no (weapon)
you do,
you realize that this
weapon carved of bone and the
simple, black bile of
the last evening of summer,
sweet and bitter and escaping,
will only serve to bruise the flesh
that, in wet strips, i wrap my bones in.
it cannot remain
if it is used against me,
it will crumble to fine dust and
mingle with the dirt along
a cliff edge, muttering a curse
at nothing that i can control,
being so pale and frightfully stupid,
so close to a nothing, a hum, a gasp.
stumbling along,
reducing plowshares to pottery shards,
my arms are the branches that sails hang on
but i am too stupid to feel the weight,
my eyes are closed, the sun is white
against my back and thighs,
undone and incomplete, shaped into tubes,
bent and scuffed, a patina emerging in swirls.
it isn't, couldn't by Jeremy Magee
09/04/2009 |
the gunk
it is as if
my brain has been scooped
out from the ivory basin
of my skull with the adroit
motions of a surgeon,
ensuring that i will
keep my bottom lip slack
and tighten my thighs
as i scuttle from moment
to moment, trying to breathe
through my skin and, so far,
having no such luck.
by Jeremy Magee
red light breath and
a purple stalk of grass
that withers in the wind,
held by a bit of string,
infinite and dense against
the milk-stained backing
of a new black sheet of paper,
the clouds of our mouths
growing deep and wet
before the hot slithers
beneath the cold and they
dance in the electric fields
they created, atop a pile of
orange flowers, blooming
and spinning as God exhales
onto all of us.
winter in the lilies
it is within
the disquiet of
words that fall on your
heart like the first winter
snow in the late fall,
as the leaves are cracked
and raw beneath our calloused
heels, our faces new to cold
and fat and tanned, that is when
the bridle is hard against
our teeth and we feel the
sprouting of lilies
in between our ribs
that bloom out
of our open mouths
to the pleasure of
our Lord
and Savior.
gang aft agley
it may unravel
as if to spiral
off into the navel
of the destroyer,
a fat ribbon where
my hopes are stitched
and my dreams are
intertwined with gold
threads, to be consumed
and reseeded as despair
and black, rotted corn.
but the Planter who
holds all ribbons and
stitches all threads
will wind and resow
the seeds that fell
from my hands in the
swift stream of
a storm that was
never seen or felt,
cold and dead
on my tingling flesh.
To My Father, on His Birthday
i wonder, when i was born,
when you first held me and spoke
life to my new, purple body,
did you know that i would write
this to you, hoping that
some of the illumination
you have given me
might be returned?
i wonder how much you know
about how i love you
and pray for you daily,
how i speak of you to others,
my gratitude a field of wheat
growing beneath my smile,
to be harvested by
those with me.
i wonder, on your birthday,
if you wonder about how one day
you will be a grandfather,
and that my child will love you
and learn from you as i had,
picking flowers and bugs for you,
hoping to please you, as i did
when i was a boy.
to my father, on his birthday,
i wonder if the day will be
anything like i hope, brimming
over with the light of the sun
and the call of those who
know you who can say
what i say now,
i love you, happy birthday.
gossip
i would silence that tongue
with a dropper of silver,
placed near the wagging ridge,
down through the thick
of the throat,
hesitating until your lungs
are heavy and full of the
newest breath of truth,
a closet door opening
above you, sweet turpentine
dripping onto your comically
large knuckles,
a gaping mouth and the knife
eyes you have made at the sun
might soften a bit at
the brother's lament, a fire
around the doorframe you
are passing through,
smoke on your skin and managing
even to slither in your hair,
as a blankfaced man
approaches you, eyes closed.
'round
i love how You
are calling out to me,
deaf as i am,
and when i do not turn,
You shine a beautiful
light and when i
am blind, unmoving,
You take the fingers
that shaped the world
and deftly place them
on my shoulders
and turn me 'round.
wrapper
clutching some hot
kicks to the thick
of your chest, there
is the pause, pocket
clutch switchback
and an open mouth
with fast track
swagging back
tongue and cheek,
a clumsy unwrapping
and tossing aside,
an entire person
in three tracking,
open stacked,
hacking coughs.
the question becomes
a tire squall of pleading
for the distinct drink
of widsom,
a small fan beating across
the scaleless, blind face
of time, peering over
the horizon with an open,
fat mouth.
and so, the little when
that comes to you is a silent
bird, glittering and lovely,
calling
you to the edge of your knowing,
with the tightly strung breast
of a machine made for one purpose
before burning up, with wax wings
and a sputter.
and the incense that rises
from the perfectly-feathered corpse
is sweet and purple, spiced and
honeyed,
imparting the sizzling fear and
corked muscles that produce
a new hum, a silver-throated song
that you accompany with flesh, blood,
and bleached bones!
little poem
with no effort you sink
into the edge of my mind
and spring forth from
the invisible strings
that my eyes carry and
scan all of creation with.
you become me, I you,
as the verbs your blood
is made of come to my mouth
and taste perfect, metallic,
adjectives sugary, slick
on my licked finger!
your name is so subtle
and unexpected, you
little poem whom i make
a bed for in my heart,
my stomach, my hand held
in your firm, literary grasp.
