Beautiful Things
1
Jazz
and Poetry are
Too
good for me
I
don’t deserve their
Unlockable
fragrances
Monk
and Crane
Told
me a story
That
I couldn’t hear
And
could only
Vertiginously
experience
Through
some pipe dream
Of
Eno’s Faraway Beach
I
felt nothing until
The
day,
Or
night rather
When
they stoked the fires
Of
my burdened consciousness
And
brought me to
A
version of life
Where
a Blazing-Through reigned
Piano
keys and Words
Relieved
of their old emasculation
Chafing
ears and air
I
forgot to seal my gorging
2
You,
undefined, are too good for me
You,
a multitude of quarrels buried under wet skin
Don’t
change don’t come
Any
closer
I saw
you dancing to the jazz in my head
Was it dancing?
Or
did you sleep
And
not experience me
Rosalie
moving blank
Her
blushing ass mapping
The
failed territory
Of
all who sought surrender
You
relieved him like sleep once did
You,
his ticket to the Dunes
I gore
through innocent pages the wound of your false interior
3
Your
lip curls
When
you’re aroused
And
it also curls
When
you know it’s bullshit
I’m
in love with your choices
Even
if they never led you
To
my room
Your
birthmark, Nellie
Rubbed
off on the sheets
Of
a bed rejecting treatment
Insisting
only that your feet be clean For his mouth
The Popular Fiction Writer
The
Popular Fiction Writer
Handled
his narrative like taffy
On quadruple-spaced pages
To make
sure his legions
Were
thrilled
Even
if that meant
The
sliver of a person
He
created
Had
to go left
When
she kept
Pressing
at his brain
To permit her an alternative choice
He
played golf
And
briefly forgot
About
the Mausoleum Of Thrills
He’d
erected in every
Major
bookstore
Across
the century
I
wish I could
Take
comfort in
His
bloated body of works
I
wish his series’
And
his standalones
And
his thrillers and romances
And
calculations to a market
Were
a constant in my life
And
not translucent evidence
Of a
problem
That
divides me
From
my fellow shoppers
They
are smart
They
don’t suffer
Because
they know
He
will always deliver
Like
the load-bearing driver
Of a
usable take
The
Popular Fiction Writer
Doesn’t
see what all the fuss is about
He was
never going to write Ulysses
In the
first place
And
his books
Make
people happy
So if
you don’t like him
Read
something else
Psychle
I
didn’t have the option
of
picking a mate
like
you did
from
the stacks of waiting mates
you
had whinnying, biting, caulked
at
the fringe point of every little toe
Stacks
and stacks
You
fanciful alone
Yet
all you had to do
was
announce those magic words across Liberty smog
and
the militia of the jaded goateed
would
invade your sadness
which
remains, still, even as
the
victor hotly bites through your cheek
I
have caskets
You
have stacks
Dead
connections trained
like
dogs to perfect the limits
of
my Dungeon
You
ran from billions of winged Predators
Tried
hiding in the grooves of promises faint
as
dropped calls
and
you also tried hiding
in
the tower of simulated hate
with
flickers stitched
In the ether
of
women battered
to
pillows of yarn
by
men who killed their old names
if
not themselves entirely
You
reached into the stacks
and
the first folder your hands caught
became
the pillar where you lay
as
“The Bad Thing” lost sleep
trying
to find you again
I
might have a shot away
at immortality
but
he will die with you
And
both will be
rotting
forgotten
together
No Man’s
I’m
afraid of myself
Because
I am a city
Where
rule is lobbed to the introverts
And
they transform a metropolis into a writing room
In
my city
All
prey naked
And
each of my friends
Get
overtaxed as punishment
For
the crime of being thought Free
Every
citizen
In
the Northern Quadrant
Is
a pixieish teenage girl
Chewing
on her own pink hair
Staring
at a computer screen
In
a female nest otherwise Ketchum dark
Playing
new music
A
genre known as
MenstralCore
Locus’d
with bobbleheaded bass
Her
panties dissolving like the LSD
On
Madeline’s tongue
Passed
to her
On
the tidal crest
Of
Judy’s tongue
At
the outskirts
A
prostitute called Zel
Addresses
the robed Daemon:
“These
conditions are unlivable,”
she
laments
“Uptown
the faggots don’t want love
and
are left with nothing but
Joycean
ejaculate
lubricating
their bug stomachs.”
