the first time he bared his shoulders,
his father knew he was a hero.
or was it that he knew
his father was a hero.
the wail from a nearby speaker
neither confirmed one
nor disproved both of these things.
and when i am tired
it's my mind
having a conversation
with my body
saying over & over
time to dream
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Friday, December 16, 2011
gilead
at dawn,
the sky opens its
treacherous mouth,
& chokes on
the poisonous fruit
of the sun -
let its gargled,
inarticulate prose
fill the ears
of those too hungover
to sense anything
other than static's roar -
let the juice
of that dawn
drip down the chins
of those still waking,
eyes glassy with hope
& throats seared by
the thoughts of those
futures which,
one night prior,
inflamed their hearts
with insane promise -
with those words which
could not provide balm
to their abraded souls -
& yet,
hear,
flesh
soughing
regretfully
over bone -
hear
the heave & sway
like a becalmed vessel
in a familiar harbour -
the yaw & creak
of something submerged
in the realm of memory -
like that ship,
rocking, pleasantly,
to & fro, tidally,
in the graying waves
of yesterday
the sky opens its
treacherous mouth,
& chokes on
the poisonous fruit
of the sun -
let its gargled,
inarticulate prose
fill the ears
of those too hungover
to sense anything
other than static's roar -
let the juice
of that dawn
drip down the chins
of those still waking,
eyes glassy with hope
& throats seared by
the thoughts of those
futures which,
one night prior,
inflamed their hearts
with insane promise -
with those words which
could not provide balm
to their abraded souls -
& yet,
hear,
flesh
soughing
regretfully
over bone -
hear
the heave & sway
like a becalmed vessel
in a familiar harbour -
the yaw & creak
of something submerged
in the realm of memory -
like that ship,
rocking, pleasantly,
to & fro, tidally,
in the graying waves
of yesterday
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
post-war, desolation
the divine general
is kicked back at his holy desk
helmet tipped down over his eyes
snoring
on the wall behind him
a map of the universe
yellowed and faded,
curling at the corners
someone has written in Sharpie
on the general's helmet
“God is Dead”
then crept out of the room
snickering
and, below,
the spavined old women
clutching wooden beads
in shivering hands
bend their bonneted heads
murmuring like a newsreel
the songs of Heaven
and the burnished-eyed,
spring-young men,
chins thrust forward,
resolutely march
forever through fields
toward a many-handed,
million-named enemy
with only philosophy
to protect them -
this year the trees shall
unburden themselves of pages
in place of leaves
and shrink themselves
in the process,
turn to wizened old men,
stooping over graves
and clucking their tongues
and
in the encroaching dark
as the sun goes out
with a mutter, and
as the stars begin to
sizzle in the skillet
of the sky,
the gloating sound of
the dead rises
from the horizon
like an orchestra warming up,
then,
wind,
and nothing further
but the cruel wink
of the moon
over the empty churchyards
is kicked back at his holy desk
helmet tipped down over his eyes
snoring
on the wall behind him
a map of the universe
yellowed and faded,
curling at the corners
someone has written in Sharpie
on the general's helmet
“God is Dead”
then crept out of the room
snickering
and, below,
the spavined old women
clutching wooden beads
in shivering hands
bend their bonneted heads
murmuring like a newsreel
the songs of Heaven
and the burnished-eyed,
spring-young men,
chins thrust forward,
resolutely march
forever through fields
toward a many-handed,
million-named enemy
with only philosophy
to protect them -
this year the trees shall
unburden themselves of pages
in place of leaves
and shrink themselves
in the process,
turn to wizened old men,
stooping over graves
and clucking their tongues
and
in the encroaching dark
as the sun goes out
with a mutter, and
as the stars begin to
sizzle in the skillet
of the sky,
the gloating sound of
the dead rises
from the horizon
like an orchestra warming up,
then,
wind,
and nothing further
but the cruel wink
of the moon
over the empty churchyards
Thursday, November 24, 2011
triptych
first,
rage -
a quiet, invidious force -
a cold wind seeping into
the cracks
of the teeth,
a gathering knot
of electricity,
seething in the veins.
its partner is sadness,
trailing behind,
mournfully,
yet dutifully,
tightening the strings...
then,
the third,
unnamed,
with scissors -
& last,
gray-cowled regret,
oscillating between
what is now &
what once was,
somehow inveterately
shuddering
caught in a trap
whose jaws
open, close,
and open again
without words
rage -
a quiet, invidious force -
a cold wind seeping into
the cracks
of the teeth,
a gathering knot
of electricity,
seething in the veins.
