Tagged: the Dead
Missy
Our girl hears Missy Elliot
on the radio, 95.9 – The Throwbacks
She knows all the words the way
you don’t really, just play the sounds
so when she enunciates GO DOWNTOWN
EAT IT LIKE A VULT-CHA we laugh
She knows that part, of course, but
then again she does know vultures
She jumps off the couch and soars
like a vulture. She dries her hair over
her face like a vulture does its wings
She puts her hands up against the light
– a shadow puppet vulture
She is black and furthest away
She sees vultures and takes binoculars
but can’t find them
The light is too bright
After Choking You in My Sleep
the dead must be hungry
the way they present themselves
to me – half a hand out
hollow legs
shrinking then wrapping
the corners as if embarrassed
I would be too
all that work to be dead
and still begging
not that I’m any safer here
stairs
are one of the most
haunted places on Earth. I
could be sitting in a portal, or in the body
of something larger
someone’s work or unrequited love
a prison, the defense
of a choke-point
whatever it is, I feel its interest
it shakes my insides as if
listening for seed
it lands on me when
I’m not careful
forms to vacancies like
an owl to the tree
like your voice to my ear
when I’m sure you’re lying
or is it, when I’m sure
I would have lied
is it me? I am poltergeist
through misplaced energy
through dreams of fame turned
malevolent humility
inside lurks
the big black mass
of ever losing you, especially
to me
Activity
I am writing again, which
feels like the wrong thing
behind me
there are thousands of figures
symbols for lost time
like a chair is not its word
“chair” a person
is not his name
nor is he what he leaves
behind
he is not named
“gunk in corners”
though he resides there
with no need for sitting, writing
now he sinks
where chairs were
leaving behind residue
like ink
on the paper
at night
Thirty
I was standing in line with you
when I passed out, fainted
I guess, and woke up
on the floor
I remember feeling
guilty, like I had overslept
and how different
you looked
appearing over me, like
a god, or its mother
perfect
and impatient
my elbow hurts – I realize
I must have fallen on it
you say I may have fallen forward
if it hadn’t been for you
how lucky – I am grateful
– I am weak – I am
let down gently – I am
long to see
the security footage
in which your reaction
plays out like a silent film
in which
the faces of the embarassed
become everyone, black
and white, at each moment
assigned a time
SWAT
woke up drenched again, not
dreams, not raining
who knows
there’s a resiny
imprint of me
on my mattress, laid over
countless others
like days
I go through what I ate, when
the withdrawal symptoms of
things like caffeine
pot, what I’m wearing
sleep positions, if
I should shower before I sleep
maybe my mattress is a valley
my blankets roads
I overheat, sweat
become cold, pull them up
to wake unsure
where the water came from
if it’s water at all, or
just salt
if while sleeping, I’ve
been swimming, and
barely made it back to shore
Coleoptera
Entomologists estimate there are nearly
1.5 million different types of beetles
if you double the weight of all beetles
the world would cave in on itself
I love this nature fact – partly because
it sounds so made up, and partly
because I believe it must be true
Cleopatra wore lipstick made
of crushed ants and beetles
David crushed Goliath with a stone
Since then, the weight of humans
has doubled many times over
we are gathered around a large hole
each awaiting our turn to see
My parents have just called a meeting
to say just cremate me, no need for all
the fuss, unless it feels important to you
that you have a place to visit
Do we get a hole to see down?
a box in vain denying the earth
thousands of beetles crowded around
the stags, the rhinocerii, the oxen
Now that would be interesting! No
mom says, and please,
just pour us out anywhere
Apnea
the trees, their leaves dipped like eggs
into cups of dye, the one flaming oak
on Flaming Oak Cove that has not changed
noticeably, but tonight appears more
red than yellow, an act of collective
memory I contain only part of. I contain only
part of what it takes. I take things out of
the forest and lay them flat onto paper, like
these trees, too much on purpose. I
build my web between birds and train
them to fly in unison above tall grasses,
ponds, collecting bugs. but only in poems
only on weak bones perched in your mind
someone saves me each morning. is that you?
or do I save myself? have I somehow timed
the jump back on correctly, all these times
how have I not stayed too long? this
is where I have been for most of my life
Senility Lane
the blanket says I brought it on myself
but doesn’t remember why
she might’ve meant how much I’ve grown
or the tree I told her has fallen in the yard
I hope she doesn’t think a tree
has fallen on me in the yard
or that I might have already called her
she might have already told me
the things I’m supposed to know
like how to get out from under a tree
how to clean a fish over the phone
my parents could’ve looked it up themselves
or probably done it for me
but they made me call my grandmother
who walked me through a process
I’d have to call her again to do
that little perch, its bones
like splinters in its own flesh
newspaper torn, black blood and
sunlight shifting in the winded
tree, garage glinting
it had the look of still writhing
or still writing, which is
the back and forth of fear for me:
a dead thing still moving
an alive thing that doesn’t
Quick Quick
those of us safe
are loosely staked
in soft ground
feet shifting, we
sink a little, and though
we are not smaller
we seem smaller
to ourselves. so,
in our desperation
in our hatred
of not being heard
or helping
we try new ways
of saying what has
already been said
perfectly, by ourselves
even, when we
had said nothing
Grief Later
What’s the turn around? Will this
be like when I was 4 and didn’t cry
at Nana’s funeral, because
she smelled funny, because
she brushed my hair too hard
in a hammock once? I was 4
I remember things as if through
that hammock, my face pressed
into ropes like the blueprint of a face
I can’t remember what I’ve lied
about, or what is a story. Was it even
me who saved the chicken heads
because their beaks still moved?
Where would I have put them? If I went
back to the house on Rogge Lane, to
the adjoining back yards, would there
be a knot hole, a cinder block shelf
rowed with chicken heads?
Are they still in my pocket? Or
are we completely mistaken by grief?
Kidnapped. I wonder…
can it be considered a good life
if when you die, even for a second,
someone hopes you haven’t?
