| |
| Writings Discussion Authors Help Search Home |
B O W E L S
this year i didn’t buy a poppy
that would make holes
flowers shouldn’t ruin jacketsi didn’t kiss boys in the cold
months of the winter
or watch tv when the sky broadcast
grey visions of a moist dancei was alone and wanted to be
i hung myself upside down from the backyard
tree and watched my own blood drain
into my hair while my legs fainted
I brush the dust out of the unused
Simpler parts of you
And you fall for the trappings of me
Twist your ankle and have to stay the night
But I know you’re not really hurting
There is pain in the world
But we are loath to remind it
It’s easier to laugh at the jokes
He says in the car while you think of other thingsTo him you are a clock
Sitting beside him with safety
Tied between your breasts
With a brown belt and it shifts themYou have to understand that
To him you are a creation
A body of mass with wings he’ll never touch
Never know the beat ofTo him there are things inside
You he can’t, doesn’t want to understand
All he appreciates are the moments
You so generously giveBut I see the why you give
I notice the cover-ups to cuts
That only you see in your room
Dancing to the music of not knowing why
i got bored with the saddle
without wondering (jumped ship)
should ithere’s a piece of rainbow in your eye
it mars the darki was about sickness
barfing out the cold white digests of my inner desires
then you walked up to me
and punchedyou aimed for what i needed most
and still
i felt your hot tongue on my dick
not some damn horse
Traffic Is Not A Colour We Used To Know
i like the way you place words in front of cars
and run them over
how you wait for the end of a movie
to finally cry
and let your eyes look for comfort in another pair
how you remember
not really ‘when or where’
but ‘who and what’how the dots on your face:
i like the way my eyes fixate
and let me shift from place to place
where i am its getting harder to describe
perhaps because i'm lost
but never felt so free
its getting so its almost winter in the dark
parts of the world and summer still in light
my hands are getting stupider in the cold
and the creases in my lips have torn open
already i dread the snow
the falling of its softness
Photographs only let you see inside the frame
Outside there might be a telephone pole
A cable
A dead child that had begged to whore on the dirt
Give me bread and a bible
I’ll give you a slap on the ass
For taking away my freedom
And my freedom to starveJust because I do it
Doesn’t mean I need it
Doesn’t mean I want it
Doesn’t mean I liked it
Come, what is this soft spittle in th’ air?
That doth requite thy love with such
Unremembered poses only now remembered
In the stream of their passing glow
Dominate, I begin to suggest—
then let you set me straightThere’s a word for us, but it’s much too late
It took its time...
It may seem like:Immaturity, just showing you the younger parts of me
Give them time while they stifle
They still need to be shy,
Still need to be...Discovery, don’t you overlook the fragrant sensation of humility
you’ll experience as you
Uncover things
And find hardness
Mixed with softness, Mixed with hardness
Capture me!
Capture hearts indefinitelyMake the people cry when they are dry
Insert beating life into a faded memory
my eyes cannot keep you more than a moment,
but if I shut them tight I see your colourful imprint:
a stamp of memory and you existing within this shape.
I distil the thinking of me
We dress up to stay in
Its fun because we like it
We’re vultures in a sunken submarine
Change with me
Women begin in the bedroom
But I start in the heart
Thanks, for showing off your pale unsightliness
I need the calm cruelty of life
Everyday, everyday.
Maybe we only had it in us once
And getting there was too far
I know what a smile means in any language
And that I’m free to laugh at one
Even if you’re French
And I don’t understand a word of you
She’s fighting back, isn’t she?
my daughter said
as the air stiffened
and the trees bledIn a way, i answered
Yes she is, i seconded
as winter whitened
and earth tilts her browsoft rocks on calm waters
look like pillows on a glass bed
Where are the people?
