after the initial pain, train your body to immediately stop loving.
Do not take back all you have given. When you re-wrap your lungs, heart, spleen..they don’t taste the same . . . only prisoners and war veterans like resealable women. Give yourself anew. every time. When he breaks you, put the OxyCotin under ur tongue. Nothing in you should be refurbished.
Do not lose sleep over him. Do not read the e-mails. Do not play Anita Baker. Do not wear his hoodie. Do not tell anyone of the burning in you. Do not pretend he is who you want him to be. Focus on yourself. Focus on yourself. Lie. Always lie and say you have never been stitched back together.
When a man tells you he is different from the rest, read the book of Exodus in your quiet time. He will sing u an apology. Loud, like the wail of a infant that has not yet been burped. Pat him on the back. Simple.
66
Steve, Melantha and I begin to walk downtown.
I anxiously bid goodbye to the poison now
weakening in my body, for I have neglected to add
another layer to keep sobriety at bay.
Sobriety is the enemy – it is more physically kind but in my destabilized state of mind, it is the curse of integrity.
The poison slips off in malformed droplets, my toes struggle to reabsorb them, but they have no tongues no tongues no
The poison surrenders.
Sobriety overwhelms, almost unnoticed, drawing lies upon
my spine, over my head – to suffocate
It begins plastering an artificial masterpiece; a disguise; a
false sense of nature
The new skin is made up of unnaturally restrictive fibers –
papier-mâché soup
Strips of gummy glue and tatty newspapers
with stories of the 1940s and ’50s
I only want to clutch at my breast and rip the soggy bits of paper from my skin
before they dry
Too late.
I am a doll once more, mummified in traditions and encapsulated in cruel words
I explore my mouth, open, close, open, close
Sticky spiderwebs form between my lips – glue
My tongue is trapped – I make mere noises;
articulation a lost skill.
no Voice
67
Listen: the cavalry rides at dusk
Whiskey short on breath in the bonfire nights
A curse, a daydream, visions of fire, a string ’cross wood
Plucked from shoulders unsteady and years too soon
Air scorched with some Hell I haven’t known
(And babe: I’ve seen a few in my time)
Here they keep the bones, withered and wilted, flower to dust
Bleached to oil stain under northern lights
The Summer is the end of all things luminary
After decay comes the obscurity, my good old friend
Fifteen years it has been since they came
The Bird-men, painted all the colors of death
Feathers slicked back, smiling toothless maw Hello
For my daughter, auburn and heart beats an hour
Head asunder, thighs pale in bare sunshine
At the foot of this pine tree your
Baptismal waters run red across your love
Meanwhile watches with pinhole eyes
Blind but to presence, creature of scent and touch
Waits
Undiscovered are means that our ends are a mystery
Slipping forth from darkness cavernous
Echoes blood from the font
Voice of a man forgotten, a blue room filled with smoke
A green world constructed for tenants unfound
The flickering lights of a world’s stolen electricity
Batteries and acids corrosive in nostrils meant not
Even in the right direction lost to haze
Flows a river, wonders the flesh how we ever got by without it
The man docked in his cruel Owl mask, finger raised
Summoning from the rocks struck a wind
And words without voice, life without end
“Come and see, traveler, come and see”
At the foot of the mount the burning girl lays
Processional runs the blue vigil
Stirs the blood not to see, not to come forward
This world you’re rid of, I see
To the head of the line the faces are dust
And forward, finger curled, you cinder me
Voice lilting, soul and heart are nothing
There is nothing that you cannot be, so sing your song
I will come to you
Waters forth, calling to sheets laid ago
Underneath the gauze veil, touch at your lips
In other kingdoms I cannot discern with these eyes
The velvet dark blew in
Hold me close, my dear, my love, hold me
I will show you a world you never heard of in this life
Oh, sweet girl, your fingernails run across
my shoulders like ice flakes
Damp to the touch and carved in rocks skipped across stillness
No, no, soon, too soon, what have we become
Rubs the flesh to the mind, so close to sunshine,
O God, daughter
Climb onto my shoulder and don’t say a word
We’re leaving and we’re leaving for Earth
Don’t look back for a second, not a second, I
unto you as you unto me, to the starlight
To the warm tendrils of the sun beyond
The moon is only a reflection, dear
Close your eyes, have no despair, don’t listen
Not a single word they say is true, not a one
They only speak bird, honey
You and me are one and the same
There is no shame, babe, no shame
No, not Heaven, but on the way
Through the darkness and into the caverns,
that breath on your face
Don’t listen to it, sweetheart
We’re on the cusp, the frontier, nearly there
There— the surface is there— feel with your toes,
your fingers curled
And speak with your auburn hair to love
Answer the grayness with locust breath
Ruined, rotten, blood on your forehead
Dyes your fleshy silk hair red
See no more I lost you in all these dark currents
So what has become of you now?
