bleed.
Yes it flattened out too much
Yes that’s what we did to the world
What am I supposed to
do, fall
in love with her father
you
are always supposed to
The seething
won’t go away.
Hound your little adversaries.
Their special vicious masquerading
as humor or rapture, why not,
or maybe anesthetic other con job.
Like, says proudly, this has no tone
of voice.
Then, I say,
I don’t have to read it.
No you’re supposed to
fall in love with
her younger brother. Why?
He has
connections
The rest of the men are probably
dead.
I’m dead too;
wants me to go away and
leave you
hungry
not give any more drops of my
blood
to you
but I will.
The WITCH is not a
failure.
She is the name of
holding it together
(more than you could ever
do.)
In my origin song, I broke the king
and then I was sad; a giant he was too
tall, of stone; I shot shattering his head.
His mind never moved until I broke it
He had grown tall, or had been carved
in order to be perfect in our earliest
perception, until we too were rocky
and couldn’t think. Why am I sad? I
have slain an art work; killed a statue
There are some forms you can’t
fuck, you can only destroy. Faceless
he is a standup maimed memory
of a country where I was unhappy.
MOMENT
There was this moment
before. A long time before
I acted; before I did what I don’t
discount
still there.
I forgot I might ruin myself—and
before I did—
in the bloodspattered dress she
sings best
before I did:
someone’s young dress.
Windows blow open, the haunt
a torso
We wear
the same size nightgown
any two women
might
Why must we
wear them
in this house
Windows blow open
to the haunt, but
I thought
that was me.
No she’s
cut off at the torso
I am the one who
remembers her—her
I remember you.
We’re in the wide vicious room. I
came in through the window I say.
Looking for ancient Judgment, and
only got an east coast house, full
of deadly forebears, oh those portraits,
like ourselves. We’re supposed to
be the same woman.
Who needs a lower body now,
to reflect
brokenly
all
colors.
That was that night.
Arraigned on charges
It blows in
as if I did it
it is the reflection of
the lay of it.
What I did or what
happened
wearing a young
dress, forget
got it at the factory?
not from
you, here, where you
only believe
this
passes.
What is the weight of
a passion
used? was it useful, or I
couldn’t have gotten through
the window
of the mock house,
a mock body.
CITY OF VOICE
You had to turn the
baby in to the authority.
The dead woman watched.
Far
because not seen
the fate is too far from some
How can I show you
how I happened
and remain?
I don’t know why the guns
had to tell us
everything; as if it were only
a city. A power position. If
no one you care about
judges you, you can kill anyone.
I have a drop of your blood in my mouth
so I can
continue to speak. If you are
dead, a soldier child, of violence
what is the
name of your life? Answer me.
I am not found. Let me find
you. I am not to be
appeased. I killed in the
weight of the real air, I was small
I sank from sight; it
was logical. The earth
hadn’t grown me high enough
a fate. There is still
a gloss on these gloves.
I need to hear you better. You
can’t love me. There
is a thread of being from the first
that I am. I will be that. No
intercession offered.
I wanted a better gun; now
I can’t want that, what can I
want
the assassin I?
You won’t have to remember
we’re making a ring of
uncontested lace, to fill memory’s place.
The origin ornamented with gold
discourse of
what is birdlike arising
from the east. An
owed part? No.
My name was pierced I cannot
owe. She took a grenade down to hell
a ball of wild-fire
for all who would die in his hall.
Yes, I did that. I killed many
they are martyrs to
the gratitude of Force. A kind
of power. Lady has none, though to
her milk and blood
it be attributed; mine would never
cure—have cured—you. Only words
can cure us now
our power to remain, which
has as its source its own being
pure self
My granite foundlings. Killers the lace
loves.
You think you should know who
is speaking: if we
name ourselves we’re owned.
Now that you can’t see a mark
on my body, will you
listen to me?
Front and back covers, matching
You can hear
me without knowing who I am.
Heal the dead? I am known
as the quarrel or the souvenir
How can you heal such abstraction?
A woman entered
Everyone was saying
‘mankind’ a frigid
insult; it’s lasted since I’ve been
dead into the rot, freight
of the ship
of a death whose star is not to be in
my lace. Gendered death
Your old frieze
dirt refuses; we will not grow
from our past.
Will the dead child grow?
You had been counseled to
kill him. After all, he
had a gun; begin with death not
the throwing away of weapons. This
head still frenzied
not calm in intricacy, but
mad of it: I can’t bear the pattern
that’s happened: let me go
into my own death. You don’t
have your
own. No one deserves,
and we’re not bound in
godly jurisdiction.
No one knows what’s fitting but
if she did,
how could she endure it? Can we
change from being crushed to
pattern light? Unlatcheted. . .
nothing wrong with pretty words.
I believed your book never you.
I must turn in
the baby so they can judge her female
And I take her and run from that
land, you have already
found her wanting; I am running
until I die. Am I still running? No, she is
sweet a book
of art, all magic
My will still alive in free space
could seek a
grave. Truth formed in unvarying
color, blood of
influence flowing
You were faithful and frank—
I was destitute often; too
soon they died. You’ll
forget. All the talk has been
of remembrance. See my love a
light, I don’t want to
I don’t want a light of yours.