Lying down? she saidIt made me think if earth gets nervous
It made me think
Of headaches, global warming
get with the photograph
come in the car
A Poem About Me Looking At Things
leaves in my face ask:
‘but what split this tree wilt
and bleed autumn red
what wound this hill so tight
and shed the grass,’
i respond by listening
I keep waking up and finding blood
Like I’ve been places asleep
Fought people, been shot at maybe
I keep thinking what happens
When they finally make ammunition
That doesn’t let you bleed and
How clean that will be for usi think how maybe if they take away our voices
how it’ll be quieter, less screaming
muted like a too-long ad w/ the push of a button
whole crowds put to rest
the only difference betw/ a machine and a human
becomes suddenly apparent in the unquestioning obedience
of a click, of on or off, one or nothing
what is this third state that is neither on nor off
isn’t 1 or 0, something that knows both sides
and takes a different slice each time
jackie
the only girl who showed me
real affection
the only one who paid me
any attention
jackie, our love was real
She shed her invisible clothes
Her big naked belly was smiling
Her dimples were improvising
As she lay upon the cloudsStars
They were all eyes
And they woke up to
Look down on her
Just as the sun was setting for other skiesMy head
Perched on two pillows
The angle was just right
I saw the whole thing happen
And decided to call it night(We held the moon in our hands and decided to share it; half a slice, half a slice)
are you serious?
—dead?—(serious I mean)
keep a condom in your wallet
even after your midlife crisis
don’t forget about it
on the bus, grey hair lady
please don’t tell me you’ve forgotten
the intensity
the youthful assurance of it
the instant insistence of it
please don’t tell me you’d forget
your body’s potentially potent potency
so comb your hair!
smile a little!, when you don’t need to
you’re probably just tired as hell
One eye open
I view the world through slit in sleeve
The problems shrink
I am bigClose-fisted
I crush the moon with a wink
With a thought
I am there
thanks Space
thanks for fucking us over
Surrender comes after the first snowfall
With shades of beige peeking out in wisps
So reminiscent of gladness
And here I am
Wishing you’d come back to me
Why should I be surprised?
You’ve already surrendered
To the white warmth of winter, blanketing
Gladness within
moving down a pink tunnel
i am kingish
a drug more powerful than power
has led me here
and dropped me off
on a sphere
in the middle of nowhere
and it becomes vibrant
you can play with it
watch me:
the stars are far off –pinholes
and an orbit is a rut on the side of the street
spatial anomalies are thoughts
illuminating other thoughts
and collapsing into themselves
dying with age
thoughts
with people
fighting like animals or
dissecting one another with a calculated pleasure
and a predicted 4th quarter’s earnings
giving up lives for a chemical
which is just the juice in the stream flowing through your thoughts
spilling distractedly and black throughout
amounting to nothing
yet more and more vibrant
till everything goes bright white
and the screams and voices fade out from your ability to sense
a loud ringing pings at the constant suffocation
your ideals are reduced to one will
one focus
one brain
you are born
You Might Get Out
With The Hair On Your HeadMy parents always say bible
But if the house were to catch fire
I’m always thinking oxygen
Not that it’d be easy I mean you’d need to rig up a whole system with pipes
And the dog would still suffocate
But at least his fur would still be white for the burial
Embalming is so expensive for pets these days
The I’m-Going-To-The-Hospital Expression
alive yet?
still in the womb baby baby?Cough squirm vomit
no time
there’s no time for that
cough squirma rare spectacle today
burn my little brain
burnt my little brain
just a kid from the farm
tilling his crops safely safely
Even armpits can make you cry
If you pull out the right hairs
Late Night Attempt At Heartfelt Poetry
For me
Love has always been
Getting cut
And feeling the real cold of winter
Knowing how the blood
Stops sharp under the skin
And maybe know a little
How the heart feels
At the fingers coming in from work
As you rest them on my neck
I can feel the pins of love
Maybe through the hairs
Maybe through the energy that got there
I know energy cannot be destroyed
And I take comfort
In losing a little less to
The black winter of space
In changing the bits in you
That I can for once, see.
