Distance? Well, yes, a sort of distance, or a mute
remove from the genuine distress he witnessed

I know why all the old men want young 
girls, why the other old men love young 
boys, for I see how they are like 

Grief stricken, Charles would have nothing more to do
with poetry, he was burning everything. I warned him

I don’t think guys want to see lesbians,
to have real-life, full-fledged dykes strike a pose,

No rain for weeks, cows hold
their milk within covetous udders.

The river lies still as an infant

It’s getting harder to remember the Thirties. 
Public gestures are so replacing private embraces 
That, thinking back, I can visualize old Cactus Jack 

Too many domes of colored ass 
Stained the white radiance.

  I remember an old city, red walls and battlements, on the immense plain burnt out from the August heat, with the far-away spongy cold comfort of green hills in the background. Enormous emptiness of bridge-arches over the stagnant river dried to thin leaden puddles: a black moulding of mosquitoes shifting and silent along the banks: among the dazzle and 

Coffee: the tightening at the heart,
The wreath of ice, like thorns
Arranged there to give pleasure,

None of us sitting home alone
On a dull, rainy evening
Thinks of the nude male body