its partner is sadness,
trailing behind,
mournfully,
yet dutifully,
tightening the strings...
then,
the third,
unnamed,
with scissors -
& last,
gray-cowled regret,
oscillating between
what is now &
what once was,
somehow inveterately
shuddering
caught in a trap
whose jaws
open, close,
and open again
without words
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Eigengrau
the sudden saccade
of the eye
from one dark
to another
& the lip jerks
to reveal bared incisor
the embyronic shadows
conceal still
the cowled demon
of nightmare,
huddled, unbreathing,
diamond-bright eyes
fixed on the bed
the hiss of dream,
departing -
a crack in the window
through which a
trysting lover is going
psst
psst
the bedside lamp allows
only a quaver of littoral light -
the bulb may burn out,
pulses weakly
in electric thrust
& does not
dispel the demon
there is no one
at the window.
there is no one
in the corner.
there is no one
in the bed.
the room is empty
and the light is on,
and yet, hear:
the snap and pop
of sinews tightening, and
the cavernous yawn
of something still waking
of the eye
from one dark
to another
& the lip jerks
to reveal bared incisor
the embyronic shadows
conceal still
the cowled demon
of nightmare,
huddled, unbreathing,
diamond-bright eyes
fixed on the bed
the hiss of dream,
departing -
a crack in the window
through which a
trysting lover is going
psst
psst
the bedside lamp allows
only a quaver of littoral light -
the bulb may burn out,
pulses weakly
in electric thrust
& does not
dispel the demon
there is no one
at the window.
there is no one
in the corner.
there is no one
in the bed.
the room is empty
and the light is on,
and yet, hear:
the snap and pop
of sinews tightening, and
the cavernous yawn
of something still waking
the dogcatcher: scene
1
weirding hour -
raining again.
headlights in
the desultory dusk,
questing up fog-laden streets
cold in the cracks of my teeth
shaky fingertips
hurried, arrhythmic steps
spindly trees
flailing and moaning
like flagellants
unable to reach the whip
stoplights sag, sway,
blinking
in confusion -
red, red, red
and the streetlights reflect
in the mirror-wet asphalt
like an eldritch arena
waiting for some
awful battle
to begin -
2
father's waiting at home
with a handgun
nestled in his arms
he murmurs to it
as if to reassure,
but his eyes keep flicking
to the door
his index finger runs
down the barrel,
slowly
outlines the trigger
the crescent moon of his smile
trembles over the
horizon of his lips
and sets again
as if afraid to rise
the rocking-chair creaks
in supplication
and he ignores it
3
my heart is
squirming around
inside my ribcage
like a child held
too tightly,
as i slide the key
into the lock
the door is heavier
than usual,
as if complicit in
some awful crime -
the hinges
squeal
inside,
the shadows flock
like disrupted birds
worrying at one another -
they splay themselves
over the white waste
of the walls
as if furtively,
guiltily,
hiding something -
4
the van parked
down the street
idles,
sighs -
in the back,
a horde of muzzled dogs
whine,
pawing at their snouts
eyes murderous,
sinews taut
in the front seat,
the dogcatcher taps fingers
in an ostinato
on the wheel
one two three four
five
one two three four
five
Monday, November 14, 2011
prosopagnosia II: en route
In the black car with a sunroof.
Or the Ford F-150 pickup truck.
Neither of these; sitting on the side of the road, sign in hand.
Borrowed cigarette hanging out of the mouth.
Acrid smoke singeing the throat.
I cough three times.
The black car with a sunroof went by an hour ago, then it went by again. And again.
Hard to tell if it's the same car or if they just appear the same.
The driver reminds me of someone I know.
Today the heat is so intense it can almost be seen, and seen through. Its clear, diamond-tipped presence actually somehow makes the day a little more transparent.
The roof of the world is bluer, somehow.
Nothing else has changed.
The trees are full green, no stop.
We are in the throat of summer.
The inside of my nostril itches and I scratch it with a fingernail.
The driver of the black car is my friend Freddie.
It's entirely possible that it isn't.
Though he looks somewhat like him.
Not-Freddie is wearing
a green Celtics jersey with white outlines
a black baseball hat (brim forward)
dark sunglasses
He has tattoos.
He drives by too fast for me to see the detail.
Perhaps he is driving by because he knows I am there.
He can't know that I'm there.
He's driving by too fast.
