Infinity Blues Page 4

  to something

  anything

  symmetrical lines ripe with train machines

  like arms

  branches of trees stuck to this rock

  out-stretching

  blowing up fast

  through

  shadow mole-holes

  and

  rain

  rain rain rain

  so dirty

  so dirty and mean

  hands like a battling machine

  like a failed robotic attempt

  like an interruption at the movies

  like texting your former lover

  or future

  because he will not stop your nevers

  not here

  with a little touch of america

  at your service door

  flags in the yard

  dogs in the house

  his name above

  loose and no growl

  little ones go teary and cross

  while the plate gets heavy with

  cigarettes and lip gloss

  and gin-scum breath

  and cigarette-tray stains

  and a hand gets bit by an animal

  but nobody screams

  or says anything

  the mall dies

  so eventually

  store by store

  the zombies outside they aren’t scary anymore

  before the movies went cold before before

  and the film backed up on the shilling and trade post

  and chicken meat got hormonal and plain

  so dirty

  so dirty

  and so mean

  little and loud

  angry

  and effortlessly proud

  of nothing

  and plain

  just a little touch of america

  rain

  rain rain rain

  Becausewhy

  because we are bored

  We War

  Because we are bored

  We Fuck

  sexy or not

  and

  Because we were born to fight

  inside

  we know

  our children too, eventually will die

  this is how it is

  in the universe of ours

  us against time

  and

  in this place,

  show me where god stood up

  and said otherwise

  i say he does not speak

  and may be everything

  inside that thought

  you are allowed

  but may not keep

  for the growing

  of things

  immeasurable

  i have not seen him

  while i have been alive

  and regardless

  heaven

  that would not work

  if men and women

  were anything like this

  someplace else

  especially an elsewhere

  of brights

  and

  if so

  that is not a good place to go

  i would not dine there

  how could one relax

  infinitely

  in a place like that

  so why?

  becausewhy

  that’s what

  that’s what they say

  right before

  “shut up”

  and i’m like

  ok

  no

  never.

  Fuck-Face.

  Sisters

  two of them

  sisters

  one of them

  my lover

  t.v. on stutter

  news on gray

  room aged white

  windows half open

  early,

  but night

  two of them

  sisters

  one of them

  my lover

  both of them

  i like

  i like

  they look at funny pictures

  inside fashion magazines

  while people say the world

  it is dying

  i think it is

  i think a lot

  i think it might

  don’t sigh

  i had a panic attack, then tea

  there were these monsters

  just outside of me

  in this place, this rotten hole

  of a face

  a church mouse wouldn’t enter

  even bother

  to remember

  crossed

  like a crucifix lost

  or an open-backed dress

  you buy at cost

  i feel calm

  around them

  early,

  but night

  hotel room bed

  bathed in the pillow-fight

  not happening

  nice blanket

  unusually nice

  sisters

  two of them

  one of them my lover

  two of them

  i like

  i like

  Electric Blue

  Electric Blue light, right outside,

  makes audible light, noisy-like

  i think of nada

  clear

  like imagining everything before it emerged

  from the deep

  it’s all new

  my eyes are having a birthday party

  happiness is invited

  c’mon down

  my lens are stuck and what,

  what is this color?

  Electric Blue Audible Orb

  something

  as if i mean to say, “the sky outside,

  and the buildings, they’re being born now, ok?”

  before my very soul

  and i

  i would weep if it weren’t for the joy or say

  lack of water in the well, where

  i buried myself again today

  in those stupid sorrows

  your memories, are they worth even a dollar

  in pennies

  you count, you’re good at that

  Amulette

  your house is the spinner

  brown

  tornado

  pulling up trucks and telephone poles

  in the cotton-swell of rows of corn

  like danglings

  and you

  you stick me inside that place

  that bomb shelter

  and tell me i am safe

  i am NOT

  but in you i know a terrible truth

  the colors and a texture

  like a strawberry sundae

  cool pink and glass

  and melting all over the place

  only thing missing–polka dots

  and

  a few books on outer space

  i saved some just in case

  thank god

  on the day we said goodbye to you and saluted the sea

  no one

  a casket slipping into the ocean like Elvis

  a mystery

  made of dream-silk

  and spiders’ eyes

  that see everything to better invade a space

  that your quiet punishment coughs go loudly in

  and

  it was as if you were lost at sea

  and

  god, even a few of my guy friends wept

  seriously

  what the fuck

  what are you, a magician

  is that your disappearing act?

