1. |
This whole sick thing
00:50
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This whole sick thing that turned the night
we cursed from the beginning
is hair and skin and hair and skin
and doomed from all our damning
So that, though all your very own,
your trials wear and wear on me
until they pick apart my poem,
this love comprised of misery
And all that guilt, my happiness,
my love you felt was undeserved
turned you to a mess of deprecation
begging to be banished to the curb
It's this machine that I created
to make love from misery
I'm so sorry, now I see it,
it's from your sorrow that I gained
Now every thing's all wrong, it always was,
and it taunts me through the day
blows in drafts through all my windows
and yet I have not dared to turn away
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2. |
Poem for a worm
01:47
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I pulled a thing up from the earth
when all I knew of were his words
I pulled him up by the rough curls
and held on as the floral shirt unfurled
He's left us both to miss him
the river bank and me
We who were his minion
now we need again to eat
now we need again to sleep
Under oleander, acanthus tree
sits bitter sad lamenting me
where a love persists in jeopardy
a single poem, my indemnity
Where I pulled a worm up from the ground
and his brown skin made mine turn brown
and all I've got left of him now
is a memory of his bird's wing brow
the words, the words out of his mouth
Now he's gone and gone away
no thing that I could think to say
could convince my worm, my worm to stay
now that love's away
Now that love's away
I'm bound again to basic needs
I've got to feed the hunger
and sleep away fatigue
Well I have been the bird
and I have been the worm
I've evaded grasps
and been the one to yearn
Bound, and bound in temporality
must be a love, when with a bird as me
yes, it's quite an easy thing to shed,
it's like a hunger that's been fed
Perhaps I'm better better off
with no bird's worms to fill my trough
the worm, his words, the death of me
forget them soon, please, let me be
A shower shit show pretty please
say my name I'm on my knees
under oleander, acanthus trees
where I pulled a worm up from the ground
and his brown skin made mine turn brown
fuck me fuck you fuck my fatigue
come back here soon and fuck me please
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3. |
Movement through rooms
00:51
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We bear worlds born of wisdom,
worlds born of illusion
They're brilliant, they're burning,
stand with their feet off the ground,
but hang from the ceiling
We bare worlds born of poison,
worlds flowing of feeling
That are brilliant, that are burning,
that throw our face to the mirror,
so what looks back is turning
The water and dirt and light and our moons
aren't realms of emotion, just movement through rooms
Rooms brilliant, rooms burning,
rooms that, because they hold nothing,
think they're absolved from yearning
The heat of our worlds,
our bold mundane worlds,
Is brilliant, is burning,
may wander the night,
but will sleep in the morning
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4. |
Charles comes to visit
02:19
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On Charles' first night here, we talk on the stoop. He has the initial smallness, fragility of just having separated from his current co-dependent, Konrad. He is a shriveled thing and I shrivel down with him. We are two worms on the ground. We talk and it is good.
In my bed, he says things to make me pity him and I don't know how to respond. I tell him I love him and he doesn't believe me. He shakes me by the shoulders and is surprised when I don't move.
In the morning, we wander the aisles of the supermarket like we used to. I say, Eating is our art, he says, Only with you.
Walking with Charles, I once felt famous. Now, I feel confused by his sudden, timid, bursts of affection. Time has made him my brother and he cries when he senses I no longer want to touch him.
We walk to the river where we sit in the wake of an unbearable sun. We sit at the river and my already tanned back burns while his white skin is unaffected. We go to the river steps where the current from a passing steamship laps at a passed out man, where an apathetic cop lingers waiting for the EMT. We don't want to stay, but wind up staying.
After the river, we walk to meet Alea and Konrad at the hotel they had to get because of the dog. We lounge in the room, play around on the small Casio, and I glimpse Charles and Konrad's brotherly relationship. They've been together double the amount of time that we were.
We walk to a crawfish boil. The crawfish is incredibly seasoned and has pineapple. We eat it off brown paper spread on the table in almost complete darkness. Charles thinks it satanic and won't participate. I bring him a head to suck and pop a tail in his mouth.
It is hard to be with Charles. I wish I could remove my self from myself and give it to him while I step away. I ask him how long he thinks we were together and he has no idea. He fascinates me as much as ever. Every time I pass by 2612 Royal St., I remember the time he stopped here crying, saying he'd dreamt all of this.
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5. |
Dogwood petal palm
01:12
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The sky is spoon-fed the river by a rain
that was sucked back up into the sky
that left behind a dark cement
a darkened tree, an empty sky
I am spoon-fed the rain by a dogwood petal's palm
and, drinking it against my will,
attempt to leave in the middle of its song
to sleep about an hour,
but an hour proves too long
For I'd rather not have slept
and put to rest that tepid aftertaste,
that vision of him carrying his bass
through a small and crowded house
in the hours between the days
that, leaking at the seams,
have brought a rain that will not go away
So he dipped her neck to clear the doorway,
tilted back her body for the corners,
and I two-stepped with Jaciel
and poor April, drunk, fell
That night, our hug hello,
that long, distracted full embrace,
became an unbeknownst farewell
nearly a month too late
I can't help but taste the river in the rain
from this sky that's slept too long
It seems I'm drinking it again
out of the dogwood petal's palm
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6. |
I loved once
01:19
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I loved once,
rode a slow wave through November
until the clouds outgrew the sky
and that was enough. I loved once,
I stopped making art,
pretended to do things in the other room,
wallowed in his nearness, listened to his silence
and that was enough. I loved once,
He loved me in a cool way,
he'd look at me sideways and say,
You know I love you, right?
under the dim stove light
and forget about it the next day. I loved once,
I'd stopped making art,
decided I needed to leave,
cried the whole ride from San Anton to New Orleans,
choking, choking so casually
three weeks later,
he was back here with me. I loved once,
The weather was his,
his breadth was the breeze,
he sang songs, I'll never know if for me,
they mocked him for speaking in poetry. I loved once,
Rode a slow wave through another month
until the clouds outgrew the sky
Then I stopped making art,
lost all concept of the boundaries of thought,
couldn't tell if he could read mine or not. I loved once,
And once was enough.
We walked the long hours before morning,
he didn't love me like I did
and it wasn't enough. I loved once.
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