…listen
softly, this psychiatric slant, this physiological chant, this mental
psych-ward:—our veins in cradles, our babies in incubators, or at ruins running
through montages: our adored sentience, our adored chemistries, or nights alone
feeling aggravated. i came to life,
sensing manifestos, while examining
this proletariat—our shimmied brains, this scythe with blood, this dungeon
pitted in guts: our bloated tenets, this sighted ant, and our years chasing
mice: as under rules, or rabid a curse, to soon sense this unbalanced
existence: our yams with neck-bones, our spinach with pork chops, to imagine
this slaughtered pork fest: if but to fly, our ribs with sauce, our
laboratories with sin—: this Mariah chantress, this Maria saint, or our harlot
Rahab: at negotiations, or favored destinies, to rapture at such a young age:
this swanic mirage, this inner real personality, this distant self that mirror:
as souls at capers, or brains at papers, or this essay meaning so little: those
power plants, this promised legacy, this failing culture: indeed, to ponder our
legends, to require their essence, or to set rigor to kernelled existence: this
harvest sun, this harvest winter, this sun beaming into bloody blue rivers: at
beige intestines, or cavy membranes, to feel cursed wrestling genetics: this
proud surge, this ephemeral aura, or life to treasures pleading insistence:
that small cat, those feral whiskers, or that lethal sky-gut—to die as
heathens, or live as hypocrites, while raising children: this prayer with
wings, this miracle short-sighted, while music clamors this internal symbol:
our achy bones, our shivering consciences, or more, this need to confess
Jesus—as lives gravity, this geometry of tree-rings, this feeling where caimans
seem diligent: as shoebill losers, or mathematic insanity, to ease into essence
begging questions….
…dear
Stranger, this eclipsed heart, this spider’s silk…this violin, this prehistoric
genetic, this connection with dinosaurs: our lavish cries, our evening blues,
this Portia iguana—at cavalier eyes, or conceited countenances, to imagine this
ear goop: our lobes burning, or itchy with grime, to sense this glamorous
essence: this day for glasses, this mental telescope, or those emotional
binoculars: so settled in mayhem, our helms bleedings, our guts fading: to
sport infinity, while casual with brevity, where daughters climb chaotic
examples: those first lies, as pure mimicry, or this feeling as churned in
presence: this mystic king, this mystic queen, as never a glimpse….
…i
clump grass, i boil rocks, and i taste sediments: our marbled rhinestones, our
precious quartz, this inter-reality—as intra-mischief, this heart at shivers,
this slighting vibration…our undercurrents, our undulations, our underground
fevers: this woman sipping, or seahorse with blues, or swatting at flies: this
red ant, this stingy feeling, this metaphor as reality: our impending
headaches, our high blood pressure, our sodium covered chicken: at Baton Rouge
laughing, or Lafayette cooking, or Bourbon Street acting wildness: this sense
for souls, this casual curse, this Lil Wayne frenzy: to pause in silence,
looking at heart-pictures, while feeling this heart-reservoir: our hemorrhages,
our purple veins, our frontal lobes filled with vitamins: to wrestle
sleepiness, to compose while losing, as to remember this tremendous
catastrophe: if but those tentacles, this palmed tarantula, those palmed Psalms:
to reminisce those marooned eyes and die this creativity, where sessions seemed
our first adventure….
…it
becomes inappropriate, while begging insistence, while bleeding grandeur—this
sky-magnet, this falling upon depression, this miracle never forgotten….