  my insides

  become my outsides

  so yuck

  and are asked to leave

  these numbers next to the words they go nicely like they’re told

  they go well with all this red, this book-binder and pen

  fitting nicely in my front pocket

  and your umbrella matched

  no hood this time

  just a heeled foot
<
br />   a scarf and some gloves

  and

  my knees riddled with knicksandknacks from thisandthat

  but puddle-water happy

  jumping

  and

  rain-come-down wanting

  sigh

  i will sit here forever, me, just wondering why

  watching

  each pulse ripple from my neck vein on sheets

  whimpering

  like it was forever

  for a second

  on repeat

  BUT

  this is not pain

  like

  that was not love

  like

  this is all new

  like

  either way i am set free

  and

  like an animal

  under the harsh globe metal-armed light

  i get sewn back up

  insides intact

  but no anesthetic

  eyes put back in

  paws lifted

  trying to understand english all of a sudden

  how is this so

  is this Electric-Rodeo Accident sky?

  letting the puddles be the color i make

  when i mix orange and white

  plus gloss and clouds

  if clouds are around

  to be stuck in my paint’s muck

  how?

  how is this so?

  my god

  my soul will surely explode

  i am going to run my hand up the side of that pillar

  like it was a sweaty-day leg under a fake yellow sun

  and your back

  was just lifted up against the bark

  and from your knee

  to the middle of your thigh

  i have hands

  big ones

  Idea-sized

  that fucking pillar has to be crazy tall

  glowing gray

  also with a halo

  and rain-shatter wind-spray dribble

  singular then plural

  if i could, i would

  undo that sky’s dress

  one shoulder strap at a time

  and

  mouth the words

  to

  the longest song

  tune cracked

  till it fell apart

  into a pool of pink dots

  faint

  from come

  and something a little louder than prayer

  my

  fucking

  word

  oh my

  Dreamlines for Critics

  Could ever a line cover this face; if we are the dreamers, dear reader

  could it, i don’t know, it’s fun to say, say it out loud and clearly and let it go

  like a hand releasing something alive

  like a telephone call ending

  like a design flaw

  could a line cover this; we need answers; we need people on this

  wood-paneled desks; cheap and with good typewriters; coffee

  a few eccentrics and their cigarettes and someone, a drinker with no aftermints–

  capable;

  that is what

  like an office to sort through this–

  because

  if we are reading poetry together now then one of us is amiss

  and lost sort of, or looking;

  because all that life is on the other side of the word

  though the word

  how much concrete is it really

  right

  how much weight on your back

  right

  and that flight of stairs outside every time

  god it changes

  it changes

  it changes

  people might not understand that from far away

  we might all look like alley cats

  even when we wear our best

  expensive coat and vest

  too tired in places, we might look

  to someone

  far outside this field

  of the word

  its lights burning up dark mellowing spaces in the overbite of entrances and

  exits

  or be they the same

  you know

  it’s all a bit “coming” and “going”

  if you have no place really

  you were going

  and

  from a small window atop it all

  it just looks like little flakes

  street snowing

  with faces

  or

  too many ants going too many places

  could a line ever cover this;

  i wonder

  but not really

  because

  it is all here before us, dear reader, in the word

  we find the balance

  and the bird

  and the string to its claw

  and its message

  if it is a falcon

  if it is a carrier pigeon

  stalled

  and

  like all of them

  it might

  just

  end up belly-up in a fountain

  and

  there is always a woman crying on these streets alone hurrying home

  at least

  if you keep your eyes open long enough

  and

  have the stomach for it

  to see

  and no line could cover that or her

  but a homemade quilt and some kind of corner-store dessert

  because

  soon

  those tears go wilder than that and a face is a drowning place

  and

  something in the dream has given way while the dreamer

  was half sleeping

  and half living all awake

  but

  letting it happen anyway

  right

  right?

