Yours is the heart.
We have never played together
in all the years that we have been
together, in the baptismal font,
or lounging on the sofa or the
chaise. Yet the beads that we
could have made
could have strung
are sprawled out like a pack
of African beasts are scattered
on the savanna, specifically, and idly at that.
Especially pertaining is the manner in which
you fight against the droves of seagulls or the ugly horseflies
by placing two cigarettes in the heart of a wildebeest and stroking your throat
roughly with one hand, tight as a gibbet's joints.
Your young and creaking arthritis. Your sleep apnea. Joys! Joys!
You chill your bones with a great deal of fruits, dealing
in zen and violence in equal measure and similar explosion.
Convulsing, as you do, as you will, if you would, out of revulsion,
repulsing, spurting maggot zebra.
You have been expelled from the inner sanctum
with zen and violence in equal measure. And,
with zen and violence in equal measure,
you fell beasts and fabricate any number of elaborate carpets.
Listen to your occidental symphonies and thump your breast,
your thumping beast heart. Pounding at that.
7/10/11
4/24/11
The sultan lay in his bedchamber, cooing to his harem.
He called to his favorite concubine, who approached shyly and lay beside him, warming her feet, which were cold from the marble floor.
She whispered a poem very softly to herself. She imagined the artifice in the sultan's bedchamber, wooden animals and silken tapestries gathered. She lay on a feather bed and the sultan lay a bunch of grapes on her face.
"Eat, darling." He spoke milk.
She ate them, and they were very sweet grapes. She rested a moment.
The sultan puckered his lips next to her ear, making kissing sounds. He touched her inner thigh and touched her necklace, inlaid with lapis.
She kissed his earlobe and asked him a question in a moment of intimacy: "What, my liege, do you most fear?"
He pressed the sides of her face with his warm hands, which were slightly damp. He responded calmly. "I cannot tell you what I most fear." He kissed her over and over. "I cannot tell you what I most fear, sweet mistress, because then you will use it to exploit me."
The concubine massaged his chin. "I am certain of the care I may take when thinking of you." She nestled and paused, breathing. "I may tell you what I fear, however."
The sultan did not move. He snorted in mock exasperation. "Perhaps you ought not."
The concubine massaged his chin again. "But I shall now. I fear ruining the moments we share, or sullying the great affection we have for one another."
He clapped his hand over her mouth.
She spoke into it, "I fear this so, every day I live. I cannot move or breathe from this fear."
The sultan rose from his feather bed and ate an apricot, tossing the pit into bed next to her. "You will do well to plant this in the garden. Nurture it and cause it to grow large and fruitful. That is all that remains for it, the stone."
She took the stone and placed it underneath her pillow every night for two years before finally planting it in the countryside on one of her many trips. It was stunted and bore a multitude of minuscule and inedible fruit.
A cockatoo in the cage of the sultan's bedchamber spoke of fear when offered crackers, and this could never be trained out of the bird. It was killed and buried in the garden, next to a rose bush, which bloomed very brightly and fully.
He called to his favorite concubine, who approached shyly and lay beside him, warming her feet, which were cold from the marble floor.
She whispered a poem very softly to herself. She imagined the artifice in the sultan's bedchamber, wooden animals and silken tapestries gathered. She lay on a feather bed and the sultan lay a bunch of grapes on her face.
"Eat, darling." He spoke milk.
She ate them, and they were very sweet grapes. She rested a moment.
The sultan puckered his lips next to her ear, making kissing sounds. He touched her inner thigh and touched her necklace, inlaid with lapis.
She kissed his earlobe and asked him a question in a moment of intimacy: "What, my liege, do you most fear?"
He pressed the sides of her face with his warm hands, which were slightly damp. He responded calmly. "I cannot tell you what I most fear." He kissed her over and over. "I cannot tell you what I most fear, sweet mistress, because then you will use it to exploit me."
The concubine massaged his chin. "I am certain of the care I may take when thinking of you." She nestled and paused, breathing. "I may tell you what I fear, however."
The sultan did not move. He snorted in mock exasperation. "Perhaps you ought not."
The concubine massaged his chin again. "But I shall now. I fear ruining the moments we share, or sullying the great affection we have for one another."
He clapped his hand over her mouth.
She spoke into it, "I fear this so, every day I live. I cannot move or breathe from this fear."
The sultan rose from his feather bed and ate an apricot, tossing the pit into bed next to her. "You will do well to plant this in the garden. Nurture it and cause it to grow large and fruitful. That is all that remains for it, the stone."