08/18/2009
Posted via LiveJournal.app.
parsed out, collected in
the perfect simplicity
of monday could lay here
at my feet, mewing,
freshly born
with fused eyelids
and lungs that
want the kiss
of hot, boiled air.
in the trees something
like tuesday sits
with long feathers and
hollow bones, eyes
so perfectly black,
trained on the
shrill cries that
it will soon silence.
wednesday is a man
with a gun, painted
with dirt and soot,
raising his arm
and cocking the hammer,
knowing with all certainty
that squeezing his finger
will spread masses of feathers.
a massive thing with
claws should be thursday,
sitting in the dense pits
of green and brown, waiting
for the turned back of
the gunslinger, to put
flesh into its maw,
chewing, drinking, nourishing.
friday is the fire
that was started by a man
one hundred miles away,
deliriously slinging
gasoline on his body
and praying to something
with a slick body, a thousand eyes,
that wants the world to burn.
after mexican food
the rock in my stomach
is softening,
a sweet plea for
my arms to be parallel
to my legs, my blood to
slow to a soft boil,
rolling along like clouds
filled with thunder,
unfolding their mystery
onto my folded eyelids.
good poetry is really good
and you could call god a liar
and your emotions are so deep
and a tortured soul is compelling
so you cough and pretend to drink
and cut your arms because then
your art is so serious and
dangerous and very
sunglasses-in-the-daytime cool.
we are poets and
we skip beats and we think thin
and our hearts pump with
emotions away and above
the mindless peons, we use
the same adjectives over
and over, every poem is
compelling and each snowflake
is beautiful and alive and real,
because our good poetry is really good.
and we vote and elect
our poems to the tip-top
of every list and publish on
reams of dead tree flesh because
we call god a liar and we write
good poetry that is really good
and we have a desklamp and a
pen that is fancy and a soap
box but our poems are little
ants gathering food for the
pulsating sac of goo that is
our queen, our good poetry is really good.
may your flesh burn
in the pit of darkest hell,
whilst your innard are slurped
into the maws of unspeakable
creatures, older than time
who gouge and rip at your
disgusting carapace.
may your children be
severely burned in a fire
that leaves them breathing,
suffering through packs of ice,
disfigured, disgusted, left
to drool and spit and scream
your name like smoked ether.
the gray perfection
that frames your jaw
in this moment
is interrupted by
jolts of deep sounds,
and so, when the panels
fall downward,
i will be naked beneath them,
washing knots that pulse
in my spine.
clusters!
it is a wild mass
of spring-tension and
jettisons of green color
that slap against the
underbelly of the sun,
wake up, wake up!
the hush is perfectly planned,
each breath a ring of vowels
laid like a crown on the
brow of the afternoon,
toes sunk into the cool
green of adjectives, nouns
fly up, above,
go to bed, go to bed!
pneumatic
in the smooth mechanisms
that snap and rotate
i will keep my records
of the damp heat that
sank into my skin today.
the drawers are full
of slips of red paper,
where i outline my eyes
with blinding white ink,
digesting them with oil.
each cube slides precisely
into place, a small maze
just outside of my ribcage,
whirring with a hum, settling
with a satisfied click.
peek, as much as you wish,
at each strip of sentence paper,
every stanza arranged, folded
and placed in a box, locked,
into what i've kept open.
it is a sweetened
vessel of milk scattered
across your lips with
no care for nourishment,
perfectly cold and heavy
on your pucker of red skin,
but the drip of your blood
is heavy enough to cloud
the film you wrap
your mind inside.
and still you search
with your fat, slap tongue
for each drop, eyes fluttering,
lungs in a spasm, you
want to drink from the
sky, a pitcher full of
specks of milk, all made
for your throat and chest,
to slow the shaking,
to dilate your pupils.
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expressedinword- This will be on my videotape.
- C'mon. Listen to the good stuff.
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