Infinity Blues Page 6

and

  on the line with somebody

  releasing the hounds

  the dogs

  heated only for a second and those numbers flying

  and

  perfect shapes of lost causes darting ceaslessly up the avenue

  and shoppers shopping and people watching

  from the tops of red buses not on the night loop

  and fussing

  with car horns and the rustling of bags everywhere bags

  my god bags bags everything in them all around you

  even when the street ends

  and becomes the correct address

  or the park begins or ends

  this is our mess

  and i

  i hear for now the sound of bells

  like

  biblical and oughtta be horns

  or trumpets with figurative angels

  sitting there

  blowing like hell

  lunch mouthed and was it fish

  or was it like a soup with fish

  because the sound

  is not the only thing

  that

  coming from your mouth

  is so very very loud ha ha

  i made a joke with figurative angels

  involved

  oh well

  low gong

  goes the clouds

  pa-paw special

  the truth is

  i am always

  getting my

  feelings hurt

  because they

  are bigger

  than me or

  my hands

  and i have

  my grandfather’s

  hands

  capable and daring

  digits

  ten

  far from

  zero

  making

  somethings

  out of nothings

  being a believer

  these were things

  he liked

  and pranks

  he loved them

  i miss him every day

  i miss his laughter

  and his football commentary

  and eating t.v. tray dinners

  with him

  and his war stories

  and how

  he loved my grandmother so

  so

  so much

  he had a hat

  he had a cane

  he had an overcoat

  and a suit for when

  needed

  and he fought in two wars

  and cried

  cried sometimes

  silently

  as i sat beside him

  both of us looking

  out into the light

  shifting through

  the spaces in the

  leaves of the

  magnolia tree

  in front of the

  house

  where i really

  grew up

  he couldn’t stand

  Dave Letterman though

  the way i can’t stand

  Carson Daly

  so there was that

  but

  easily forgivable

  for the man who

  said to me once,

  “Ryan, you are not like other children

  you are special and it will be tough

  but just never forget this

  if you never forget anything in your life …

  Never …

  Bet …

  Against …

  Yourself.”

  my grandfather

  That is who i would like to be

  when i never grow up

  for growing in.

  Anxiety and Hope

  Our City

  It’s a Jewel

  Misted

  and Hushed

  By Its Own Hand

  It Is a Fiction

  And a Kid

  Bubbled Up and Popped

  Like a Thought

  All Loud

  and

  Forgot

  Like a Girl

  Heels Dress and Gown

  At a Ball

  After the Ball Comes Down

  And All Acquaintance

  Be Forgot

  Etc

  Is Nothing

  Compared to the Glass

  When the Glass Got Dropped

  on the Crystal Tile

  Like That

  In a Moment

  So Fast

  It Passes on the Street

  In a Heat Flash

  In the Flurries

  of Holiday Bodies

  and Cheer

  Misted

  and Hushed

  Like my Old Heart

  It’s a Jewel

  Our City

  But without you

  it’s just glass and steel

  reflection-pretty

  and lonely

  with a me inside it

  feeling shitty

  with hope

  or

  anxiety

  Return to Santa

  “hope,

  did you have the party?

  did you?

  under the soft light of their fathers’ money

  and the

  swift movement of capable arms of an electrician

  specialized in illuminating rooms

  for the lacking of heart

  did you?

  because i saw the red light on

  way up in the terraced balconies

  one looked almost fell

  and i thought of you

  and your friend

  my loss

  i never caught their names

  their drunken clothes too expensive to name

  as they rum-tongued each other

  street-side

  in the almost rain

  you stood beside me

  and didn’t see

  me

  as i watched you mouth the lines of each amnesia kiss

  was it her you wanted

  or maybe

  him–

  to get to her;

  you never know, with an allergic bundle of bad skin

  they

  grab your arm just right

  and wrap those fingers tight

  and that’s enough

  you know

  to get me through a night

  and like a fool

  i dove right in.