It's entirely possible that it isn't Freddie.
There's that story about the farmer who goes to the market and sees Death.
Death makes a threatening gesture.
So the farmer runs away to Samarra.
The farmer's neighbor goes to the market and sees Death and says, “Why the threatening gesture?”
Death says, “That wasn't threatening, it was surprise. I was astonished to see him here in Baghdad, because I'm supposed to see him tonight in Samarra.”
That story hinges on Death's gesture.
The Ford F-150's gone by a few times too.
Brown exterior.
Three different drivers.
I think.
One's a woman, one's a man.
The other one, I can't tell.
Though when I was a kid I jumped off the barn.
Cracked my skull.
That's when I started forgetting names.
Faces just don't stick in my head.
How some people say, I never forget a face, I'm the opposite.
The heat of the summer crowds in.
The highway steams, the asphalt is brand new and blacker than black.
The yellow lines are brighter than neon.
In the black car with the sunroof.
Someone is asking me if I'm all right.
Voice from the backseat.
Static interferes and is replaced by the sawing of an electric guitar.
Freddie Front-Seat is wriggling behind the wheel with his lips puffed out.
He does that when there's a song he likes.
Priscilla in the back is handing me a joint.
I know it's not just a joint.
Acrid smoke singeing my throat.
I cough twice.
We are going to the coast no we don't know which one.
I don't ask questions I just get in the car.
The things that are true provide a framework for life.
Without the things that are true life has no framework.
I light up a Pall Mall and it takes a full five minutes to spark the Zippo because I'm staring at the flame.
The rumble of the engine like a captive, simmering beast under the hood.
Its breath seeps out around the edges like paint thinner against the day.
The colors wobble and slide down the canvas of the world.
So hey I say this isn't happening huh some kind of dream.
Must be the drugs they exchange like a handshake with their eyes and burst out laughing like a sunshower.
It's Green Day on the radio.
Night, rain falls.
Boston-bound from Maine.
F-150 truck rattling over the bridge.
The city growing up from the bay in front of us.
My left ear abruptly goes deaf.
The driver is Anja, a blonde with a nose-piercing.
Too much mascara.
She's crying, that's how I can tell.
It's been a week since I've had a drink.
I am missing the fourth and fifth finger on my right hand.
It makes things difficult to grab.
For three days I have been coughing up black sputum.
Despite all the vitamin C.
I say hey baby don't cry this is just a dream passin by.
She doesn't even look at me like I'm not even there.
I look out the window.
It's not a dream, it's a music video I saw when I was twelve.
Hard to tell which one.
Once you realize it's a dream, it's so much easier.
Permeable world.
Walls you can walk through.
Must be the drugs. A sick bloom of laughter.
Laying flat on my back at the beach.
The surrsurrant roar of waves breaking.
A breathy noise from nearby.
The steady beam of the lighthouse, sweeping sternly around.
Up on the widow's walk we clash like armies.
Lips, teeth, tongue.
We are ocean-wet.
The salt dries on our skin, shrinks us together.
Lightning against the black, way out to sea.
God's Holy Camera.
I say hey baby don't cry this is just a dream passin by.
The smoke from something burning on the beach.
A few houses down.
Could be some madwoman with a grudge.
And an ax.
A can of gasoline and a cigarette.
Tomorrow's papers tell the story.
She walked out to sea and didn't come back.
This is the story I tell my friends at the bar in a froth of drunk.
The stories we tell our friends are lies.
The only thing holding the framework of the world together is lies.
The rivets in the girders of truth.
The only cigarette I have I bummed.
Funny how you smoke a bummed cigarette so much more delicately than any from your own pack.
All the way down to the filter.
I cough three times.
The cigarette I bummed was a Marlboro.
The tips of my fingers tingle.
When I was twelve I saw a drowned ghost in the river. It was all in black and wore a hood.
Everything in the world seemed to point to it.
Everything in the world turned gray around it.
It didn't make any threatening gestures.
I have this fear about the deeper dark.
The dark behind the dark.
The dark of the hallway and the dark behind the beds in the rooms in the hallway.
The dark you can't see.
No light escapes but the wobbly red LED lights of the digital alarm clock.
On my mother's side of the bed, on the nightstand.
Beyond them, the shades are drawn, but I know the woods behind the house are on fire.
I can see the flames reflected in my father's glasses.
When he turns around to face me, the reflection doesn't move.
When he grins, the fire moves closer.
Like a game of red-light-green-light.
And he won't turn back around.