He’s 21
And still thinks his mom
Could die out there
Could not make it back home
Still thinks that
Trees grow out of the earth
Not into it
Doesn’t know earth has to hold them down
That the sea is earth
Without its hands tied
That there are unpruned fields
In women that men could still settle in
He still thinks that picking at it
Makes it bigger, that leaving it be
Is a way out instead of a way in-
To his own heart
Still thinks that leaving his
Door open at night invites fire
Instead of the four women
Who talk about him on
The elevator who say he’s cautiousBut the women are cautious too
Gossip only begins on their floor
And the grates are stuffed with fresh white towels
Blemishes Become Accepted Through Frequency
I apologize for my pale skin
As you take in my nudity by the window
And tell me its no big deal
Your hands don’t know the differenceThat reminds me of the
Racist who lost his eyes to
The civil war and married
His true loveAnd why not? She had
Nursed him back to health
Had sucked the poison
From his blood and spat her own saliva on his wounds‘but I have freckles.. all over my body’
I say, and you keep quiet
You let our nerves
Do the occasional talking
suck its genius
discover its pliable innards
love its hot little heart
put your hand to its glowing edges
and listen for the
thump
listen for the
slurp
get stuck
get stuck in a valley of green flesh
called Scotland
get lost in a red trench
named Normandy
sit on a stump
and wait for nature to
slowly take her panties off
Long-Winded On Paper Is Stretching It
mom used to say that girl
talked so much she couldn’t
stop just for sleep. so i listened
nights amongst too-loud watches
and beating breaths for the
soft soft music of herpossible dreams
“tomorrow...okay” future
plans of a secret meeting, perhaps?
and something about
long arms
and the short swinging
fists of child jesus
and his soft (little) head
laughing at the size of anythingbut for me that night was too singular
i needed the feel of her hair in
my hands, between my fingers
to feel the
squash of enthusiastic sex
to get inside something
and change it forever
we are always altered
from within
paths i
stress
cannot walk upon
the beads up your
ass or
the best ideas that come for you
late at night
you lack bridges baby
she sleeps summers through
can’t stand the heat, she says
and hibernates
waking up for winter for her
is a little late, she misses the
golden paste of leavesthat’s the best part, she says
and i quiver at her present peace
The Long Dining Room Table
And The Girl In The Light Dress
Tall
That’s what I thought
As she sat down and
Started eating without
Waiting for father Greg to stop
prayer
I shouldn’t peek
But she even stops chewing
Then puts her fork back
In her mouth and starts
Again when the eyes openI think you’ve seen her before
But you nudge me and ask
Who’s that chewing broccoli?
With a thin jaw and
Black hair tied up so that
We stare at her pale legs
With the tendons stretched out
Under the table until we crack up
And she looks
Not at us but slant above our heads
Where there should have been hair
And all last week, was,
But now she’s eyeing food again
And the images inside me
Try to figure out the secret
She shadows in the centre of her legs
Just hidden beneath her lavender dress
And I think againTall, long
These are the words
That describe my love for her
And the distance she puts there.
we touch things
we feel free
our only limitations
stem from interactions
upon which we can’t agreethe springtime of your stretched bark
the smooth summer of your skin
its these in betweens i can’t define that
cup my health
in your weathered palm as you
kiss the cute part of goodbyeembodied by restrictions
i cannot fill infinite space
i touch things
i feel their is freedom in your face
thankgod for the slow consistent
ticking of it all
for the beats and thumps
that sprout
within us all
and shout out
and suck in short
a bit shorter than before
i like your smile
like an old girlfriend or something
you should be shot
smiling
just so the whole world
could see it on the news
everything is a misunderstanding
even when we agreed
we were ignorant to our agreement
even when we slept
we were dreaming of life
even when we were bored
our eyes sought out excitement
seeing should be enough
the blind would agree
with all this reading
you’ve started to take me for granted
haven’t you?
expecting word after
word after
syllable and letter
never expecting that
i can stop anytime i damn well like
disappointment is peeling an orange and finding seeds.
the school was falling into the forest.
helpless angels lay invisible in the snow.my friend’s parents are moving
away in the summer.
where is the love in that?desperation is a tentacle sucking on a sunken ship.
if leaving everyone you love behind is dying...