  hope,

  did you bury the rest

  did you make them stalkers too

  even though

  you have been separated by every one

  continental

  in hospital

  or

  worse, you imagined them–

  a broken stone

  at

  each grave

  you

  dug with your bloodied fingernails

  you bite

  while you think you sleep soundly

  in your perfect snore

  in the dark

  between lines of rude yellow light

  you stole their favorite shirts too

  i bet

  that future-boys

  they would have meaning too

  did you

  I didn’t get enough dirt

  you didn’t dig deep enough

  or did you think,

  ’oh, he is just a hick from the street

  and his connections will do

  those hicks, they grow tired

  and

  eventually sleep

  so you can steal their shoes

  and feel

  what it is like

  to be

  a contender

  in the ring

  my face beaten into piles of bruises

  and toothless smiling’

  i can hear you

  in the hall

  it was foreign

  but i understood it all

  ’oh daddy’

  you will always be the one for me />
  fill it up

  for another drink up in the country

  with the man

  who sold his project kid

  for a box

  for people to stuff their faces

  full of slutpowders in

  i should have split the sails

  that night

  alone

  on one of those ships

  in the piers of copenhagen

  with my veins

  and

  lashed it into stuffing for future pillows

  for your

  useless night banging

  and

  perfectly acceptable excuses

  later

  when explaining

  oh, hope

  you know

  she always has these things

  we gather, no regrets

  life is a fucking party

  and we summon the spirits

  of the coldest things

  once

  to be heard

  twice

  to be sold

  you are so far from feeling

  and

  being a cutter

  is just not anything but work

  once

  it ruins a loaner

  you ice your soul down

  with

  elderly fat drunken thanksgiving turkeys

  who have a job

  destroying others people’s life work

  for more money

  they would never use

  attention is attention

  and

  that thing

  you carry

  like it was born into your hand

  will turn

  you back from stone

  to flesh

  one day again

  if the galaxy is set free to balance itself

  after your pummeling

  of the naïve

  if only a sign

  from that other soulless fuck-face

  god,

  if only he was the perfect man

  then

  the rest of us

  could all go home

  back

  to Santa

  and

  wait until

  someone dreamed of being loved too much

  elsewhere

  on a planet

  where

  somehow

  they forgot to make cowards

  return to sender

  address

  North Pole

  i was

  a living present

  for

  some

  asshole

  and

  god help,

  i am sorry

  but

  today i don’t feel so good

  and

  i don’t care anymore

  who loses

  because

  we

  all know

  when a man is left to his own ruined soul

  it is never a matter of if

  but

  when”

  For Your Tears

  those people out there, who are they

  intruders

  bylines

  and ghosts

  fit to wreck it all in a night

  take down the house

  board by board

  replace the walls with bottles

  emptied out one by one

  till we are see-through

  like souls at sail

  souls at sail

  on fire

  water in the pails

  allergic

  and getting higher

  draw me a map of those stars

  and i’ll sleep in here

  and you will die a little

  for your tears

  Orange

  A hand to touch

  A fit, to mask or shake just what

  It is January or not

  Time splinters off in a drool well

  It rains or it stops raining

  A sink clogs or it stops draining

  The mask falls off

  A new bouquet swells

  A sneeze lets loose

  In the house the animals stir

  The print on the couch dwells

  It lets go of its color

  And the light fades

  What color is that?

  What moment is that?

  What figure is drawn?

  On what eyes?