Green light.
And Freddie Front-Seat is talking about his girl on the coast the one who left him three summers ago.
I ask him if she's the one and he says
She's one of the ones.
His grin is wolf-like.
He doesn't slaver though it seems like he could.
My selfish heart murmurs something to me.
In the black car with the sunroof.
Or the Ford F-150 pickup truck.
The murmur is the sound of the shadow in the river.
It got inside of me.
The sound of someone drowning.
At the beach.
On the widow's walk.
Laying flat on my back.
Fireworks overhead.
In the future, Nevada will be the new coast.
Nowhere Beach, NV: Come to Where the Water Is!
On every sign in the desert.
The highway crumbles into the water.
On the shoulders of the road, children make sand-castles crowned with asphalt diamonds.
I take a smoking spliff from a friend's hand and suck greedily on the tapered end.
I cough once.
If you think about the deeper dark you invoke it.
It comes rushing out of the blindness.
Like a car without headlights.
Turns them on at the last second.
Before it hits.
Or like a silent train.
And you're balancing down the trestle with headphones on.
Unfaithful husband vs. the Eumenides.
All kinds of horror come about when you're not looking.
When your back is turned.
When your eyes are closed.
Underneath a closed eye the eyeball moves herky-jerky.
As if struggling to see beyond a membrane.
Not-Freddie and Priscilla are the Grim Reaper and his gun-moll.
Freddie smiles at me, though he looks surprised to see me.
When they pull over.
In the black car with the sunroof.
We are driving full-throttle, no stop, towards a bloody horizon.
Where the sun settles on its haunches to lick its wounds.
Everything else is memory.
I am on the side of the road with my sign.
The sign reads Samarra.
Or the Ford F-150 pickup truck.
Neither of these; sitting on the side of the road, sign in hand.
Borrowed cigarette hanging out of the mouth.
Acrid smoke singeing the throat.
I cough three times.
The black car with a sunroof went by an hour ago, then it went by again. And again.
Hard to tell if it's the same car or if they just appear the same.
The driver reminds me of someone I know.
Today the heat is so intense it can almost be seen, and seen through. Its clear, diamond-tipped presence actually somehow makes the day a little more transparent.
The roof of the world is bluer, somehow.
Nothing else has changed.
The trees are full green, no stop.
We are in the throat of summer.
The inside of my nostril itches and I scratch it with a fingernail.
The driver of the black car is my friend Freddie.
It's entirely possible that it isn't.
Though he looks somewhat like him.
Not-Freddie is wearing
a green Celtics jersey with white outlines
a black baseball hat (brim forward)
dark sunglasses
He has tattoos.
He drives by too fast for me to see the detail.
Perhaps he is driving by because he knows I am there.
He can't know that I'm there.
He's driving by too fast.
It's entirely possible that it isn't Freddie.
There's that story about the farmer who goes to the market and sees Death.
Death makes a threatening gesture.
So the farmer runs away to Samarra.
The farmer's neighbor goes to the market and sees Death and says, “Why the threatening gesture?”
Death says, “That wasn't threatening, it was surprise. I was astonished to see him here in Baghdad, because I'm supposed to see him tonight in Samarra.”
That story hinges on Death's gesture.
The Ford F-150's gone by a few times too.
Brown exterior.
Three different drivers.
I think.
One's a woman, one's a man.
The other one, I can't tell.
Though when I was a kid I jumped off the barn.
Cracked my skull.
That's when I started forgetting names.
Faces just don't stick in my head.
How some people say, I never forget a face, I'm the opposite.
The heat of the summer crowds in.
The highway steams, the asphalt is brand new and blacker than black.
The yellow lines are brighter than neon.
In the black car with the sunroof.
Someone is asking me if I'm all right.
Voice from the backseat.
Static interferes and is replaced by the sawing of an electric guitar.
Freddie Front-Seat is wriggling behind the wheel with his lips puffed out.
He does that when there's a song he likes.
Priscilla in the back is handing me a joint.
I know it's not just a joint.
Acrid smoke singeing my throat.
I cough twice.
We are going to the coast no we don't know which one.
I don't ask questions I just get in the car.
The things that are true provide a framework for life.
Without the things that are true life has no framework.
I light up a Pall Mall and it takes a full five minutes to spark the Zippo because I'm staring at the flame.
The rumble of the engine like a captive, simmering beast under the hood.
Its breath seeps out around the edges like paint thinner against the day.
The colors wobble and slide down the canvas of the world.
