


INDUSTRY
I had an emotional bypass,
A valve job on my feelings.
Now I’m pure Teflon II.
Nothing sticks, nothing penetrates.
I have no reaction. Go ahead
Say something beyond description.
A white froth stays on my lips.
I am overcome by drugs generated in my glads.
Tears in my upholstery:
I’d like to give you something
Wonderful. I look for something
And go blind.
When these doors open
I expect love.
No reflection.
No models.
Sores in the heart
That won’t heal.
CLEAN LIVING
Dressed in fetish clothing
And hearing uncomfortably clearly.
I stretch a membrane of understanding
Across my eyes.
I will have no doubt the next time
I see your face.
I will find it easy to recognize the grace
Of misunderstanding you.
It will be like a perfectly sharpened
Knife.
My principles will fracture
Revealing all their petty foundations.
I will shake within the wall of language,
Waiting for a single pause where I might catch
My breath and identify my feeling
For you just this once.
There is no use.
I am smeared upon the words,
Barely able to buckle the straps
Around my body, barely able to attenuate
The vulnerable parts so they will gleam,
Terrifying, romantic in pure discourse.
HEADDRESSES
I suppose it was broken long before
We got here. There were rubber bands
Holding the wheels to the axles. The whole
Thing tipped and grumbled every time
It tried to do that walk it did.
Everyone still found it very entertaining.
Perhaps the questions it posed
Are unanswerable, like skeletons
Waiting by a windmill for the grass
To reveal the grim beast of the wood.
The forest listens to each leaf, each
Signature of love. It breaks the heart
To see the fields aflame like this,
but oh and oh and oh what
A wondrous view we have of heaven.
The swans. The clouds. The magnificent
Headdresses all comforted and astonished
That they are. We are forced to think
Of our mothers and when they finally
Showed us the great birds and
When we finally touched them
Any idea could be ours. The whole
Thing just clunked along like a good habit.
A MANUSCRIPT
Near the edge of a high cliff called Relan, a particular species of flower occurred, here and here only. Blue and yellow petals, tomatose leaves, a thick, fleshy stem and exhibited a variety of variations and sports that often changed the habit of the plane so significantly that it was, oftentimes unrecognizable to all but the serious botanist and a few magicians who climbed here at various times of the year to gather specific parts of the plant in order to create teas, poultices and mixtures of dried flower parts for secret purposes.
It was held that a tea made from the unusually silvery, slightly florescent petals of this plant could be counted on the generate pre-cognitive dreams in certain subjects. Those who sought this kind of information first observed a regimen of fasting, meditation and other practices in order to increase receptivity to the infusion. This tea is purported to be extremely astringent and yet quite flavorful. It does not keep well and is traditionally consumed within a fortnight of the gathering of these plant parts.
The dreaming generated by imbibing this infusion are often complex in structure but always, despite baroque ornamentation, unveil an action or occurrence that otherwise would have remained hidden from the dreamer for a longer period of time. One would waken knowing something would occur in one’s waking state. the dreaming however was not time or circumstantially specific. One could be assured however that when this event took place it would be recalled as the subject of the dreaming.
This kind of activity was not often made available to those pilgrims who sought these magicians council. The quest prompting such an exploration as this needed first to be determined to be pure inquiry, that is to say, that one could not ‘wish’ to know something for the purpose of causing harm to anyone else.
For example, one could not dream if someone would die on a journey, but one could dream the kinds of lessons one would learn on that journey. This kind of dreaming was valuable in determining the difficulty of a situation. A selfless inquiry would be most readily responded to by the tea although many questions had been posed by great kings and warriors concerning the outcome of future battles. The information gained usually informed them of the kind of weather on that day or a bit of news concerning a loved one that might be received on the same day.
The poultices made from the leaves and fibers of this singular plant were also of an extraordinary nature. At the hands of a master magician they could restore a tree from a cut stump, the memory of an old man, healthy skin to a damaged skin, eyesight to a dead eyeball and courage to a faint heart. Placed up the ears it could create a blessed an unique music to be heard that, in its unraveling healed and brought peace to a troubled mind.
So powerful were these leaves and fibers that horses...
Here the manuscript ends.
TANGO
Outside the air
conditioners breathe
against the weather.
The night
sways its milky light
through these rooms
pleading with time
that the junk of its moment
be preserved in
her dense folds.
We will have none of this.
We have not fallen from grace.
We are inside the fragile
shell of buildings.
We are alone again.
It is as if time
had never made such
another as ourselves.
We are a rare salt
of the heart spilling
each to each.
Here we cannot
hear the street
and its furnaces
of empty space, its
sweltering of forms.
We are moments on
the spine, pure sensation
coursing through the shock
of being chosen by each
to be together.
We hold each other
and listen to the
weave and spin
of the words
of the wave
weave and spin
of the words
weave and spin.
THE BIRDS THAT EAT IDEAS
(Ptaki Ktore Jedza Pomysty)
The shearwater stays just above
The tops of waves. The air pushes
Their bodies upward inches from
All the ideas of air and water.
Bodies of fire exclaim.
A ball of shining made of ivory,
Made of wood, made of the beaks
Of ten thousand shearwaters.
A scroll unfurls itself, full of allegations
About who gave what gift to whom,
A sliver mine, a pillow full of love
Being wound around sharpened pins forever.
Surely there is a way to keep
These ideas safe. They glow
Like old friendships slowly
Being dismantled by birds
Birds feeding on the soft music
Of believing in things like songs
And the idea that animals can fly.