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[24 Oct 2008|04:29am] |
Prime
(for T.J., 1988-2008)
You were
the first to die, to grasp
infinity in its absence,
juicebox still in hand.
You swung away
on Southern Cross, your tiny,
democratic sweater wrung
around dead, precious
neck and every naked toenail
shone-- those, your sisters’ diapers,
innumerable complaints and teas, oh
my, the soft, soft,
pale cakes of mothers--
Heavens,
I stagger, I summon your family
to ride unwritten on a Greyhound bus
criss-crossing chaos in blank
nation, through Jersey’s silver fields of fog
and the black hills of New England
which break my heart, to the wasted desert
and moon over Pacific, as the stars
fling themselves out, tear through
the space vacuum shock and
suffocation, while night eats
the last delicate crust of day.
And we don’t find you,
we wrench up the tiles
and dig there, our hands stained
by torment of clay soil, the unnamed
man’s blood-powder and cement;
the road stops, every
cobblestone lozenge on the tongue of street
rolls off, the twelve tractors idle and sink
into ascetic void, the bridges slack,
sea sucks up their cables, melts
incredible epoxies, breaks the bolts
and whips wire over drum
of water, beating bay, bedrock,
earthen breast and wound.
I beg them excruciate, tear fissures
in the heart of country, birth
the dangerous, translucent gems, one
by one: the first playmate, the agony, polish your rose
and mouth with makeup, draw out the song
and string up the water serpent
of your light-body, I want for them
to illuminate that awful chasm
of your able, infant death.
Still, we reach for the litter
of your careless hand, the restless,
clean fingernail, cap of skull,
a weekend laugh, the wolf machinery
in your boyish heart, its careful
fledging, its wobbled flight;
we watch for the stars caught finally
in your throat, in the steely net of hours,
listen for the last, snagged thought
in your tender brain-- we’d like that shrivel,
the ecstatic undoing.
I just want the one, good thing
to give to them, the imagined gift
that wakes inanimate eyes,
holds heavy heads of baby sisters,
squeezes the bent shoulders of lonely
brother; I want that heel or palm
to touch to tired foreheads,
for your parents only, I want, I snap
the lines of grief, to crush
its terrifying sadness, condense the odds,
to swallow your disgusting death
like a silverfish and choke
on the scales, sharp, antennae, scattered
puzzle pieces, hard, fake food,
the wooden gavel, a plastic kitchen.
I want to heave up your childhood,
her carpet, my dog and the lawn, loving,
fleeting children, the impassable river of remains,
regurgitate the arguments, the single word
that haunts your lips, I want to kiss up
the fear and spit out your dying, want
to crawl up into that ugly,
spaceless cavity called god
and yank your life out from it.
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[10 Sep 2008|11:43am] |
"It's all fiction.
That's the real truth."
-Janet Kaplan
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[27 Aug 2008|11:55pm] |
today a strange thing happened (as usual): someone's sweet, little dog escaped from their house as i walked past and curiously trotted along behind me down the entire block and around the corner. when i decided it probably shouldn't just come home with me, some asshole almost hit it with his car like it was vermin. i freaked out and herded it back, but it significantly hesitated. i wonder if we were friends once, somewhere, in another dimension.
and, also today, in this dimension (i think), my mom told me it's been 24 years since she learned she was finally pregnant, since my dad hit the hole-in-one that won the car that bought our house.
so, for the rest of my relatively lonely walk, i thought: in all the dimensions, i'm pretty sure, magic (as we perceive it) is no rare, improbable snag in the fabric of consciousness. rather, it is the thread.
and about this, i wonder: do you see every minute, florid stitch of your mind's robe? do you recognize only the garment? whom, if anyone, or what, if anything, is the great, unknowable seamstress? i would like to apprentice with her, glimpse that careful hand, understand the alchemy of her brilliant task. i would get a real job, really, but all the rest of them, they're just missing the craft.
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| when you find yourself alone, do you stand by your self? |
[22 Aug 2008|01:04pm] |
Part I
I’ve been rapidly compiling
a list of questions, mainly for
the molecules surrrounding me-- so far I’d like
to know: is one hazy chimera of a summer lawn
or the careful clock click of a clean tongue
an empty, erstwhile leftover? Perhaps, if that doesn’t
make sense, could a person figure it out by going
all the way back behind death, in towards
the way they came? Or will that portal
have closed, religion necessarily spent
before the apocalypse, for and without
all of us? As for the profane, the current that grinds
inside my veins, I’d nevertheless suspiciously
questioned how would go the end of it. And who, besides,
would jump the blinding buzz with one sultry kiss
for fate? Would the universe shrink to feel
its touch? For this, I’d already considered whether the firefly
must always be flattered by a blazing bulb
and was, of course, really asking how someone
could be good at solely what they should
not do. If that scares you, perhaps, would you dare say
a camera flash was the first mistake? Or if not,
would pushing light towards the heavenly thumbprint
of the moon, that rolling, insular pinwheel,
lead me to get lost looking for it? For the answer,
that is. And should a could crush a would,
I yet wondered? So the curt question mark
critiqued me: is it true that while I complain about it,
it becomes me? And how and what if everything
I’d ever spoken was the truth and, likewise,
the truth stretched strictly from the words
I’d spoken? How often, then, does the world crank a chip
in your soul? Was the decay of one's being undoubtedly
the nutrient of the next? Is that why the honeysuckle
runs its spines especially incessantly
toward the ghastly potted plants, twirling
their tentacles ’round the throats of gagging,
ragged petunias? And when, therefore, does the chipmunk
excavate its brother's bones? Or for whom
or what is that cardinal chirping? For a god’s sake,
what time, tick tock, does the clock up
and stop and who will wake it if it sleeps
too late? And when it’s left can it,
strong, stand long by its lonesome?