So hey I say this isn't happening huh some kind of dream.
Must be the drugs they exchange like a handshake with their eyes and burst out laughing like a sunshower.
It's Green Day on the radio.
Night, rain falls.
Boston-bound from Maine.
F-150 truck rattling over the bridge.
The city growing up from the bay in front of us.
My left ear abruptly goes deaf.
The driver is Anja, a blonde with a nose-piercing.
Too much mascara.
She's crying, that's how I can tell.
It's been a week since I've had a drink.
I am missing the fourth and fifth finger on my right hand.
It makes things difficult to grab.
For three days I have been coughing up black sputum.
Despite all the vitamin C.
I say hey baby don't cry this is just a dream passin by.
She doesn't even look at me like I'm not even there.
I look out the window.
It's not a dream, it's a music video I saw when I was twelve.
Hard to tell which one.
Once you realize it's a dream, it's so much easier.
Permeable world.
Walls you can walk through.
Must be the drugs. A sick bloom of laughter.
Laying flat on my back at the beach.
The surrsurrant roar of waves breaking.
A breathy noise from nearby.
The steady beam of the lighthouse, sweeping sternly around.
Up on the widow's walk we clash like armies.
Lips, teeth, tongue.
We are ocean-wet.
The salt dries on our skin, shrinks us together.
Lightning against the black, way out to sea.
God's Holy Camera.
I say hey baby don't cry this is just a dream passin by.
The smoke from something burning on the beach.
A few houses down.
Could be some madwoman with a grudge.
And an ax.
A can of gasoline and a cigarette.
Tomorrow's papers tell the story.
She walked out to sea and didn't come back.
This is the story I tell my friends at the bar in a froth of drunk.
The stories we tell our friends are lies.
The only thing holding the framework of the world together is lies.
The rivets in the girders of truth.
The only cigarette I have I bummed.
Funny how you smoke a bummed cigarette so much more delicately than any from your own pack.
All the way down to the filter.
I cough three times.
The cigarette I bummed was a Marlboro.
The tips of my fingers tingle.
When I was twelve I saw a drowned ghost in the river. It was all in black and wore a hood.
Everything in the world seemed to point to it.
Everything in the world turned gray around it.
It didn't make any threatening gestures.
I have this fear about the deeper dark.
The dark behind the dark.
The dark of the hallway and the dark behind the beds in the rooms in the hallway.
The dark you can't see.
No light escapes but the wobbly red LED lights of the digital alarm clock.
On my mother's side of the bed, on the nightstand.
Beyond them, the shades are drawn, but I know the woods behind the house are on fire.
I can see the flames reflected in my father's glasses.
When he turns around to face me, the reflection doesn't move.
When he grins, the fire moves closer.
Like a game of red-light-green-light.
And he won't turn back around.
Green light.
And Freddie Front-Seat is talking about his girl on the coast the one who left him three summers ago.
I ask him if she's the one and he says
She's one of the ones.
His grin is wolf-like.
He doesn't slaver though it seems like he could.
My selfish heart murmurs something to me.
In the black car with the sunroof.
Or the Ford F-150 pickup truck.
The murmur is the sound of the shadow in the river.
It got inside of me.
The sound of someone drowning.
At the beach.
On the widow's walk.
Laying flat on my back.
Fireworks overhead.
In the future, Nevada will be the new coast.
Nowhere Beach, NV: Come to Where the Water Is!
On every sign in the desert.
The highway crumbles into the water.
On the shoulders of the road, children make sand-castles crowned with asphalt diamonds.
I take a smoking spliff from a friend's hand and suck greedily on the tapered end.
I cough once.
If you think about the deeper dark you invoke it.
It comes rushing out of the blindness.
Like a car without headlights.
Turns them on at the last second.
Before it hits.
Or like a silent train.
And you're balancing down the trestle with headphones on.
Unfaithful husband vs. the Eumenides.
All kinds of horror come about when you're not looking.
When your back is turned.
When your eyes are closed.
Underneath a closed eye the eyeball moves herky-jerky.
As if struggling to see beyond a membrane.
Not-Freddie and Priscilla are the Grim Reaper and his gun-moll.
Freddie smiles at me, though he looks surprised to see me.
When they pull over.
In the black car with the sunroof.
We are driving full-throttle, no stop, towards a bloody horizon.
Where the sun settles on its haunches to lick its wounds.
Everything else is memory.
I am on the side of the road with my sign.
The sign reads Samarra.
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