Field theories
sold for poker chips
left cold left thawed left
bent into the yawp
ass up
let be
let air
bones
unknowns
ash
everywhere
curved space
dark - breath
dark - breath
dark - what?
sold for bluff on blind
left choked
left down
left bent
left passed
catch
How a body grabs a body.
Hungry. Even Jesus let
his bakers dozen fend
for themselves once
they got to snipping and
sipping too comfortably.
According to the literature.
Jesus. That first bite.
Its sharp. Its ache.
Its nectar. We’ll
build a fort and fill it
with maple trees gone gaudy
with cobalt wishing stones.
We’ll crawl inside and imagine
how maybe we used to laugh.
Fuck Orpheus and fuck them
for loving him harder for not
loving who we love when
we’re the ones down here
rotting in hell. Huh? Music?
Anyone ever really heard us sing?
Let’s move this: anyone ever asked?
Even so we sing all day. Even so we pass
our days whatever ways we can —
We know some folk don’t listen.
Just look. And trace. Look:
What is a thing of beauty
if not us?
Bear where a clothespin clips a nose
and breath is held until —
Bear it then keep walking
toward light. Right? Wait —
We’ll ask them to name something
blue and maybe they’ll say:
popsicle tongue
broken finger
black eye. Easy enough
to say You. Don’t.
What does anyone out here know
of us? How
our tar-stained wings hide what
ergot saddles we ride. How
between our teeth we mash
the fur of maritime beasts. Still
some folk never thanks us
to manifest their pleas. Yet
what is a thing of beauty
if not us? Repeat:
dark – breath
dark – breath
dark - things we do as
we turn slowly blue:
lead laser dots through another
chalk outline; pick up today’s
halloween dress; cry
at commercials; obey; pay
defense department rates
for a sandwich; unremember
memorable jingles; jaw
sandwiches that taste just like
sandwiches; figure we can’t
expect much more than that; don’t.
Some slaves only get free enough
to crouch in Kentucky foxholes
with Cincinnati just over
one last swift river.
Our own acrid smell finally
wakes us. Eras. Halfwoke
slowroll through the wet spot.
Panic. Floor. Hard. Years.
The worst kiddie-porn
we’ll never say we see.
Bottles. Cans. Pizza box
hotels. Crusty burrito
bits. Razor blades.
Mirror shards. Cat puke.
Half a joint. Shuffled match.
Broken brick. Bloody steps.
Lit joint. Burnt fingers. Better.
Wash the hair/don’t wash the hair.
Wash the hair/don’t wash the hair.
Wash the hair/don’t wash the hair.
Own no time. Late as fuck. Strip
the bed. Consider the stain. Don’t.
The murk we blow to cool.
The slop and bang we curse.
The hum of incandescence.
The lip burns we nurse.
The best skin of our lives.
The best skins of our lives.
What is thing of beauty
if not us?
Repeat.
Notions of temperature
bold as gonzo bumming our smokes two grackles top an aspen branch
again : again
to suffer
from the vulgar latin original meaning undergo meaning endure
fulcanelli
cold-hearted fuck
transmogrify
this bastard luck
cassini-huygens
we need some tit-
ian water for our thirst
to suffer
compare old french sofrir meaning accept
meaning tolerate meaning breathless meaning
breathless our grackles drip ash : drip
feed them our yew trees someone says
swat them their flies someone won’t stop saysing
Sometimes in a body
little metal insects tic tic tic tic tic tic tic tic tic
through bloodstreaks through musculoskeletal structure
sometimes a body sits by a window and watches an online party feed skipping the party
sometimes a body makes itself sick when pushed too hard too long
says stop
shhhhhh
stop
the wonderful singer told us we were the black gold of the sun on repeat
why wonderful singer?
how much is black gold even worth?
sometimes a body finds drugs where it least expects them
holes have been dug and drugs buried into the holes
how light speed equals need equals constancy
how we small each other
how we bind each other
sometimes a body counts twelve stars where skies never blacken never clear
they look lonely
Sore broken in the place of dragons
How we pockmark our
sickening ball of melt:
How we crawl among animals
having forgotten their names:
How we swoon redfaced and coy
to our small silly star:
How we fall in love a little each
crisp stupid winter:
How we bow clavicles against
nights long and snowquiet:
How we can’t recall midsummer
even in its midst:
How we cease awe at the jerk
of our cretinous work:
How we breathe out our parasitic breath then
breathe it in:
How we watch again as light breaches
our wobbly horizon:
How we know the time to rise
has arrived:
You don't have to pump the breaks you just gotta keep your eyes on the road
You know how the universe blinks and we
exist for a minute or two with our
classic hits stations and our marshmallows
our wars and flags and television and
shit. Coke bottles falling from the sky to
an old man’s village and the white people
just laugh and laugh and line up to pay and
laugh and get paid and laugh. That’s what they make.
He’ll clean it up. This is the world spinning
its circle in the vast dark and this is
us arguing the same shit on a new
machine. Faster. The world stays unstable
anyway. We work all day to excess
and for what? What will we make of it? Try
to recall the red crest of a robin’s
breast in springtime. Springtime! When we fight our
machines with our machines through our machines.
It’s the thought that hurts. When we stand one hand
airborne one finger on play. When we pump
the volume up against the god damned bird
song. Anyway. She even got a breast
reduction, my friend said, that's how stupid
she is, my friend said. An anthropocene
of wannabe hepcats wanting to be.
But this is the world spinning in the vast
dark. Not any of the million spots we
see in the night sky but the one we
can't. Rushing to the serenity shop
and fighting and hiding and crying and
eating in our cars with our volume pumped
against the birdsong. We are animals.
We need orgasm regularly. Now
even that lies just out of reach
hostage to the ding of our nearby cells — a poke
a text a like a love a comment: WELL
DONE! Aaaahhh! Aaaaahhh! Aaaahhh. Aaahhh. Aaahh. Aaah. Aah. Ah. a.
Yearn for the road. Ache for the unfettered
journey. Grow weary of it. Namaste
the mat says. Killed people kill people it
says. Shock. Disbelief. Wildly darting eyes.
Same old jive. Look steady through the pane.
Go on. Trust me. Really take in the light.