Stay
after apples
i thought if i opened
my sister’s chest
i’d find seedsits common to find life sprouting
but what i found was a tumour
20 years old and ready for the harvest
that’s the problem with cancer
you have to wait
well there’s always more chocolate
and the facts and sadness to follow
a wilt
tilted, like a feeling
of disappointment and shocksmash, went the glass
lake and cut its teeth upon the rockwelled up, like a tear
in a child’s blind red eyescrash, went the salty
wave and sprung into the cloudless skiescurled up, in the sand like a wet
rose in a dark summer showersqueak, went the blue whale
as he flew from flower to flower
you are
so meaningful to me
you are the black upon this white
the inspiration midst my plight
i'd like to tell
what you are to me
you are the smile between my heart and yours
the grace i don’t deserve
what i look forward to when i'm away
and the centre to my prayer
everything i thought i’d never find
you are a girl too
and i’m way too much in love with you
i woke up and she
was telling my eyes
how i’d intercepted her lifei awoke and ate her words
instead of breakfast
and hungered for ulterior motives
for shadows of lust or
selfish reasons; anything. anything
but love, my lovethen out from the open pores
in her arms
her legs
her nose frecklesrubbing her softest, smoothest cheek,
fuzzed up with satisfaction,
against my most callous hand
breathing coolly down my neck
i felt promises
sending hills of geese northward,
and expectations to the frontline.
my memory is as clear as the night
when we were almost home
red on one side, the other white
mom was driving cause i was only 9i remember singing
‘oh the red lights
oh the red and white lights
and oh the white lights’
as they blurred into the backs of our minds
going too fast to count
but we triedwhen we get older
you can stay in our basement
i'll sneak down the stairs and
you’ll pretend you’re still asleep
i believe in the moment
when your hair fell flat against your face
your eyes pulled back
and the teeth that bit at your bottom lip
tore a piece off my decision
to leave early for work
Where Have You Gone With
The Summers Of Your Life?or what have you done with them.
for they are for those who have the time to decide
what summers are for.
21 of them are gone,
you have an average of 59 left.we have decided that work means very little,
unless you like it, or grow to.
so spend the heat hopeful that you can erase all regrets
before you get there.
which is where you’re going,
although it is not you pointing out the direction.there’s family, but here love is not always found,
you having been assaulted either physically or mentally.
or both.
16.4% chance. so there are girlfriends.
but after the initial cosiness, girls are mostly teeth and claws and leashes somehow too.
like a dog walking his owner.
so bring your dog, he loves for free.
go to a forest, who is like a lovely and lonely woman,
waiting for you to discover her in solitude.
when i was seven
i thought then
if i get old
then this is heaven
and it was
Come Back, As The Wind Comes Back
you’ve seen the zebras on television
just as i’ve seen them grazing in the grass
ethiopian, golden grass
nuzzling into
the warmer parts of each other
their stripes colliding easily
and the metallic sky
quite far, no cloud cover
its always fun to pretend
you’re a lion at this point
you might have been stalking your
prey through the underbrush
your ribs already showing
followed this pack four days now—
you’re hungry.
thinking like a lion, it’d be easier
to make a move for one of the kids
they don’t run as fast, and the
mother won’t put up a fight
also, younger zebras are tender
but all that seems a little
malicious from your living room couch
you go get a coke from the fridge
the thing with zebras
is their limbs go so loose
after their necks are broken
and their dusty white black
coats, stained with slaughter,
are left inside out, open
to the carcass dwellers of the sub-saharan desert
sun and wind dried
if you were a dead zebra,
you might get dragged
with your loose limbs behind you
trailing out four lines in the earth for days
then after your usefulness
the sand would sweep to the wind
wiping your stain off its face
its then you realize
the earth is just cleaning itself off—
there is no pleasure in the lick
giving
sort of stops short
inasmuch as a deer
drinks water
with its head down
and its eyes
upbut give me the woman
who strings veins through her hopes
whose dreams beat to her heart
and pump blood to her wingsif ever i watch my cuts and
you see me bleed
tell me that my last moments,
were spent much calmer than a flower grows
no tears given
glass or stone
both so easily thrown
yet as one shatters
the other bounces and rolls
home to its garble garden
of rock and earth
of sand and harden
but neither have seen
more a matching clink
than the sound of a glass
placed softly to a stony rink
perhaps you haven’t read
but the story as it goes
has sometimes been said
to say that stone was to glass
well met, well suited, and
at a time her lover’s lass
but now sand parts rather fast
whenever a rock is flung
dust, having broken asunder
has stolen the rib and lung
from her grey granite other
later finding its home in the glass
who is well met by a ring
of a smooth merry tone
when reunited they sing
and glass kisses stone
then sand is left wondering
to why bother leave
and spend time alone
when the tail of the tale
ends as begins
i mean more or less
a stone is a stone
september is cruel:
it takes the recognition out of your face.
