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     THREE POEMS
          Paul Semel


     Spent A Year Dead
     ----- - ---- ----

     (for the corpse of John Schneider
      January 1992 - August 1992)

       waking on the verge of September
     January's freak out
     slowly dissipates from glass
     just short of one year dead
       with daylight burning skin
       and movements of the convicted
         to finish the last meal
     
       motivation never loved you
         its caress slipping your shoulder blades
       and you'd rather go back to bed
         between boxes and old records
       than face the morning open

     tonight you'll sleep in the grave
     but when I arrive in the morning
     you won't greet me with good 
     night

     8-31-92




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     On Having To Clean Up After A New Year's Party
     -- ------ -- ----- -- ----- - --- ---- - -----

     last thing I wanna do
     is pick up beer bottles

     but
     they'll be stale by morning
     smelling like my skin in the shower
     when the hot water opens my pores

     I'd rather leave them on the table
     half-empty, almost done
     the ones with a bit of backwash

     someone would pay for all this beer

     the smart thing to do is nothing
     grab something else/hide
     one reminder is too many

     1-2-93




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     The Res
     --- ---

     a lattice of fingers across a single eye
     dims its glow to mere shadows
     while pavement, reflecting the headlights,
     blackens as the motor stills

     soaking in the lack of human contact
     we three sit in conversation
     voices like a fire of leaves
     spitting ashes into the air

     this absence eases our throats
     a steam unclenching the tightness
     and in this silence
       our words echo
     in the darkness they return so we can see them again
     pick them apart like vultures looking for meat on the bone 
       and if my bones are brittle
     I shall suck the marrow of my mistakes

     here among the trees
     where the moon only peeks from the thatched roof
     my mistakes are emblazoned three feet high
     the cracking raises a deafening sound
     nature has ears
     nature    has ears

     11-22-92