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[07 Aug 2008|02:28am] |
In Your Hands
Someone is on fire. Broken and
unbuckled, by the side of the road.
All the drunk cockroaches scramble,
the little hammered lobsters, a tempest
of locusts, into the glossy windows
of hospital squares. I ache and murmur, so
you kneel in front of me, grace my waist,
cooing-- it’s been years since
I’ve kissed your shoulders. I’ve been busy,
quiet, getting news from the late shows, smoking
skeletons, joints, alone. I’ve watched you
chugging your beers and I scrub my hands
as a surgeon, frothing. Take them, please, now
and keep them for your own. All my unused
ideas I’ll dictate: a gobbling turkey, an indirect
symposium, I’ll garble like a misplaced
inpatient, wandering in the orbit
of a homeless planet. I can’t understand
your language, pushed out like bad birth, left
to dry and wound only by your arms-- somehow,
you found it first, the cruel misdirection,
swaddled in your black eyes. And blinking
above the dead word, the sky is furious,
red, biding like a dove and you seem fine,
bouncing to the beats of a faraway TV,
rimming well with pleasure. I could cut
my skirt short with those hands,
run the cold, blunt side
of scissors across my thigh, burn up
man after man: the pranksters, toads,
wood gnomes, wise freaks. I could pick
them off like fleas, itching things,
fling them, press them under my thumb,
I could lift them to the match, or rather,
the match to them, snuff the cigarette
on their small flesh, the curling lips
of overstuffed couches, the curtains, clothes, I could
press their faces to the sizzling rags.
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[06 Aug 2008|12:16am] |
Washington Color
The blurred world blows by,
punctuated by gigantic bouquets
of delicate crape-mytle, each gallant, pink
frenzy of confetti propped up by perfect,
press-cut lawns and the stalwart vigilance
of every regal, Georgian pillar, the mason’s taupe
and geometry, perennially thrilled by
an entire chorus of orange trumpet vines,
bustling and bellowing to greet two men,
drunk, pissing in the pachysandras-- truly
I, myself, cradled the whiskey so long
that the birds explode and drag
like a sandstorm in great clouds of fray,
moveable as metal sparks by the magnet
of my eyes, like a whirled wormhole
of smoke in my mouth that chokes
the tongue when you kiss it out-- oh, then!
the flock dechoreographs, the road wickedly
unravels, meandering like a dark canal full
with buskers and rippling, where I stumble
under when I’m not steady, where the careless,
smirking parrotfish chomp coral to the core as if
it were a boundless, Biblical basket of apples and
the grimacing gunwales of sharks bump their noses
into frivolous flags and ribbons of fish who haste
and hurry to stretch the iridescent fabric of their skins taut
like a spectral Darwinian finish-line, then shatter,
instinctively, beneath the shadowy omen of birds, the assembly
that pounds on like an enormous, fractured heart,
thumping ruthlessly about the wind and dispersing
the last flippant sunbeams, before resting,
momentarily, on the looming tavern of dusk, where
every swooning, intoxicated cloud reveals its eminent
gold lining and last jubilant hallelujah-- free
and able at last, fore our shadows spooked
and sprang out, bewildered by the dark,
stretching their vast and mighty spirits
towards the narrow tunnel of night.
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[02 Aug 2008|06:41pm] |
The Blue that Binds
Somewhere, under the eerie
ambivalence of the sun and
grave indifference of the moon,
a tarpaulin twilight casts its calm
over salvation. There, we rustle
like radical fires in the night, recovering
no ode, no odor and no shudder
to savor of the sweet drink
I should sip off your skin. There's only
the clobbering clamor of billiard balls
as the birds, shrill in ecstasy, cheer
everyday flowers up out of the sidewalk.