in the mirror is some stranger
a distant reflection
of a prison walleven post-coital, we are sad
the days drag, overcast
the leaves scream colour! but wither
on cement, rather fastthere is no satisfaction in—
nor inclination to look up
only a green nostalgic
drear upon the wind
when i’m lying on my left side
i let the water from my right eye
pool up in the right side
of my nosei take my time
then wipe it away
try again to sleep
dryer, a bit lighter than before
when i was young
i was always afraid of breaking pencils
i never pushed too hardwalking home,
my life is a white car
barren trees
a kicked can
a wary cat
or a wild-land of leaveswho can say ‘that one particular’
is any less than one of these?
it is true!–-
i have been leafed
scammed, flagged up the pole
skin flapping
i can see the town, everyone’s secrets
we were poets first
and all perish a poet
in some way
our death made us great
and perhaps for once
critics fell away
attacks lost their strength
time to sleep stupidly
to write linear
sections of a greater part
to write the way we live
day in day in
always at the forefront of time
to write with that by-second progression
yet perhaps not forgetting a mere day
to write within the backward glances upon life
that are a part of life
and yet change with every glimpsethe old flowers my girl gave
chasing me around the car
chasing me with flowers!
they hang by a strand, by a mirror
brown and only looked at
from this one pre-sleep position
a brown man with no hair
i listened to his memory and it
recall all the sad facts of the planet
i wanted to sink
not to drown
because drowning is about the fight
but just, to sink
oh to sinkdown through and into sadness
sadness all around
on either side sadness
to go down through the caves
and see the libraries of sadness
well stored through time’s layers
lower me still
until all i see is sadness
until all i know is sadness
and further still i'll begyou might have to cut the rope for the last few feet
but deeper I must go, past sadness
until there is only me
lying on the cold smooth dark red floor
and true sadness can take hold
not the world’s sadness
but only here
is the sadness of my heart.
Fascinated By Deer
And The Farmers Who Aren’taccept every moment
for what she is
as something different
and new
take life for a souvenir
forget her on your dresser
like some sandy seashell—
neglected, beautiful.
the first time she did not say bye
and i left, saying nothing
i felt uneasy at our silence
the second time i realized
we would not say bye at all
never intending to leave
only drifting to and away
always expecting the visions
of each other to last
i give people lines in dreams
it’s the end of the jewish beat-down
and we miss the bus cause of the women
‘...bitches’ i say, and grandpa
surprises me with ‘fucking bitches!’blind as fuck
elongated, orgasmic, we grew for it
for sister snow
and living for friends and fun
no house or home
just an eye on thingsand a mouth to give those eyes words!
