Ape in My Heart

Lust stinks in my nostrils
rank odors exhale in my breath,
I roll the stone
to seal the cave’s mouth,
that in darkness rolls away.
I record it on the pages
of my mind, the killed
beasts I continually
resurrect.
Dream pictures are lewd conquests
as if glory wrote its name
between the thighs of
naked women.
Those bones there
gleam in my barbaric twilight
where I threw my brother
to the lions.
I chew and swallow the pages
in a world sick with its virus
and hide where crowds
wander in the labyrinths of
their own predicaments.

    Original Citation

    Planting Red Geraniums: Discovered Poems of James Hearst. Final Thursday Press, 2017. 21.

    Word Count
    98
    Original Publication
    Date Published
    2017
    Book Appearance
    Complete Poems
    ---
    Theme(s)
    First Line
    Lust stinks in my nostrils
    Poetic Form
    open
    manuscript

    Permissions to reproduce work from the James Hearst Papers have been granted by the Special Collections Department of the University of Iowa Libraries.