She took the stone and placed it underneath her pillow every night for two years before finally planting it in the countryside on one of her many trips. It was stunted and bore a multitude of minuscule and inedible fruit.
A cockatoo in the cage of the sultan's bedchamber spoke of fear when offered crackers, and this could never be trained out of the bird. It was killed and buried in the garden, next to a rose bush, which bloomed very brightly and fully.
4/7/11
Dream Dream
The season is late winter, with snow still laying around waiting to melt, ice in some places, et cetera.
Walking out of a bar in my cowboy boots in the snow, making it difficult to walk, a female travel companion and I walk toward the park, where the sun is shining. We step into the mud and snow and it is an open field. a wild boar comes running up to me, curious, and then leaves.
My family and I are standing in the field when two large trucks let loose a pair of hummer-sized boars with no faces, tusks, or eyes. They possessed only a single gigantic snout for rooting, eating, and smelling. One comes up to me curiously. I was frightened for my life, but it only smelled me and was completely gentle. Then it signed and lay on the grass. My dad said, “That means it’s going to die. Don’t anybody touch it or else you’re not coming home.” I got the sense that he would have called a bus for us.
There was a picture book story of a number of different dead animals. First, it mentioned the boar-thing. Then it settled on the picture of an emaciated lion. “He has been here for months.” I got the sense that the fur was very well preserved for it being dead so long. There were a profusion of other things, such as an eagle being forcibly relieved of its beak..
Next there was an aquarium of bizarre things. Mostly it was bugs and sponge like things eating one another or combining in some way to cause each to die. For instance: a silverfish swims inside of a gelatinous, predatory tubule, which then rockets into the water out of fear and then turns from green and translucent to white and opaque, drifting down to rest, standing up, next to a number of different similarly rendered tubules. Also, there was a great deal of glowing matter around, which shone very brightly in the dark.
Walking out of a bar in my cowboy boots in the snow, making it difficult to walk, a female travel companion and I walk toward the park, where the sun is shining. We step into the mud and snow and it is an open field. a wild boar comes running up to me, curious, and then leaves.
My family and I are standing in the field when two large trucks let loose a pair of hummer-sized boars with no faces, tusks, or eyes. They possessed only a single gigantic snout for rooting, eating, and smelling. One comes up to me curiously. I was frightened for my life, but it only smelled me and was completely gentle. Then it signed and lay on the grass. My dad said, “That means it’s going to die. Don’t anybody touch it or else you’re not coming home.” I got the sense that he would have called a bus for us.
There was a picture book story of a number of different dead animals. First, it mentioned the boar-thing. Then it settled on the picture of an emaciated lion. “He has been here for months.” I got the sense that the fur was very well preserved for it being dead so long. There were a profusion of other things, such as an eagle being forcibly relieved of its beak..
Next there was an aquarium of bizarre things. Mostly it was bugs and sponge like things eating one another or combining in some way to cause each to die. For instance: a silverfish swims inside of a gelatinous, predatory tubule, which then rockets into the water out of fear and then turns from green and translucent to white and opaque, drifting down to rest, standing up, next to a number of different similarly rendered tubules. Also, there was a great deal of glowing matter around, which shone very brightly in the dark.
3/27/11
Stairs
I feel compelled to tell this story.
I was in a lecture hall during my first year of college. It was "Classical Mythology" but that is not important.
There was a blind student in the class. One day after class, while the stragglers were at the bottom of the staircase, that blind student got up to leave. in doing this, he fell down the stairs.
He was angry with his seeing eye dog and he refused the help anyone tried to provide him. The professor rushed up the staircase and said something to the effect of, "we are here to help you."
The blind student yelped angrily, which is understandable.
I was in a lecture hall during my first year of college. It was "Classical Mythology" but that is not important.
There was a blind student in the class. One day after class, while the stragglers were at the bottom of the staircase, that blind student got up to leave. in doing this, he fell down the stairs.
He was angry with his seeing eye dog and he refused the help anyone tried to provide him. The professor rushed up the staircase and said something to the effect of, "we are here to help you."
The blind student yelped angrily, which is understandable.
3/21/11
If then you were to murmur
You stain your bedclothes and
several duvets with tea leaves and animal
milk when you wake in the
night and the clock has turned off.
Then you stumble around in the dark
of your chamber and you clutch and knock
over any number of valuable objects suck as
Faberge eggs.
If then you were to murmur
unintelligible words, I would not
hear you and I would not
care to hear you mumble.
I would stop to watch you only flash
boil. To evaporate instantly from
the folds of my medulla, from
the tunnels in my bones, from
the valves in my arteries, form
the folds of my dermis, from
my scalp, from my hands, from
the knuckles I crack.
