Infinity Blues Read online

  silently

  without an end

  and yet

  this springtime scare

  it is inevitable

  and something inside the gray

  it is growing

  if the rest of the world were as selfish as you are

  regardless of heaven or hell

  or an afterlife, where a soul is judged

  you would not be here

  for your lack of faith

  in the service of others

  and for what is decent

  and the waitress smiles

  and goes into her station

  where you can’t see her

  and cries

  I am not doing myself or anyone any good on this fucking earth, fuck

  fuck it all

  giggle

  I bet you see me

  right now

  writing this

  and think

  “I want that vacuum”

  the one on the t.v.

  in the window

  but

  if you knew her

  and knew me

  would you

  you know

  want it still

  or see

  I am going to trace your outlines with my fingers

  even though the maid will come

  and remove us both

  by sundown

  this is how it is

  I am kind of investigating myself now

  in a thick stab

  of openings

  and I guess

  all it took was that look

  between

  you

  me

  and this time machine

  revolving

  around the moon

  before

  I knew what it meant to feel something again

  that didn’t

  feel like diving through a mirror

  or falling through a burning river

  I will sleep tomorrow

  then awake

  and shiver

  and be alone again

  with only me to fight the dark of day back against that wall

  but somewhere

  I

  will hear you giggle

  say something

  don’t just stand there

  say something

  say something

  27 Steps

  Robert stood on the docks, his favorite shirt stained with fish blood, the wire mesh nets behind him, over him like spiderwebs, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows and his arms a boxer’s size. At this age a man does not do this type of work, the old men must have thought, as they peeled the gloves from their hands while the younger fishermen dumped the flinching silver diamond-eyed fish into the once-green buckets, now more filthy white. The boats surrounding were older, and beaten alive by salt and war winds and however many times it had been beached for the scraping of the coral. Robert stood on the docks.

  His eyes upon the city behind the pier, and the organized messes upon the beach seemed more like chaos to the wanderers and to the fishermen too, probably sometimes, but so did this skyline. And somewhere inside, somewhere, he would find the bookbinder who crafted for him a sheath to protect his words. Twice did his notebooks go down, or so to speak, when sailing through a storm, everyone calm, and aware of each wave only as a heartbeat inside a chest on a busy day.

  Some of the writing was damaged, but not really, you could read every word but he was fickle and alone out there. A man is only what he has to say, you know, inside, and that was Robert anyway. From day one. From day one he knew his name. And that was a good spell ago but not exactly forever from yesterday.

  “Oh, Robert,” his sister’s only friend Claudia said, half cheeped or yelped, in her funny voice. “Oh, Robert, I am over here, over H E R E,” hand waving madly through the air. As she ascended the foot of the pier.

  A simple yellow dress with a handkerchief, slightly orange, tangerine orange, and bright blue eyes also. Not even 25.

  “Hello, Fruitface,” Robert said, kneeling as he knotted a bag of clothes, a pair of simple black shoes, atop the cloth sack. A dark blue cloth and a small white rope like pair of lines ran directly right and left and his hands, they were huge, with fingernails beaten slightly around the base and only a few of the smaller ones showing signs of being recently bloodied or bruised with blue gold copper—looking wear. His hands were the size of good and bad ideas, like two for one, or separate. Claudia liked them.

  “Hello there, sailor, ha, who says that? Right, I mean, it’s funny to say that, I suppose, so how are you, or, are you ready to go? We certainly better put a push on it if we want to get a taxi before 4…” Claudia’s voice mumbled through, in a steady up-and-down notation, almost a bird’s song with words really. And you hear the coffee in her.

  “Yes, yes, let’s get going. I believe I am as tired as I have ever been,” Robert laughed. “How are you, lovely?”

  Claudia removed her gloves (she wore gloves, don’t ask) and leaned against the wooden telephone pole—sized beam which rung the last few steps of the pier before it hit the concrete mess, a few of them side-by-side impromptu loading ramps, with wet sand (gray) and loose sand (bottle-blond and white) bunched up beside and blowing smoothly over, as the wind was only below the streets above and the roar of the West Side Highway and it could be the traffic maybe that replaced that quiet roar of wind, but you imagined they were making the sound, you thought it would have to be one or the other, but above, behind them, that was a wind of only noise and motion and the bending of time. That is what a person does when they live in there, inside the fault lines of a thousand buildings with as many windows multiplied by however many times.