Where have you gone and how could I follow?
68
We follow the whiskey trail
to the garden of believers
we ignore cries of foolish
and tune in the receivers
we build our towers higher
than those that came before us
and above angry voices
we recite faithful chorus
69
Fuck God
where you
find her
and call it
a day.
The tragedy
that begat
the Sun
made light
of lesser things.
It was an explosion.
First in heart.
Now at hand.
This tree’s blood
is painted on.
The guilt
that I feel
is freedom.
Jesus was
the only magic
we believed in.
The cigarette
that tricked us
into breathing.
An excuse to sing.
Anthemic
woodwind
hollow
as crown
fall
through
the octaves
glide
over ground
and come
to me.
SONG IN ME MINOR
I fee
l
so close
to nothing
when I pray.
I cross
my legs
and crucify
each day.
I share
this blood
with everyone
I meet
and
kick her
when she tries
to wash my feet.
We drank
red wine
to cancel out
our fears
but sober kisses
tend to always taste
like tears.
70
I know you breathe fire like a dragon
posted like bullets into the hearts
of small children
and this rage never-ending is yours to keep
entirely forever entirely forever entirely
cannot be undone within the strangeness
of my lifetime
Breathe slow my parent
One day the moss covering your face
will be swept away
You will sing poems
washed in the basin
of life
You will clear out
all frozen blood clots of hate
surrounding that heart
which is yours
I imagine your face
superimposed over Buddha’s
ten-foot-tall stone thousand-year-old
prayer
Maybe Buddha was an angry father too
previous incarnation
I am superimposing your face, Dad
over the face of Buddha
to awaken your own child
interior within self’s temple
your own
there
Do you hear him
still chanting father’s name
still chanting machismo terror to cling toward something
lest his personality self be destroyed
or that prayer then
on Buddha’s lips
is compassion awakened
this heart flowering now
that child need chant no more
let each lotus blossom wiggle
inside his mind
eventually we are one
somewhere
our ribs are touching
Bless tenderness always
Bless country music
and ruthless ignorance
where America gathers in a religion
of pain and glory
Bless cock worship and rodeo mind
Bless Budweiser and dominos as pure expression of karma
All embraced in infinite sound
mind never-ending
even racist high school football stars have Buddha nature
And this much I saw once
I believe
in the back door
of our home
you standing naked as you often did
eyes wondering
splayed out to the ocean’s twinkling
twenty miles away
as if the ask the universe:
Who am I?
Maybe its answers may come to you now
as they never did
from gin tonics
or gambling wheel obsessions
mouth always ready for the next tit nipple
all you were doing
was chasing after yourself in the dark
spinning on an endless wheel
hoping luck would make your number hit
like riding a bicycle with no chain
only you kept believing it was there
Gate Daddy Gate
Para Gate Daddy
Parasvam Gate Daddy
Bodhi Svaha
I imagine Buddha
smoking a Kent cigarette
and it is you
71
Overwhelmed
by the upheaval of souls
I stretch
further than land
and sea
to muddle
my essence with these
The mass
of my irreverence
is benign
compared to all
the flourish made
by the winds.
