in the cavernous longings of youth

in the cavernous longings of youth,
we stand on corners, in doorways and bars,
echoing drunken slurs into the gray haze of street lights
sloshing through the soup of our DNA.
we are tall stakes, seeking the core of the earth,
octopi latching our tentacles upon the world,
uncoiling from the womb,
and slithering into foxholes and sewage drains,
the astrology of emotion chained to a bed post,
collecting the scattered bones of our recreation,
a sacred testament to gaping mouths,
a still birth of red wine and tequila shots.
is my mouth any less gaping? 
starvation suits me, fitted to my skin like a vestment
sewn by a holy virgin hocking her wares in a back alley
as rain falls like a tiny hammer knocking on my wall,
and the world streams in yellow stripes across the bedsheets,
absence sitting like an unwanted guest
reading a matchbook from end to end,
and lighting a cigarette, 
filling the air with the soft breath of morning,
distance closing like a warm blanket.

The Insatiable Eye

--'Lo! then this skull -- which if thou wilt regard, 
And to my question seek for fit reply, 
All thy long labours shall have full reward. 

'Once in that hollow circle lodged an eye, 
That was, like thine, for ever coveting, 
Which worlds on worlds had failed to satisfy. 

'Now while thou gazest on that ghastly ring, 
From whence of old a greedy eye outspied, 
Say thou what was it, -- for there was a thing,-- 

'Which filled at last and throughly satisfied 
The eye that in that hollow circle dwelt, 
So that, 'Enough, I have enough,' it cried.' 

Richard Chenebix Trench, from "Alexander at the Gates of Paradise"