Then, there are bells and bubbles
and baubles pushed out. There's irrational,
astonishing pleasure and that hot,
lost light, the lilting, hallucinogenic hum
of fever when I press my pale face
into the poppy, to all its pomp
and vermillion, and aim for the avid grace
of petals foxed in snow. Somewhere,
my mind misplaces July and our hips
dissent, clanking together at the bone
like china, smashing all the carnal mews so
shivering I buckle, I bite the stone. There,
you gave me shaking, gave me
a bag full with firecrackers, your mouth
brimming and spilling the wet rubies out
of a blooming wound where promises
are broken, like red buds in springtime.
Somewhere between us, a seedling
breaks out of its skin, so that the trees
quiver with envy and the water splits
inside us, up through the quiet, while
a ship pulls into port, wailing on its broken horn
like we knew it would, a glass bottle breaks
into a thousand glittering stars, luminous
as your lips glistening in the dark. Somewhere,
two cars crash, the crush of their metal
wrenching a deep crease in the evening, somewhere,
a fish drowns inside its terrifying, lustrous globe
as the kids look on, somewhere, a woman being
mugged alone, a woman that is not me, screams
as the knife goes in, snugly, her flesh
dripping unnervingly and
the thief, then, gets his lewd rush.
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[23 Jul 2008|10:17pm] |
Awake in the World
Ah! There's blood
in the soup, I can tell
by the poultice at the head
of the table. There's blood
in the soup, stop drinking it,
the salt will suck your flesh
of its virtue, the iron will overtake
you like the stars.
There's blood in the soup,
in your spoon, spit it
out and it boils.
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[18 Jul 2008|06:14pm] |
And You Laughed
I want to be your body’s bend,
the lathe lifting your spine
into the urgent arch of a lithe
flower’s wilt, I want to orchestrate the ticking
of countless nectar-drunk bugs
against the windowpane of your ribs, twisting
their rhythmic flitter onto the winding wheel
in your belly; soon I’ll inherit the tincture
of white monarchs made of tissue, bless
your mouth with its medication
and the healing honey of my thighs,
then I’ll eat from the pollen baskets
behind your knees, draw from the dew
pocketed in your palms’ reservoirs
and at last, imbibe your inhibitions,
soaking you in the shower
of a mellifluous sunrise.
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[18 Jul 2008|12:39am] |
The List Moves On
I’m waiting incessantly on track
when the train snakes and screams
into the station and I run broken
from you, slipping on the rotten wood
and gritting my teeth
as the clotheslines and towering black ash
whip by, fraternizing with the omnipotent,
umbilical telephone cord that lies
down between us and frantically zips back
into space, past your hungry hands ardently
swinging my hips, beyond an avalanche
of sugared, crepe paper prom dresses, skipping
the bees hum bumping through the cotton clover
and the initial ink blot, racing away
before the paper line went slack
with the help of a gauzy golden flame
atop the gory, gloried rocks at night.
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[14 Jul 2008|12:41pm] |
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[10 Jul 2008|01:01pm] |
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| laurel, we're getting married. |
[09 Jul 2008|10:25pm] |
today, my mother's gown: a glove
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[09 Jul 2008|12:52pm] |
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[09 Jul 2008|12:50pm] |
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[09 Jul 2008|11:47am] |
A New Pocket
At 4am, I'm scratching at the crossword puzzle,
cross-legged in bed, pressing
my sooty prints into the soft paper,
already done masturbating, stoned
and watching the late shows, stupidly,
when the door opens across the room
and no one just stands there,
with the heavy perfume of blood on her thighs
and the plumage of stains
pummel the page-- I should
have known then, that pondering it
would summon the silt, as i licked
the tip of the pen in a flick, as quick
as the angels my mother saves, howling,
as sure as the basil leaves collect
on the cutting-board as I turn to stir the stew--
certainly, I should have known, then,
it is an imperative paradox,
being alone, as simply as that, singing
a sweet thing to the whole town
on the faithful drive home, like the gas tank
was cranked full, like I was still a lonely girl.
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[09 Jul 2008|12:03am] |
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[08 Jul 2008|12:32pm] |
Bent
There he was, avast,
sweeping in a sea of salty-sweet
sweat, emerging from the blasts
of gaudy sparklers, growing from
the dewy tips of elephantine leaves and
escaping the impassable palm frond to find me, fly:
damsel and dragon together, to heat the soulfire
of his tantric hara-kiri, to undo
the slow burn of time.
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[07 Jul 2008|10:38pm] |
Going Somewhere
I prefer to cry
by the side of the road, curbed
alone and pitied strictly
by strangers; I made a run for it,
down the biggest hill I knew, ponytail
slapping my shoulderblades, along
all the burned lawns and pealing screams
of children mauling eachother in their backyards,
past obnoxiously ornamented little lawns
and sprawling gardens of scattered phlox,
by the gnarled trees with knots
like mouths and drooping ivy
that shuddered and reached for me
as I stepped around fields of mold
seeping across dog shit
in front of my first love’s ugly house, then into
the breeze of honeysuckle and slow drivers
who looked on suburbanly as I began trickling
through their sprinklers, everyone's,
all the neighbors', and tripped athirst
headlong into the spray.
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