no one’s a little lonelier
a bit spectral or treed
by the dogs of time’s town
maybe neither
and both at the same satan’s
feet, ‘either way baby:’
you jude, you screwed
Cut through the years
Snap the line that suspends me like a baited hook
Over the mouth of portentous fears
I’ll take a dive
People Don’t Get Older Unless You Stay The Same
This is where the world stops
At the corner of my page
The lines that words mean
And our faces get it wrong
Always smiling too much
Or not at all
We give ourselves away
And the pretence of deepness
Dissipates
The lines form into places
Old drinks and dusty smells
Your mother when she was 42
And the lines haven’t changed her
The words on her face run deep:
‘Older is better’
Surprised, by not looking
For the things she found
Patient as a dammed river
Playful as the splashes of kids there
Who don’t know what life has
my lips are chapped
but i lick them
The field is there
Holding hands
And letting the wind
Be there tooI am not far off
I see farmer’s steel
Slicing through nothing
I see the heads fall offInto the lines of the land
And the farmer seems to make it his
Just as wood is cut and sold
The farmer carves the land
Out from the hillsideIt is then I know
In me there is a type of steel too
It just needs the spin of stone
And water for the sparks
an offbeat of time
a second’s second
a beautiful boat
a girl’s name you do not know
the wave’s aren’t blue
the wave’s aren’t blue
that’s her point of viewsynchronous
a man you know you’ll never know
a man, really
go buy something: thend
You look different during sex
These bodies are real
The fire of Hell
Capitalized, evenMy heart hits my brain with an audible ring
You suggest that I come soon
Or we’ll both become two planets
I want spirals
there’s no telling how young you are
at any given time
no inward clock
telling you you’ve still got
a few seconds slack
no one telling you
you’re about to be unborn
and to watch out
a deer folds itself inwards
a white flag, a dead Caucasian
wrapped out of necessity to the sky
you know the sky looks great
When I was 8
I was scared of a woman’s body
Before I was well read:
A note without a scaleA woman’s
Sex gapesA man’s sex
Walks in with himI want a woman to make love to me for the cheap fare of my words
For these poems I seek payment
In the form of female genitalia
I am mad
I’ve been killed
Sometimes in life
I’ve needed a help line
But it hasn’t been there
“what happens next?”
the suicidal have the advantage
of knowing the answer they don’t like
but we are driven by it
“what can I achieve?”
perhaps something maybe nothing
we live for nothing then
until we know our death
then, for those last few days
we can live for the something
the darkness
has a flavour now
it is purple in my mouth
and blue in my
pupil
s
mix with spit
add two cups sand
and shake vigorously
mmmmmmmmud
spiritual shit
sing song
dong bong
DYKE DYKE DYKE
FACE! FACE! FACE!
We are patrons
patriots
We are idiots
But really who gives a shit
Lets go have us some funThe heart
Is a bulge now
A rhythmic blast
Not a shape
A big beasting life
Violence and pump
Suck and chuck
Musical like the real stuff
I cut my hands off
And my heart pumps just the same
It doesn’t know
I have no handsFamily
Is now a doorway
They have access to me
Like no other I am sometimes open to them
I treasure that,
Oh do I! I do!
Treasure it hard and fast
Like a sail to its mast
Hard and fast
Hard and fast there
Hard and fast
its a big deal
they let us go 120
when the sign says 100 max
we get 7 or 8 slaves
and a few kids for their dexterity
20 pages a mile
and forty miles a minute
that's about 800,000 kids a year
and still they let us go pretty fast, 120
but the gas goes
and the money flows
the earth cracks and we stop in front of the 11 o'clock news so mom can't see shit
then sit down to a steaming dinner 2 seconds later
roast turkey and bread up its ass
for me thats heaven and i feel like a king
masturbating for two hours to the internet's
diverse connections
doing wtf i want
“love is unimportant”
said the man on the street
global as an asteroid field
freezing his atmosphere off
“there is no point in writing about it”
the flood victims, what do they have?
they only want life and limbs
to bring life closer
survival is all a human needs
said he, the planet man
the everyman inside me
inside us all? Maybe?Well i've got a date tonight
I told him
And that’s what matters here
I cannot survive without love
I will slowly crumble without it
Into a dead slab of trash
Mildew in my brows
And memories crushed under the weight
Of what could have been
Hindsight is a bitch
I tell her every morn
She tells me I wouldn’t feel that way
If only I’d...
the bone drives me home
i will not sit but i can stay a while
for through these fragile limbs
fragility is more expressed than a bird who might come
and feed me as she feeds her young
with that very curved bone
thinly villified under
storm erosion and hatred—
might hastily peck
then look side-to
and peck down through my neck three times more
before the worm
no longer owns his core
and the apple is free to shine again
red as the bloodiness of hell
flowing freely through your veins
and through your brains
well this carved bone still drives me home
and i cannot see my way
back againWhich bone?
Not a one-but a healing heart
society full frontal
a bargirl’s ass got me bounced
cause it was sober
more-so than my hands
anyway
Canada got me home
on a warm night with no jacket
cause the Irish village
stole my stuff
Oh turbulent death!
