—

Go, stay I the day & be so committed.

from The Martini Mansion by Brian Waniewski

4. Synopsis

Ephebe me sir too
Artless I
A vampire game
Virgin nymph, tiddledywinks
If I the cup be
Quickie corn-
Fed, athletic, willing, dumb
Hunky waiter awaits
His tipping, come
Ingénue do coup
De théâtre dance
For you &
Your friends too, at last
The opera game—

In blues & golds two meet and stage-crossed sing the sailor of his ship
Its ports & precious exploits unnumbered be he but woe exhausted
Fervor flown limbs grown old tho’ in his voice the sea
Longs she in too rigid low registers
To see, to see—the sea, the sea
Refrain will make them love to
Rue too much the future
Failed in
Far-aways, ever-afters & once-upon-a-times
His blood did come seeing her to stop,
Slow boil, the vessel smoldered
As they sailed, beauty bought but once her suffering & sailor too
Dry-docked at sea—

Elsa, he cries for his cocktail friends
Flourishing, Patrokylus, Ganymede,
We in need of olives & ice & an ass:
All laugh as I hightail out it shaking
Spiteless, drowned: the perfect part.

Later prone at my feet does he play?
If I scrape & screech & diva downfalls
If I refuse but for doom prop the forest
If I look long in the shining silvery waters
If I touch naught, untouched
The story goes

Then stops.
Why am I still here?

from The Martini Mansion by Brian Waniewski

5. Testament

Knee this tricked am I old in need—new cane
So the white-coat’s quack car be bullet-proof
So his girl better betitted her own frontispiece
Be, so pill, his tincture, this ointment of snake
I take meanly to in his gold eyes an age made
Congenital as that airless anteroom, incidence

Across its tables fanned—colors can but fade
In his black minty mouth I think that time lies
Its fits and starts spa-cuisine slicked over, sir
I have my teeth & take a steak too bloody bad
For your future, Frankenstein, the 401K fiend
Forsakes its father for the more original doom.

A drink. A symptom of loves overmuch twixt
Dust covers pressed, finally, against my chest
They crumbled, what I had once sun-touched
Seen so my eye plucked & put away its stem
Behold, though stolen home the colors stayed
& like a song returned I yearned to kiss them

Petal for petal—gone, perhaps, or too much
Present I bode for them long & haply hard it
Became itself beauty of a season’s squander
How I stand perfected, bow-legged, yet seed
& fodder both, with the four winds I prepare
Posterity in petto, fists full of that bright ash

And what elixir makes me your mad gadget?
Be he tall, handsome, lithely hipped, hung if
Then would I consider it for a bit of bed rest
To count his lesser qualities wherein our we
Tough tendrils slip & slimed equip shadow
Structurefull, unseen, I lean too a beginning

In that quick root that worms earth for bone
Alike every bed has been for me a box, doc
I see space superfluousless, either come, lie
Or shut up, more walls, bottoms, tops, I hate
To walk & begrudge them my foreshortened
View this lovely liver-spotted trunk, its belly

Ache & bilious grip, that box at bottom toes
Wiggle tho’ tired, then past duely change too
Stiff I see me wood at last and unsadly want-
Less—Gnarled Knee—Let the sleeping lie—