This Is How He Wrote # 1

He steals into his mother's room as she sleeps
He moves quickly and quietly to her bureau,
To the second drawer where she keep her under things.
Places his hands carefully,
Applies pressure slowly and evenly,
Removes a bra and a pair of panties.

Closes the drawer as carefully as opened
Moves quietly out of the room and quietly down
Quietly into the cellar to a small study
Wedged between the washer-dryer and
A wall of over-stuffed home-made shelving.

Careful to leave the door
At the top of the stairs slightly ajar,
Just in case his mother woke and came to look
Although she never had.

Removes his clothes and puts on
His mother's bra and panties.
He would turn on his pc, and turn off the lights.
If his mother ever did wonder down looking for him,
Unlikely she'd venture past the top of the stair,
Perhaps calling down to him.

But he would have heard her steps and dimmed the screen.
He would sit silently in the dark
Until she'd give up
Go looking for him elsewhere in the house,
Giving him time to dress.

How would he come out of the basement?
How could he return her under things to her drawer?
The plan was not perfect but that was part of it's appeal.
He was at risk.


This Is How He Wrote # 2

He hated small sharps pains.
Small lacerations, paper cuts,
Split toenails, puncture wounds;
These made his whole body prickle
With an nauseous energy,
A disturbing heat.

He felt his writing needed this,
A kind of underlying ferment.

He invented a device.
It had a short length
Of medium gauge piano wire
Attached to a high tension spring.
It had straps to hold his arm in place.
The release mechanism was attached
To a the guts of an old alarm clock.

This added an element of surprise.

He didn't know exactly
When spring would release,
The wire zinging through its short arc.

One application would produce a page
Or so of writing imbued
With the aggitated quality he sought.


this is how he wrote # 8

this is how he wrote
he lay in bed, nightshirt,
hands folded benign over pad
and pen, cap off, resting on his chest

after a bit, motion
pen across the paper
hello, what's this, & bob's
your uncle he's writing

a few pages each night
adding up but always
totally illegible

after some years
he could make out
his meaning &
decipher the
scrawl

no one
else
ever did

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