I loved you and so why not anyone
I don’t want to call to you
It isn’t your business anymore.
But we’re here now. This air can
still hurt, with flat
crystal foliage we’re making.
If living had to be about the body
who made it so? In our old
language we’d say we’re free, but the words
are empty when you’re free. He got
more money—you got more
money than I did—
for your sex art. I forgot to bring mine
to the abbatoir: it wouldn’t
have helped. They slaughtered us
even though we loved each other. No god.
No. No religion. You don’t
have to wonder if you
should be doing something else. Was there
one I loved, doesn’t make sense
Is the pattern too cold
I’m burning in it; that other fire
someone made me do it
No I don’t believe you. The sun
is all I am. He got money for his
pornography; I wanted to
sell eros too, because I would have
love then, if that was money.
All I had to exchange; which one
They blend. What was powerful
was any vision: sold myself for eyes
Have too many now
No so many, so you don’t need to
watch it, here in the lace, putting
your hands you may not have
to show the redemptive power
of sex any more. Remember
all the
feelings inside that no one said
or would have let you have.
I could bear the ones
I didn’t understand; the others
were subject to approval. I am combing
them, parting them
from faith. You
could have infatuated a planet, you’d
say. You could have
infuriated a lamprey. You You
From my body’s unconfused
silk I drew my mind
up a ladder from flatland to
an open opera. I didn’t I was
dismembered. Who
loved me? You lurked and struck
No god. There’s all us ornately
an eagle, as chosen
now in our art. Your pieces the
precious stones giving power to
our sensible
fabric. Touch
this sex so bitten by the weather, touch
a thorn, an
umber navel. Be true.
Each a sea, in all the seas:
a city. I’m fighting
with you, before. The Three
Fates crochet with brown yarn
they have brown hair
pulled back in a style of some
century—do we have centuries? Every
time I loved you it was
now in all the seas
The theme of my stay is the
fertilization of the
self. O raped one, they dragged
her down. He took her to his world
but I’ve founded
the city, unangelic eyes, it’s snowing
in front of them, and on the white ocean.
I’ve found
you. You can’t have me. Was I
fated? You don’t know
how to moor.
This city isn’t static. I shouldn’t
have been given three glasses.
Don’t find me. But
this is forever
He tried to keep us in only one part
of the manor.
Grim one, who betrayed you?
It was a collective order, out of the
unthinking
bounded lake, where we’d rot
Refusing to believe the future, the
dark of his men
a cannibal god.
Each a sea, in all the seas. To
fertilize the self you
you . . .
Calling to a city. Don’t remember now.
I’m losing sight of
the stark tower, in the snow, that I’d
never seen. Leave
the champagne. I rested it
against the house of
the Fates, so tender, young ones intent
on this work
it was all about love, now they pretend
that it wasn’t. The power to kill
belonged to someone—
but I had no power, except for
this onrushing now. Keeps saying
go back oh I
won’t climb down. There are
no levels here.
You lost your
purse, you lost your conception of
yourself. I’ve fertilized another self
You don’t ever have
to testify again. I
don’t have to be for or against you
What if you hurt me?
It isn’t possible now,
because there are no gods. Only a
city, of so many fates
gone, unremembering presences.
THE HUMAN GHOUL
This lady in me is
Justice,
an abstraction live
‘Oh I love you
when there’s
blood in your hair and you
come at me railing.’
I once entered everywhere
as dispassion, now have
become
bloody from judging
the foul acts of human hands.
I’ve got bloody hair so
you can love me.
I’ve got a tone of voice.
He hid the body in another
body;
the second corpse, shrinking,
disappeared into the first one
Or did the first disappear into the
second?
A very tall man, he
said he was a writer
but
not a good
writer.
You’re not a good
writer, I said,
because
you aren’t
good.
I am speaking to you, with your
violent wish to be loved.
Someone
has to understand
what has happened
before she disappears—
it doesn’t matter
what she disappears
into—heaven, nirvana
someone has
to understand what’s
been going on
from
here.
&
nbsp; What is a feeling. Is it what
happens. He leaves her.
Someone has to say what
happened. When did it start?
he asked. You made me wear blood
but I thought I must want to. He
left and I wanted to find him;
he left because I was talented.
A feeling is what is said to
happen.
Change a feeling by
telling
what happens. It’s what you
say.
A self has a stain on its
floor or
a long dark cloth
Dido, anyone, walks into the
self, rejuvenates the
founding
in a world that celebrates
war
where all are ghouls.
I’m the one who sees it
You have a lot of change, the
man
said, having counted it, It’s
almost too much.
I put it in my
purse
and crossed the avenue.
I had bloody hair so you
would love me, too old
now
to be loved or to wash out
the blood.
I am all of the faces of
Justice
broken as I exit the
mirror falling in pieces
behind
me again and again. The
figment told me
I was now changed a
total stranger
looking out of this body.
CITY OF GHOSTLY FESTIVALS
Try to find
the center of night. this city
A hear break, I can’t hear it.
Dido the appropriated victim
sets all the bottles rattling
in the wind of our agains.
I wanted a different again.
It’s different.
The syllabary
of my
sins
a
thing Maat
flicks
into
the river
Songs and Stories of the Ghouls Page 13