In the rhythmic
fueling of my catharsis
I shred to light
the beholder stealthily
and consume my wish
to be one
of a shield
to the peace
of all.
Ignited
to vanish
in a glimpse
of crept-tall
flare blossom
between light
and shadow.
Fixing initiative
of incongruous art
as such as
dust
we will
become.
72
dig
a little harder
deeper
dig
a little faster
keep on
dig
until morning tugs
at your backbone
and sweat stings sun licks
on the tender of your flesh
don’t surrender
dig
until your knuckles begin to rouge
and the tips of your fingernails bend
back
this can’t break you
still
keep on
digging
dig
with bare hands
and prayer knees
dig
with dry tongue
and withered clothes
dig
with ripe eyes
and cracked heels
dig some more
don’t give up
dig heavy
for broken mirror glass,
rusty spoons,
or doll legs
for ship sails
angel casts
broken chariot pieces
a sequined dress
dig
for drum hide
cigarette ash
emptied vials
Boogie Man’s shoes
or a sparrow’s bones
dig
for quarters
tucked in the sole of your left shoe
dig for the choke
in the song’s last breath
dig at ink letters
until the spines of books twist back
dig into night
’til you naked the sun
keep on
digging
dig
’til you can piece yourself
back together again
73
when I say you remind me of a book’s broken back,
pages half-sewn and a coffee ring on its face or
that moment in half-morning where the sun is hesitant
or after the ground’s been cried upon and everything
is soft and open or holding the earth’s guts in palm
just to feel alive amidst all this concrete, my god, what
I mean to say is this song is an off strum and I like the way
it hits my ears sideways and how I might be cold and you’ll
put your coat around my shoulders like the movies and
I’ll show my teeth and say, who spilled molasses
over the window,
making the day golden? You’ll say, beautiful is a dead word
and I’ll say, so let’s invent, they tell us that star up there blew out
ages ago and you’ll say, but it still holds 10,000 wishes
tonight alone and we’ll want to sing with our voices turned
on backwards, we’ll want to laugh so hard we forget to
ask why and then lose any use for that word, too.
74
I wanted to say something beautiful
How we’ve turned garbage into gold
How we made a s
wamp fertile land
How we turned a curse into a blessing
How we made a nigger Black
Wanted to say something
That would make us stand up
And be proud
With the sun shining on our faces
And in our hearts
I wanted to say
But the day wouldn’t let me
And the skies were too gray
The air was choking my dreams
And all the smiles
On the faces of my people
Had turned to frowns
Are we so loving
That we love what hates us
That we love what breaks us
That we love the pain
That twists our minds into creatures
-we can’t even recognize
Are we so strong
That we play being weak
I wanted to say something beautiful
That would lift us up
Kick depression to the curb
And walk tall
In the middle of the storm
But the storm is raging
And we are tossed about
Like rag dolls
Played with by children of dogs
And we allow this
And dance with this noise
And call it music
Dress up in the debris
Of a shattered world
Where broken bodies and broken hearts
And blisters from a swollen lie
Infect our world with disease
And yet we are the only cure
For a world gone mad
If we could stop and see and smell
The flowers we planted long ago
Ah I wanted to say something beautiful
But ugly like a brick in my path
Keeps tripping me up
Causing me to fall on my face
And make me forget
How beautiful we can be
75
WE.
flesh and flood fetuses
fed breath through blood,
board this hemoglobe
with no boats to boast
we float.
WE.
float til we are born
’less we be bloated
with a fire to flee
the ocean of our Mother.
SHE.
a complex of
refuge - ease.
her body
of water
begins and ends us
a full circle
bodacious and round
even when earth was flat.
WE.
this amniotic nation
native to wading
strong-willed,
born to be wild
and bewildered,
will build ark
upon her
when splintered by her bleeding.
SHE.
Chorus Page 8