  I don’t know either, but

  either way

  Can a line ever cover this; if that is the question we need a crew, a team, a mass

  of engineers

  worthy of the pursuit of the mystery

  of the origin of tears

  because

  it goes back before

  the boy or girl

  and the broken vase or plate

  or the screaming

  or the other person inside their clothes

  when they might have been

  at their friend’s house

  that afternoon

  long before

  long before

  the being born

  that sadness is an ancient thing, an aged storm

  a reminder maybe

  really, only

  and

  something inside you is a clock that is ticking in

  to count the things

  that

  lift you up and

  drag you under

  for

  the swells of air if air were water

  and

  a line cannot cover this

  so

  no more lines

  no more lines

  no more lines

  no more waiting

  no more crying

  no

  not if you would like to return to the base you

  in your soul

  because the sun is shining there

  and the scary part

  is really

  the packing and getting ready to go

  because

  once you are done

  and the sheets are soaked

  and the mouth is shut

  and

  you are there with your bags in hand and a motion is about

  to set in, you are in charge

  of your body

  and your things

  and

  you know

  willing

  that is where the next step begins

  and

  if we are dreamers

  a line must cover what a lin
e could never cover because

  because

  when they go,

  and they are gone for good,

  as are you,

  a line is all we have

  and

  all that’s left

  so

  get busy dreaming on the line dreamer

  and

  i will meet you in the after

  if

  it lets us

  have a say

  and

  we will collect those lines together

  maybe

  even

  forever

  Taxi after Taxi…

  Taxi after Taxi, I found the horrors; eventual and coming; with a dress; with shoes. Chrysler Building refracting mirrored balls of total madness; the throat choke ten paces from tears, and my face, just the face of a man with new losses to count. This was how it was. This was how it was meant to be. That is what they say to you, your friends, right when the shit is fresh upon the fan, “what will be…” But the colors of an overcoat and the sound of a voice and what fall and winter will mean feel almost as though a storm is on the face of the mountain and exhausted, you are resting in a foot-hold and your gloved hands are stiffening anyway inside the gloves, as the rope swings like a pendulum under new phone numbers to be cut, with a waiting madman below, rubbing his hands together like right before dinner, and you know two things: you are about to fall, and that man below is you.

  Is this what a heart ache is?

  No.

  This is what it means to find the wall.

  For every one worth any kiss would surely break them all, if you lined them up,

  like bowling balls

  and gave THAT ONE the heavylight blue marble ball with the three holes.

  One for each finger, not counting the thumb.

  PRAY FOR A STRIKE

  1. Whoever he is, be he now or next, he is better than you.

  2. Reduce the amount of shoes you wear to only one pair; looking down will be

  new to you so steadily.

  3. Pray for tears and might, because they will come for you, in the middle of the

  afternoon when her feet do not, and,

  not to sound redundant,

  but

  Taxi after Taxi, we all know the horrors of the night;

  the phone numbers that will not be yours and be his or theirs, you will not

  speak through,

  there is a party somewhere and they are not focusing on you—and do not hear

  sobbing

  for music and the possibility.

  My God, where is this and why; this is what I think or what I thought as I

  watched this last storm go by and destroy the house, for its windows to the garden

  looking out, the other side, shrouded in a swarm of doubt around the

  trees we planted too fast and too suddenly and this is

  how it goes, and this is how it was meant to be.

  But in these moments, when a lover leaves, you would like very much the

  wrench and the blueprints

  of Destiny,

  not the hooker Destiny or the dancer you met at the screening of a comedy, a

  stage a theater on a street midtown where people do not live, or if they live

  there you have never met those people for they live in the heart of the sun of a