Taking away all things.Oh how temporary life;
Was over before I blinkedAnd cried my first breath.
Life starts with a slap,And ends in a heart’s clap.
An echo resounding through—It lasts for a memory’s moment—
Takes girls by surprise.Cold hands need warm bodies.
A woman needs pure love.These things I realize. Only as
Life blooms before my very eyes.
I think I could climb into a human ear
And walk away
To some silent boneWhen I wash the blood from a cut
The water really lets it go
But I know its clean blood now at leastImmoveable
The verbs have to divorce their pages
And cheat on your brain to get up some speedWe are hunters
If we don’t let our guard down
We always catch a toadWhat people’s dreams have you visited
Without knowing
How many-a-girl has had you whisper in her ear?I think I could climb into your ear
Stick your heart up against my little chest
And allow our beats to overlap
There was that one day
I grabbed a black boy by his curls
And ripped him in half
At the waist
He bled out cold as
An ocean of hatred
And I knew I was corruptible
a grey sky lights this scene
silver waves slink in
and green foliage for the eyes
all greet the rusting beachi was on the beach
my mom said i swallowed the beach
as a child
and brought my brother’s skull
ear to ear and seashelled
the sound of the sanddirt between my teeth
grit and grind in my head
in my ears
the type of sound where you block off your sinuses
and the only sound you listen for
is the sound of yourselfeverything becomes like a tub
a breath is a scuba suck
a big toe is an indian drum
a glass set down is a clank on the soul
—this brother’s shell
a simple human skull
gives me wind of his inner voice
and i swallow it holei was on the beach
mom said i swallowed the beach
i dug an arm out of my ribcage
and drummed to the seashell swish
of my empty skull
yellowed by sand and sun
dusty with the specks of dry cells
me
i eat cookies
i wash my hair
and i learn
the good shit
i walk on your head
all day and you—
you just have to put your back into it.and this is why I hate stats
3 years spent watching ads
they say
as if I hadn’t lived those years
and this is why I hate statswe forgot about the crumbs
we’d find at the botom of the glass;
we forgot while dipping
Who gave you a piano and a box of leaves?
Pushups. I deduct the math.
It becomes tough
To add another shove
21
And that’s it.
I’m up.A bold boy with his heart on.
They sing from their hearts.
And their hearts are happy.The boy is happy.
Too.
As a result.
recopy: Why So Gloomy?
on the surface
is loneliness
we read, watch tv, write letters
occupy time
but the whole time
loneliness remainswe think in escapes
really we’re in a room all day
loneliness is always there
these events are hollow
if you were to stop reading this
loneliness would reappearhow will you cope?
TRANS-city buses a family
bombs a Sudanese workerto have hesitated would have been
our only mistake
i'm finished with the figurative
twirls of the brain’s folds
with descriptive lips
pink only in your absence
naked thin when you’re hear
when you’re real.maybe we needed stained
light and the frown of a priest
maybe god knew that much
needed the strength of steam that brought
us from opposites
tactile as when we learned to swim
in dreams of about 5 minutes each
pushing metal thick and
thin bodily framesbut it still pushes
life still feels well enough
where are the Negro angels or
the Hispanic devils
i'd like to know
if god’s a pessimist
or just a white supremacist
i'd like to know
so that you can know
so we could knowpower is knowing that
there is power in the knowing
and warmth in sewing
a stale old warmth
borne by the fibromyalgic
fingers of old women in
cracked chairs on
swollen decksyou shouldn’t wave when
its goodbye forever
at least grace me with
a kiss
oh yes, i will have you
on paper. if i can’t
any other way.
i think you’re the best
damn thing since bright coloured
candyeverything you ever
wanted wasn’t what you
wanted
no i won’t let you go
i will tie your ankles
to the floor with the
soft ropes of sadness
just to keep you here
is there consistency outside of change?
is consistency Jesus?
is change a limiter?
does god never grow,
never exceed himself?
or is it something else outside change?
some separate force
not even a force?
an absence of force?
