Eileen Myles has written thousands of poems since she gave her first reading at CBGB's in 1974. Bust magazine calls her "the rock star of modern poetry" and The New York Times says she's "a cult figure to a generation of post-punk females forming their own literary avant garde." Her books include Skies, Cool For You, and School of Fish; recently she wrote the libretto for an opera called Hell, based on Dante's Inferno.

Music: Triptych Myth (Cooper-Moore, Tom Abbs, Chad Taylor) - "The Fox" - from Hopscotch Records

Events: Eileen Myles will be reading with Nick Flynn and Fred Schmalz at 55 Mercer Gallery on Friday, May 20th, at 7 pm, in conjunction with the show Triage: Collaborative Works by Paul Bowen, M.P. Landis, and Bert Yarborough.

To Hell for J.

I'm not sure who I walk with in American today. I miss you, my imagined accomplice, while we're
moving among men

One man stands up and says his daughter's gay

Like we didn't know that she says, he thinks it's so great

We can't think it's so wonderful, being lied to for years

We've accomplished bright cynicism, then struggle for love

We flounder, we fail, the elephant eliminates the con-
fusions of love.

Love probably didn't need a war, couldn't eat, is rolling
on waves today

The city is emptying. The elephants have been planning
their party for years.

I'm heading into it. New York my home bursting with men.

Conservative women, heading downtown to see a cross made
of girders: "Great!"

Jesus marked this city, threw planes at it, face it those
pilots were gay

We're gonna make a constitutional amendment against em
for being gay.

Gay to hit buildings, to want to meet in great numbers,
being no one Love

Moving like an angry sunflower, wanting bandages, space,
something great

I want to live here feeling celebrated for breathing open
today.

I want to show you complicated dyke love, construct a poem
about women and men

In my country there's a basic responsibility to struggle
and not for years.

To walk away, to turn around seeing you and progress and be
loving your smile for years

Sometimes I think there's complication with men but I'm
probably gay

Gay to be glad to keep expressing and knowing the im-
possible hopes of women and men

I would want to learn more, be firmer, open up,
revolutionize love streaming

A house on a hill is pretty but there's something
rhapsodically fine today

Stay here while the American ship is moving and rocking,
vincible, great.

My moment alone in front of everyone is hopelessly great
I don't have to wonder where I'm going this time or this
year

I don't have to wonder whose group I'm in today.

Certainly the people who always think the public problem is
theirs are gay

When the moment comes to move like trees to free the city I
love

I don't know John Kerry and we can name that feeling Bud-
dhist for the next four years

The pond reflects the sky, if the highway curls it's gay.

A public moment, a political moment is what's possible
today

We trust more than men, something's eating our years

The uneven horizon's great and of course she's gay

The buildings are falling in love, and we opened its eye
today