  She leaned her neck back to take in the sun from the simple blue sky forever shining light off the waters, put her hand to her side, and let out a sigh. “Some- times, Robert,” she paused, “sometimes… sometimes a woman doesn’t need the weight of a man.”

  Then she turned as she removed her glasses and smiled.

  “That day is not today,” Claudia muttered through a set of almost shut lips, her mouth as straight as any line.

  Robert stood up now from collecting his few things, a simple dark blue cloth bag and a few books to be rebound and covered in plastic or a binding shell. And he smiled, as they together lunged into a laugh, her arm reaching over to his side, and off they jutted like a painter’s line up the dull gray colors of the rocks, to the orange burst and light explosions above them, on the other side of the boats, 27 steps up.

  Pretty with Laughter Coming

  Geologists

  are they

  dirty people?

  tied to rocks. they know equations for what is what.

  they probably understand

  the rust

  under your nails

  our nails

  Either way this afternoon was too boat-shaped

  and

  grew sails

  and

  off I went into

  one of my spells

  I couldn’t sleep

  I never do

  so well

  so

  there is thunder now in my fingertips

  from orange paint

  and I can’t tell

  anymore

  if I should be tired or faint

  for

  the rain outside

  that blue

  and

  the coffee I made

  it’s all

  a

  long

  series of days anyways

  and

  I am happy

  to

  imagine a new set of legs moving

  soon

  where

  I will not be walked over

  or

  trampled on again

  like

  so many rocks

  on a mountain

  made

  of

  bubblegum eyes, cotton insides

  and
>
  just a touch of man

  in balance

  in a wind

  by

  a single stick

  in the sand

  and

  now we are on this beach so it is up to someone else

  or I am for the taking in

  taking home

  or

  left for the waters

  to

  carry me in

  back

  into the

  dark black of the sea

  where you cannot see your hand

  two feet

  just black

  and

  I’m hoping

  I see

  the shoes

  when the hand comes down to brush me off

  and hear a giggle

  before that

  it is not yet afternoon

  and

  there are plenty of

  hours

  in the day left

  and

  I saw something pretty

  with

  laughter

  coming

  By the Words

  something funny happens

  in the heat

  under the fireball out west

  I go to light my morning smoke

  just one

  in the morning

  not one a.m.

  a single stick of wake-up blast

  to match my cup

  of muddy frenzy

  and I can’t see the flame

  for the light

  a coyote nest is in the brush

  is it a nest of bones or paper?