that i wouldn’t know i've experienced
even if i had
time is but a measurement of changes
a track record of events
isn’t all change physical?
isn’t a brain cell a decision
an illness
a fear, a desire
do not all things bend
to a single cell
at some point in every man’s life
does not his future depend
on some knock on the head?
rubbing out that elusive moral cell
can a man be blamed
for change? can he avoid
the wear on his bones
for so much longer?
can a man die before he is dead?
we’re putting on gloves
giving a rainforest its name
looking and seeing up 1000m
fingers become fist
a line crosses the road
and you walk like hellu think someone called ur name
a kid crawls across the street
trips you up and gets
crushed into the madness
gets walked on everydayi am in the WOODS
killed
i am resting well
in peace as they say
my arms gain strength and i see love
Your Basement’s Bigger Than You Thought
i discover train tracks
under the kitchen tiles of your discretion
going west to east
across worlds of life: full force insanity
i rip up the floorboards
we sit and wait for the 10 o’clockyou start to cry
i see where the basement goes
a dream that knows i'm afraid of discov—a lot of greyness, a lot of no de-tail
rails with no end
kids with no futures getting braver by night
friends, catholics, anarchists
racists, fat, insecure friends
with holidays for freedom
and living for them starved as hellcellar door, i see light through the cracks in the wall
a shadow beneath the lit part of light
that invites distraction, invites a dream
zooming down the wooden lanes
i need to run back, to get out of bedunderground greatness:
a birch becomes a highway of dirty kids
stifled fear, static layers
int-rf-r-nc-
I fucked a flower
All along the residential highway
Fucked her up the ass
And threw her out the window
At 60 mph
1st Entry:
extremities beginning to redden
and numb
worried about falling asleep2nd Entry:
sharp wincing pain present
while urinating
any moisture freeze-cracks
upon meeting the air
fires take 2 hrs to build
and blow out easily3rd Entry:
past the treeline now; rarely found wood
must be brought along
have considered urine as heat source
but logistically flawed
its becoming difficult
to write4th Entry:
penis frozen black
sat down and contemplated suicide for two hours
didn’t have the strength
and gun is jammed
decided to move onLast Entry:
this might be the last entry
only three fingers left hand
w/ feeling still
stacy cut her leg and
the dogs turned on her then rannot sure if they’re real
or just some perverted
vision of death, but
i've been seeing large
black birds perching on
petrified treesafraid to try shooting at them
because i'm pretty sure
they’re not real and i
don’t want to find out
i've been seeing things
New Entry:
penis finally fell off
and went stark mad
tried shooting a bird
but no effect
either i'm a terrible
shot or nothing’s
thereNew Entry:
unexpectedly found a
dead animal corpse (one of the dogs?
or maybe a jackrabbit—not sure) while
floundering in the snow
and was able to have
one last fire
only a few matches left
out of wood completelyNew Entry:
i believe i've contracted some
form of disease from that dead animal
what little feeling in my body
i have left is devoted to
mind ripping pain
fell on a steel pike out of the ground
can only limp about 2 miles a day now
am positive of impending deathNew Entry:
2 men found me lying on the snow
they say i'm lucky to be alive
both ears are damaged tho and my tongue is not cooperating so they don’t think i can understand them
have overheard some interesting conversationsNew Entry:
tried to escape but made too much noise
they must think i'm mad and a danger to myself so they’ve chained me up
they let me write in my journal for a few minutes each day
my favorite part of the afternoon
my eyelids echo in acrylic 2:4 time
i think a sound only fades forever—
recordable—by some madman’s
delicate box
the sound of pressed ink—of
a spirit breaking in the darkof a marker reaching
across a sentence and
getting its sleeve wetpessimists will listen to a wind beaten
sail tearing across clean sky
and laugh at the jokes
of Jesus—at least the
ones they haven’t yet
heardi will listen to the laughs of
old friends—laughter i cannot recalli will listen to the first
thoughts my mother felt
as she whispers ‘there you are’
and finds my heartbeat
for the 2nd time
Talkback: Post Reply | View replies (3)
| Copyright Notice | Privacy Policy | Contact | |
 |
|