My Pope

Down here the

Dreams of you

Have not abated

As I'd hoped.

I cannot isolate

Can't console

The appetite

That houses an

Outline mind

And belly of

You.

I drink

Cokes and speak

Your little name

And paint again,

Geometrical

Derangements

Which suck. My

Friends at least

I think love

Me, their

Faces pressed

Against my

Solitudinous

Glass, their

Landscapes

Peppered with

Children.

Can

You come. I

Really think you

Ought to come. If it

Please you I'll

Abolish all this

Language. I wish

Only an anemone

Of rampant

Nights for us,

Stars to cluster

Silently on vines.

I wish us

Infinite imaginative

Orifices to

Entertain.

A soup in the

Morning say. A

Tough cake. My

Delusion

Sustained.

I think

I thank

You for refusing

To crush me

And I don't. For

What were they

Put there, my

Pope, love,

And each

Predacious

Beauty. If I built

You a sea

To throne on. If

I guessed the

One gesture to

Reduce you.

But you don't

Like it so asky

And guitarish.

Is it

My fault if it's

How I curse my

Self. Is

It my fault it's

The one bliss

I say I think

I know

How to outlast.

Love to

seduce you as if

it were literally

1605

with many

affectionate verbal profusions & now

& then an

affectionate

hand on your cock

James Loop's poetry has appeared in Brooklyn Rail, Lambda Literary, Prelude and elsewhere. He is the author of Froth, a forthcoming collection of poems, and the co-author with Claire DeVoogd of Appletini, or the Perills of Speeche by Anonymous Botch (Terrific Books). He lives in Brooklyn.