  maybe debris

  from shopping gone wrong

  or a lost

  canyon sweater

  turned article of questions

  that part I don’t know

  this is still me

  and I am here but I am half dreamed

  gassy and all man in the morning

  cocked and loaded

  and stumbling like a drunk

  until I light that fuse

  and submit myself

  to the word

  the morning word that is just this

  a desert hides beneath the surface

  its tree its flower its highway

  congested like a face

  of a child

  melted into mexican and american indian

  dreamlike where television comes from

  and I only see her with others

  in the last part of my slumber

  after I wake up once

  but decide for christmas again

  I will go back to bed

  to give my body a new present of rest

  and peace

  something funny happens

  when I know I am now awake

  even in the last bit

  of my dreaming

  I see you

  and I choose your laugh with others

  I pick ones, I know their names

  always james, always zack

  some hack

  with a bank account and a phone

  that rings like a rooster cooing hens

  it is how I undo the ribbon

  on the boxes of pain you wrapped for me

  under a tree of pain

  my mother planted

  a long time ago

  and just for me

  but I can’t carry this for you

  my arms are tired

  my heart wasted

  and a new body makes my wish

  separates the fan from blade and grill

  my fingers won’t go in

  on the new watch

  I am meant to heal

  which I do

  but from her laugh and her eyes

  one at a time

  I hear you say “no regrets” and I die

  over and over

  a single stick of wake-up blast

  to match my cup

  of muddy frenzy

  and I can’t see the flame

  for the light

  so

  I light that fuse

  by the guesses we have in a single soul

  and submit myself

  to the word

  the morning word that is just this

  and pray

  a prayer of getting up and being ready

  to release the payload

  of just

  one more day

  if that is all I have

  this is how we pray

  once we pass

  through fire

  if we do not pass at all

  or only for one last time

  in a stumbling block of dreaming

  far away

  in a memory

  in a new way

  locked down in a jail of old questions

  and

  time

  then I am alive now

  one by one

  by the words

  A Book of Spells

  How to make a Book of Spells

  is not the question exactly

  is it,

  but

  How might one make a spell to outlast his mouth

  and for the thing

  inside the face

  that makes it spit words like machine-gun fire

  or

  explosions needed

  4th of July–esque

  or just a spinning

  and a self

  How might one make that book

  is what

  and why

  and

  I guess maybe everyone should and we would know more

  about why

  why

  why you say I hope you fail

  as if by sharing I am trying to win a something

  or

  beat you to the metal where the apples float

  because

  once you open your mouth

  and start bobbing

  we are all an ass

  whether or not

  we are publishing

  and

  that is why

  and how

  Now

  Poetry Is a Zombie

  Poetry

  What is that really

  It is the closed Mall Where Zombies Feast on Brains

  In my t.v.

  When I lie in bed at night

  And should be thinking about sex

  Poetry

  Outmoded

  Taken Over and Ammended Beautifully

  By Hip-Hop Culture

  Made Useless by Napkin Commercials

  Poetry

  Dead Languages

  It works for This

  Did You Know

  There are people out there, some women

  Who read poetry

  Who read

  And who live by the word for lack of the touch or the word

  Or someone to touch

  Or that these books

  Are

  Much better than firewood

  I don’t know anymore

  Really

  I am very very stoned

  And it is mid-afternoon

  And I am talking to you

  And I don’t know

  Who

  Or

  Where you are

  This

  Is

  Poetry

  Cinderella

  Cinderella

  between the legs where the balls are

  that’s the wink

  that’s the fucking subway rattle

  so fuck you

  and see it from the balls

  and the place

  where the fire is and where the hot comes from

  because you are cold

  and your fences are brittle

  and the wires look a mess

  and the chickens and animals run loose

  out your sad gate

  then tell me about that music in my mind

  when you whistle out of step

  tuneless in time

  with a fe
athered cap and a gown

  and a seeded palm

  to seduce the ships from the safe waves

  into the rocks

  with your wicked lighthouse lights

  shining black on water

  in that fucking night

  I am too young for this

  I am too old for that

  I am too weak for you

  between my legs where the balls are

  my battleships are pirated

  my seas triggered with anger

  and the wrath

  of the day of the dogs

  so cast your wicked eyes from mine

  and be a child

  but not to me

  because I am further now than gone

  and your feet give you away

  with your dark heart path

  and those shoes

  so wrong

  you are weaker than those drinks

  with those girlyboys

  fruit, seafoam, glass, and umbrella

  chase it to the bottom of the pile

  it’s trash

  and I am glorious in my natural bottomless rage

  and far too clean

  Cinderella

  Tonight, We Ride…

  Tonight,

  Tonight we ride into the collapses and see

  Bring a torch

  Bring a light

  and a rod

  for testing if the ground is water-signed

  and

  bring a book of mythology

  be mythos bound or not

  and

  let’s go underground

  on

  these imaginary horses

  we cannot name them

  for they fall

  easily

  in such tremendous battles

  with the army of spiders

  and rats and

  whatever that huge scary thing is over there–whatever you

  call that

  Tonight

  Tonight,

  We cast an arm above the water the size of what is too big

  and too high up

  like above the stories once falls

  and laughs it off

  even in anomalies at kentucky college keg parties

  But really to be honest

  there is much slowing down

  slowing down

  going on

  I have seen it all around

  even the dreamers, they look tired now

  as those drugs, even

  those drugs, even

  do not work like they once must have

  even if you wanted to

  and

  forget that

  even the dreamers now are tired

  and they,

  they are the ones alongside me

  as we say

  TONIGHT

  and shout that ever so naïve, us in the middle years

  it comes off childish

  but it is just pre-old