01 /
owl always love her
white lilac trees and champagne balconies •• a grey rain takes reign •• it cd be we’re so elegant, dressed as we were, in our rags of hymns and ghosts •• b/c where you go, i go too •• i am probably in Barter Books in Alnwick, Northumberland •• then i am in the drawing room of an old New England house across from Wesleyan •• listening to a young spinster play piano •• watching square-peg girls in love w/ their best friends’ boyfriends playing effeuiller la marguerite •• part flamenco, part ineffable •• [stark staring, i love her] •• nevertheless, i am reading a textbook on how to design airports, or an insulation manual for post-war tract housing •• nevertheless, i am drawn into another languorous world, and the wasted time waltzes back, sometimes •• these crippled symmetries •• i put my ear to her chest and listen •• [but where did she come from?] •• smoke off crumpled paper in the ashtray next to a dining room table littered w/ guns and bespoke balloons •• materializing light •• a Rotring Xonox Graphic as it depicts “owl always love her” in a tattered Leuchtturm 1917 •• i came to see everything as a willow of white phosphorus at the end of the red carpet •• a bolero or a French film acting out the cognitive dissonance of trying to dwell in a handful of worlds concurrently •• a funeral parade of roses •• like a man praising a woman’s beauty to her •• classically brilliant and erotic •• a sparse landscape w/ bird skeletons as resonance for inner emotions •• [Between 2 Battles, The Warrior Has A Well-Deserved Rest At The Soft Breast Of His Beloved Lady And Dreams Of Other Despairs And Victories] •• somewhere in between bleeding broadcasts of the evening news and the nightly Top 20 •• there is a mild sadness that permeates everything •• i put my ear to the ceiling and wait for the transmission’s tenebrism •• it’s enough to give a lapsed Catholic nightmares •• then i am in the attic, reading •• “when i thought abt it, it seemed to me that the human heart was a very primitive instrument” •• i remember there was the time someone installed a transistor radio in their heart and the chambers filled w/ blood •• coming back from the country after taking the cure
02 /
the high sadness condition evoked less arousal than the low sadness condition
a vice-versa'd golf umbrella
all skeleton, Maybelline eyeliner-black
placid beauty
an orchid, or a tumor, or i forgot;
a sad expression
surprisingly suffused w/ colour—
the wilderness of our time has been exorcized
white moth whiskey; 5 o'clock cocktails
i come to you, as always:
ballerinas creaky on wooden floors...
nude, repairing a revolver;
sledgehammer symbolism, sure
the heart is just
a series of on-ramps
chasing sunsets to forever elude the sunrise—
yet, to find oneself unable,
low-voltage, too, a quiet hum...
i immediately fell in love
w/ that picture;
my heart is ramshackle, he sd, rural
stapled w/ swill
just as inextricably stitched up
w/ a crooked cobweb, an American Dream
abscessed w/ guilt…
not glamourous or stark, it has to be
love at first sight:
sheared w/ arrhythmia & bramble
i had it framed
drinking aftershave from the bottom half
of a matryoshka doll—
03 /
to
refurbish a skeleton's ribcage into a stereo cabinet
for
Justin Jones
imagine
roaring lions, drugstore kites, and Carry On Wayward Son
telephone
booths, Old Master oil colours, up escalators
a
sword fight w/ outboard motors
imagine
sharing a 2009 Black Label Claret w/ a street arab
[as
i've been damned more than once…]
or
anxiolytics, Mt. St. Helens, bright orange Bantam paperbacks
classified
black ops files
a
Westinghouse Mosin-Nagant M1891 → Kill The Moonlight
[as
his heart is decidedly in the right place]
imagine
argyle-sweater sadness, a prie-dieu
the
iconic door of 10 Downing Street
perhaps
then we’d have the first intimation of Our Lady of the Flowers
[as
such, the tragedy]
rooster-tail
bass flute, Fentanyl, stillness and nostalgia
the
Meth of a Rockette’s Kick
imagine
J.C. Leyendecker’s “Couple Descending a Staircase”
an
Oldfield’s Rarebit yearbook c. 1914
[as
it’s everything i’ve decided in a moment of passion &
interest]
red
light districts, or Hollywood Babylon
Mary
Miles Minter, thin Martinis, and Armchair No. F 51 by Walter Gropius
imagine
E. Manteca on a Wednesday night in January
an
overturned Ferris wheel
a
pawn shop, porn mags and jazz records
or
insert Justin Jones’ favourite bombastic 70s rock song here
[as
i’ve begun to look out the window onto E. 17th Street]
benign,
damaged beauty
perhaps
then we’d know what it is to stand in awe of the post-whatever
malaise
a
weathervane, aesthetic wilderness
ylang-ylang,
mercury thermometers, or Iowa as a verb
[as
i’ve Iowa’d the fuck out this poem]
spellbound,
shadow boxed in kissy-face, of art and erotica
a
watercolour from the bombshell’s wee small hours
or
a gentleman in lust whispering, “aw-shucks”
[as
i've considered lechery]
Boris
Yeltsin, a Rieger Orgelbau pipe organ, and vintage telenovelas
one’s
heart in a bulldog edition
a
New York Times A1 story
a
photo in which she meets the murderer in an art gallery wearing a
low-cut dress
remember,
the guns and lovers came after
plastic
explosives, periscopes, geraniums, and Mexican summers
[as
it’s like when a young boy falls in love & steals a photo of
his crush]
or
“though pink elephants i wd see”
a
E.R. Squibb & Sons Morphine Syrette, as all it took was one look
a
silhouette of profound upheavals
a
backlit Cibachrome photo
[as
“i freebase the carousel in my sleep, no less”]
ticking
off marauders, Tetragrammaton, and outdated Yellow Pages
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