  A child yawns

  A seat on the bus is closed

  This light, This year, This hour

  It multiplies itself by the word

  It goes soup on the bowl

  And the bowl draws near

  Its color revealed

  A kind sleep

  A hellish dream

  On my skin that sun goes orange

  And I burn myself

  And my eyes cave in

  This horror of time clicks my heels

  It laughs that laugh of cruel poses

  Our dreams are not our collective

  But submission is easier

  When we pretend this together

  A fantasy a clock

  A hand designs hour not hands

  A minute exposes cracks

  A time forgets us

  A stop

  My eyes hurt

  It is too much

  Orange

  We Paint Together

  we paint together

  something smallish

  crooked wirey

  dissolving like gray candy

  on white dinner plates

  and i talk and i talk

  and i t a l k

  i am so full of shit

  and i don’t know i don’t know

  till i hear us talk

  when you talk like adults

  and i am trapped

  like a kid in a boxy room

  my mouth shuts

  a trapped door

  and piles of dirt

  for brooms

  sweeping the ends of the earth

  for rainbows

  i feel like i misspell

  when the thoughts come put

  out

  like collected cows

  flatulent and cross

  like city weather

  i am a subway map of the stars

  trains do not go

  to

  yet.

  Writing, Dying, for the Trying

  in ten seconds

  an alley cat

  will rush through the marshes

  and break the glass

  into my arms

  with a bucket full of cash

  and i will still be here

  sober sober sober

  writing dying for the trying to get right

  in no quick succession

  a gang of ducks

  will surrender the enemy

  haven just given up

  like a train cliché

  running through my head banging

  and i will still be here

  helplessly helplessly sober

  writing dying for the trying to get right

  when the belly

  laughs

  when the head

  hurts

  when the bed

  groans

  when the mind

  goes

  i will still be sitting here, with you, or not, buried inside this, almost alive,

  talking to no one

  writing dying for the trying to get right

  The Statue of Liberty Is French, Asshole

  Shock sets in

  the blast of the hot air touches her face

  like a lover might have

  with hot electric sand mouth

  and cabinets inside her

  made of grot

  from over the ocean

  a witty french girl with spikes

  almost mossy

  a shade of green

  sick tone

  the statue of liberty

  is on the outs to
night

  for a hot bang

  in the

  stinking piles

  of garbage in Brooklyn

  Oh, you know

  roof parties

  and

  and sensible girl gives it up

  one night a week

  i mean

  one night a year

  in that same

  that

  same dress

  how

  are

  they to know that

  those

  easy boys all of them those easy boys

  you

  are

  so

  stupid

  fuck you

  says the Statue of Liberty

  to Brooklyn

  pissing

  into

  an

  ocean of

  dead

  bodies

  I Am One of Those

  I am one of those

  Satisfaction machines

  coal dust sooting the hillsides with ash

  and sky gone gray night after night

  day after day

  always

  long machine moans and out of context it’s beautiful

  to a fool

  then comes the Scotch

  and the cigarette stains

  and the food floor and the blanket gets sauced

  with burn marks

  and pocketed shirts for cigarettes

  bad-breath dreams

  and no dog because the dog stays with the girl

  and girls don’t like their alcoholics when the dust settles

  and they dream of their father dying

  and no amount of night is enough

  for an unsettled stomach

  in a girl

  so pushing past the dresser drawer to be pilfered through

  looking for notes from a boy not me

  and socks and things i don’t understand

  comes the bitter parts of panic

  and outside the stars sing into plastic cups

  into trucks of cars and beds of trucks

  tailgated in the suburbs

  New Jersey parking lots filled up with yesterday’s puddles

  reflecting the lights of some steel plant

  consumed with people roaches and rats

  and Disney dreams

  and me

  and my bad habits

  screaming commands to their children my years of pain

  my past

  and I fuck them over for every day straight

  wrenches in the Satisfaction machine

  and a great white fuck you

  to everything I was

  But inside

  I am still one of those

  The Whole Universe Is God’s Shithole Apartment Complex

  this whole thing is an organism

  a machine

  i count endless stars

  like atoms and space between them

  we’re bugs

  bugs on the cell

  bringing down the house

  and the house is fell

  this whole universe is a trap

  with hair

  i bet probably or not

  something with some kind of eyes

  these flickering stars

  its tiny insides

  i still want to fuck her on the hillside

  though

  i am just that way

  built out of dreams