You knock over an oil lamb
and cut your hands on broken glass.
Suck the wound till it
hurts no more.
several duvets with tea leaves and animal
milk when you wake in the
night and the clock has turned off.
Then you stumble around in the dark
of your chamber and you clutch and knock
over any number of valuable objects suck as
Faberge eggs.
If then you were to murmur
unintelligible words, I would not
hear you and I would not
care to hear you mumble.
I would stop to watch you only flash
boil. To evaporate instantly from
the folds of my medulla, from
the tunnels in my bones, from
the valves in my arteries, form
the folds of my dermis, from
my scalp, from my hands, from
the knuckles I crack.
You knock over an oil lamb
and cut your hands on broken glass.
Suck the wound till it
hurts no more.
3/8/11
Dear Satskatchewan,
I am sick of your ephemera.
Given especially that you exist as a province in Canada at this moment in time, I am rather taken by the notion of your obsolescence, of your youthful and unabashed desire to be territory, to be a pioneer breeding ground. To be wilderness, unexplored, suburban.
Get out of Iraq, get out of Iraq.
I wonder what you are doing when you sit alone in the hallway and listen to music on your record player. Jot in your own goddamned notebook.
Go away, go away.
Come away from the hall and put down the radiation headset for just a moment. A millisecond. Come look at the event horizon and let's bask in a forest somewhere.
Look at me. Look at me.
Given especially that you exist as a province in Canada at this moment in time, I am rather taken by the notion of your obsolescence, of your youthful and unabashed desire to be territory, to be a pioneer breeding ground. To be wilderness, unexplored, suburban.
Get out of Iraq, get out of Iraq.
I wonder what you are doing when you sit alone in the hallway and listen to music on your record player. Jot in your own goddamned notebook.
Go away, go away.
Come away from the hall and put down the radiation headset for just a moment. A millisecond. Come look at the event horizon and let's bask in a forest somewhere.
Look at me. Look at me.
Death drives a seafoam green station wagon and thinks about life.
I am so bored with driving a car in a single direction.
There is always a car and there is always a highway.
Absolutes are disruptive and drudgery at its most heightened state of awareness. Still, I drive because I don’t know how to stop.
I roll down the windows and let your steam roll out the window lazily and gradually. You are clouds when you turn into steam, you are clouds of the dead.
But literally, you are dead and you are a cloud.
I’m not lost, I’m just constant. I go like a runner or a jet stream. A jest.
Nobody pours over me like books or waterfalls. Nobody looks in the reflections of reflective surfaces to try to find me. I go, I go, like bones in the garden.
Death is an item like perfume. It sits on your skin and it wafts away in layers,
notes of scent. Its residue will always be there but its presence will be undetected by the nose, the organ that is made for sensing its presence.
Death is a pretense.
Death is not a pretense.
Come sit in my car and I’ll drive you around in my automobile until you flash boil, until you waft out
like a scentless fog. I will have forgotten who you are by the time you have left the window open.
Bring yourself to me and we will forget your problems together. Wander out onto
the highway
and we will crash softly into one another like two storm fronts or onions.
Jesus and John Wayne will twang away on a ukulele and sing folk tunes and hymns in turns.
Goodbye goodbye. Go under the earth.
Goodbye goodbye. Go out the window like a house fire.
There is always a car and there is always a highway.
Absolutes are disruptive and drudgery at its most heightened state of awareness. Still, I drive because I don’t know how to stop.
I roll down the windows and let your steam roll out the window lazily and gradually. You are clouds when you turn into steam, you are clouds of the dead.
But literally, you are dead and you are a cloud.
I’m not lost, I’m just constant. I go like a runner or a jet stream. A jest.
Nobody pours over me like books or waterfalls. Nobody looks in the reflections of reflective surfaces to try to find me. I go, I go, like bones in the garden.
Death is an item like perfume. It sits on your skin and it wafts away in layers,
notes of scent. Its residue will always be there but its presence will be undetected by the nose, the organ that is made for sensing its presence.
Death is a pretense.
Death is not a pretense.
Come sit in my car and I’ll drive you around in my automobile until you flash boil, until you waft out
like a scentless fog. I will have forgotten who you are by the time you have left the window open.
Bring yourself to me and we will forget your problems together. Wander out onto
the highway
and we will crash softly into one another like two storm fronts or onions.
Jesus and John Wayne will twang away on a ukulele and sing folk tunes and hymns in turns.
Goodbye goodbye. Go under the earth.
Goodbye goodbye. Go out the window like a house fire.
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