The
Daemon,
Stoking
the fire with two decades’ baggage
Answers
with the feline sound
Of
Zel’s first orgasm
Self-inflicted,
when she was twelve
And
still answered to Rose
Losing
patience, Zel says
“The
black population is only accessible through their music
and
the Jews through their books. And even you, Daemon,
who
bleed cheap food and nonsensical follies
know
that Left and Right factions have been dissolved
because
they give unacceptably sterile Brain.
The
price of living here
is
to forfeit any desire for sunlight
because
it has been usurped
by
context. And the value
of
human relationships is nullified
by
a gerbil’s resentment
and
the holy singing of maids
leaking
from our adjacent republic.
“And
it isn’t a kiss away like Mick said
but
of a much extended roping distance
from
me to you, which, as we know,
is
a gulf subsumed into a cloud
of
dense impossibility.
“Nothing
is stable or sacred.
I’ve
prophesized it
to
the most minutely detailed arc.
Books
can’t save us.
Money
won’t save us, even if we could get it.
Time
is a worm.
We’re
worms.
And
I’ve never been happier in my life.”
I’m
afraid of myself
Because
my city is flammable
And
I’ve lost me only match
Them
My
parents are engaged
In
a conspiracy
To
kill me
With
implants of different
Complexes
For
many of life’s unfortunate handouts
They
are trying to kill me
By
turning off my dwelling’s heat
And
by telling me I’m
Too
bloated and then
Too
sucked-in
By
telling me
To
pursue someone
And
that paradoxically
That
or that someone isn’t worth pursuing
They
are trying to kill me
By giving
me what I want
And
not telling me
That
it has to stop
They
are trying to kill me
But
don’t realize it
And
would feel guilty if they did
And
that’s why
I
love them
Nova Scotia
She
doesn’t know he’s awake
Until
he feels her nude hip
As
she props herself up
On
the side of the bed
Nearest
the window
Gazing
at a wall of
Sweaty
glass
Hours
ago
They
slept together for the first time
After
an era of minor friendship
She,
broken by a single man
Who
isn’t this one, now stroking skin
So
cold
Each
goosebump
A minute in time
That
lock-stepped enough
To
make their evening possible
They’ll
fuck prolifically
Over
the constant passage
Of
the Sun
Rolling
across the sky
Like
a tire down a hill of Highway Blank
Never
intending coupledom to leak
From
her bed
And
into their lives
They
go places
Neither
would have
Gone
alone
With
Adult Pink sabers
And
tools that change
The
countenance
Of
your adored and lonely face
And
when
They
walk down the street
She
hangs back
And
then decides to lead
And
is allowed to advance
As
he trails close behind her
A
strobelight is
Nothing
but a wrench
a.m.
At
College
I
knew rapists
And
abusers of women
Who
fucked people
I
wanted to fuck
And
beat women
I
wouldn’t have beaten
And
murdered the spirits
Of
decent people
And
were sometimes defended
By
great people
Who
should have known better
Every night before I sleep
Goodnight
Carol,
I
wish I knew you now
The
only thing we have in common
In
2012
Is
forest and fire
And the music of an era
You left behind
Goodnight
Carol,
You
seemed a member
Of
the party
Who
decided to leave
Without
telling anyone else
Backing
slowly out of the room
As
the others fought on
Not
realizing there was
One
of them subtracted
Goodnight
Carol,
I
didn’t think about you
For
several years
Until
The Bad Thing
Started
growing weeds in my brain
And
I realized how
The
unthinkable contingency
Could
in fact
Be
Goodnight
Carol,
You
were not the first
To
cement
A
family legacy
The
family in question
Would
rather not welcome
But
everyone hopes
You’ll
be the last
Each
of us
In
the lower generation
Has
a private vision of you
Mine
is of a woman who
Tragically became photographs
Until
the end of time
Goodnight
Carol,
I
hear you linger
In the secret
crying
of every guardian I've loved
And
I’m left with
Ambivalent
empathy
And
eternal fascination
And
Roth’s perpetual fear
Of
a future where may exist
A
pinprick
Of
a day
Day when maybe
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