eyes part i

“I have eyes and there are eyes everywhere”

~Storm for the Living and the Dead, Charles Bukowski

tell me where to hide then

tell me where to crawl all silent

when the violet light is flitting on the walls

when the dawn is teasing, licking the streets

in pale streamers, before gushing its warmth

on the whole.

and i think that i couldn’t even hide,

if there were never any light at all.

and i think that i couldn’t even hide,

if i held my eyes shut against it all.

and if everybody in the whole world

had the palms of their hands glued

and brought their hands up to their faces

and suddenly couldn’t move

and fell to their knees

and couldn’t see,

nor feel with their palms neither

and if all their eyes were trapped,

or hanging bloody from their sockets,

they’d be cast straight to hell

but there’d still be no shortage.

i know because they watch me from the street,

scrawled eye graffiti onto walls,

or watching from a ring, or bracelet

boasting a whole bouquet of eyes.

i can’t sin with them on me

medusa eyes that turn to stone

freeze me as I raise my hand

like madonnas on street corners in Rome.

eyes part ii

“And I have known the eyes already, known them all—

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

Then how should I begin

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

And how should I presume?”

~The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—

The eyes that pop out blue and brown and grey,

Evil eyes on soda bottles, or perched upon a ring

Watching if you’re faithful to the vows you made last spring.