Chorus (10 page)

but do not pay mind to a child who sits in water for a day

removing scabs

Now I cannot sleep without the smell of smoke

your clothes know this about me

they hold the scent of where you've been

when you
leave to return
as a stiletto lullaby

reverberating by tile

And while you were gone

I wrote lines of poetry on your pillowcase

I left a million fragments of this memoir

now bullet-like and
encased

ready for implantation at the flesh of it all

so you can sleep like I do

I am honeyed between your sheets

the flame of a voice

mashing
in
to every thread

I will be what you remember tonight

This
night
a
face
I can't see

Is walking towards me,

Coming down the hill. Must be a dark face,

Must look like me.

The sodium streetlight will give you depth

Wash over the space above your neck

Light up your eyeballs and a broad, flat nose,

Light up your lips that look like leeches pressed flat on your face.

When you're closer we can

Put our leech lips together

Suck out a new life,

Red and beating, pounding like our footfalls.

Our syncopated footfalls, off-step,

As if one pair's
echo
was snug inside the other pair

Like you found imprint of my path beaten in the air.

Stay with me, catch-up
.

Stay as near to me as the night on my shoulder.

Press your hands against my cheeks, like this night's wind.

You're closer now

When you're near enough to touch

Can I flesh-out your face with my thumbs
and
fingers,

Like a sculptor smoothing black clay?

We'll lie in the streets,

We two night children, leech-lipped two,

And pull the street's
b
lack asphalt to o
ur
chi
n
s for warmth

As if it were a satin sheet.

1.

as I enter the night

Black House haunts my loneliness

in a punk haven behind

red maple trees glow, first caress

cats and boys crawling like ghosts

and you sitting right there white host

candy eyes of
mercy
, a bunch of kisses

in our hair
immortal
bees

– we were nineteen

like two moons in a dream

walking on some million beaches

watery landscapes hit my chest for anger

and I remember this time

we were dancing with sharks

faces figures whispers

hats thrown and a fight

but hey I can't help it

yeah I'm a jealous guy

– we were thirteen

like two moons in a dream

I drive all day all streets

passing by cold tramp gardens

tours bell barking freaks

my heart's blind when yours is hidden

radio station's
out of control

postman delivers no message

dark knight of my soul

give me some more courage

– we were nothing

but two moons in a dream

(love surrounds him

lovely great fool

love surrounds love

it got no rule)

fantasies may be my stage

painfuly studded with roses of nostalgia

I'm trapped in the love's cage

oppressed by a stunning body

and I long to see the sun

your mouth a little weak

pray again for a gun

drown minarets flashing quick

2.

the
star
turns red

into
shadows

i am

standing right there to

reach the edge

of the eighteen

beloved

3.

small hands

rapture

my loneliness

as a tissue cut from midnight sky

and you're there

down by the twinkle earth

all tenderness

in this fancy of mine

4.

teens have no soul

they have fingers, they have nails

to scratch

bodies in flames

bully like dogs

ancient joy covers their hearts

they build coffins

like Cadillacs

5.

If I can talk slowly

Slowly
fires will raise

Up from the golden sea moutains

Millions of eyes, wolves surrounding me

If I can walk gently

Gently archways will turn to doors

We'll live into mirrors

Smokey lands for smokey sea

If I can touch your face softly

Softly cities will glow

Power won't march on grace nor thee

Three steps
dancing
three times, we're free

Places. Where we laughed –

The Mad Girls climb the wet hill,

breathe the sharp air through sick-green lungs.

The Wildest One wanders off like an old cow

and finds a steaming breast inside a footprint
in
the
snow
.

She slips it into her glove, holds it close like a darling.

At night, she suckles the lavender tit, still warm

in her hard little hands. She drapes it over her heart--

the closest she will ever come to a Woman Thing.

The girl sleeps on her right side with the breast

tucked between her legs. Her eyes
flutter
like
a rocked doll.

She dreams of Before the Father, when her body

was smooth as a crab, her fingers

tip-toe soft. Outside her bedroom, the
Lonesome
Boys

hid in trees to watch The Father lift her gown.

Before It Happened, her mouth was a shining crown,

her hair moved like a hungry dog.

In the morning, the girl is who she is again.

Her hair, a soft black brick, her body held together

by hammers. The breast is
shriveled
up
. Gone
cold

in her lap. A death-blue fish with one stone eye.

Girls, they tell tales of woe before their beds are minced in kind words and dirty tricks. Listen to their hands. They talk. What's been torn from their bones, the old ones at lazy angles? I want to remember their faces. Those girls I used to/wished to be/wished I'd been. Those girls; all them girls and their dreams. I want to remember their
faces
, bone and tissue, pride in ridges unattached, left charged in meaning something more. Fuck
abstractions
in this state. The world is not ending. Adjust.

The specifics of my face are easier to bear than the specifics of our claim to this, the ridges, their bone and
tissue
, blood, broken. Dead. Yes. The old ones. Known? No. Wanted? Yes. Known? No. But, yes. I know their faces. Smile over ridge
an
y
d
ay. My dad's dad, another ghost on a northern sidewalk, somewhere.

Tell me, do they begin? Hard-pressed for eternity, they dig for more
bone
. It's different now. My mom says so. She would know. She's been here longer. Her mom knew too. We would've gotten along, my mom says. We do. I talk to her as much as possible because she knows where I'm going with this.

When a man tells u he is different from the rest, read the book of Exodus in ur quiet time . . . this will train ur ankles, feet. Will teach you how to flee. This is important.

When you let them stomp blood out of your belly, cry yourself a “worth it” song. Repeat it in the shower, never mind the
wreckage
pooling at your feet.

When he side swipes you, make your eyes a
cracked windshield
. The railroad track holding your insides inside will become rusty . . . do not worry, he has already taken all of the electricity out of you. You cannot hurt anyone.

after the initial pain, train your body to immediately stop loving.

Do not take back all yo
u
have give
n
. 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
your
self. 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 ap
o
logy.
L
ou
d
, like the wail of a infant that has not yet been burped. Pat him on the back. Simple.

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

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