Every toe planted with obsessed precision,
walking the edge of a knife;
rote words spoke in unison:
every voice inside my head, every word
in chorus, in crimson.
I breathe a frenzied life
into every particle of assigned meaning:
phoneme, syllable, word;
every sentence a deadly battle strategy.
Every war, won.
I am Alexander. Your blood seethes
in a nightmare foam between my teeth;
froth I breathe
in and out on the daily;
pink,
bitter metal-tang.
Pupils like black saucers.
Nostrils dilated;
heart beating with alacrity.
One reason is all I need--
your lazy speech enrages me.
Alkaline lightning sears through my veins.
Mine is a fury. Mine makes me free.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Cassiopeia
I have a leak, my head has a leak, my mouth has let slip
so many words, tumbling out of me like water from stone,
like sand through my hand: over fingers, to fill the negatively-charged spaces between;
I have almost no words left. The precious few are recycled, over-used tarnished
so many words, tumbling out of me like water from stone,
like sand through my hand: over fingers, to fill the negatively-charged spaces between;
I have almost no words left. The precious few are recycled, over-used tarnished
garbage,
sea-spewn foam; mermaid-souls throttled and beaten over rock interminably.
Had I the words which fell,
fell out of me
to form pools of wet memories and warm lather for the birds which fly 'round my head
(my brow's feather-beaten, my eyesockets-- pecked clean,
diseased, laced with flies
and caked in rust
[encrusted Nightmare of Hot])----
Had I caught the words
(which poured, poured out of me)
in kitchen saucers, pans or papers
(oysters slickening silty syllables)----
I'd lay my claim to deeper waters,
or to servants indentured forever instead.
O Cassiopeia, beleaguered
for better by Poseidon's worst intentions----
How you hang, how you weep about as you call
your own-- O, Daughter-- back to you
from your captor's watery hovel:
The moon, she tries, but----
there you hang still.
(No ash black enough to antithesize;
sea-spewn foam; mermaid-souls throttled and beaten over rock interminably.
Had I the words which fell,
fell out of me
to form pools of wet memories and warm lather for the birds which fly 'round my head
(my brow's feather-beaten, my eyesockets-- pecked clean,
diseased, laced with flies
and caked in rust
[encrusted Nightmare of Hot])----
Had I caught the words
(which poured, poured out of me)
in kitchen saucers, pans or papers
(oysters slickening silty syllables)----
I'd lay my claim to deeper waters,
or to servants indentured forever instead.
O Cassiopeia, beleaguered
for better by Poseidon's worst intentions----
How you hang, how you weep about as you call
your own-- O, Daughter-- back to you
from your captor's watery hovel:
The moon, she tries, but----
there you hang still.
(No ash black enough to antithesize;
from which these pinpoint-lights might rise.)
radiation brain-hum
schlepping, disgusting
indiscriminate self-
promotion.
cancerous, unerring
warmth of spirit;
dimness of intellect;
you have tantrums
and you seek my attention.
and i have nothing but my ignorance to give to you.
nothing to be said; rather, silence.
not a single bit of re-cognition
in my own head,
and on my face. you are
a species to be studied; you are not me;
i see nothing of myself beyond my first fifteen.
and yet, you appear all the happier.
you are protean and languid;
bombastic, maladjusted--
and yet, and yet:
you've no-
one to acquaint with.
indiscriminate self-
promotion.
cancerous, unerring
warmth of spirit;
dimness of intellect;
you have tantrums
and you seek my attention.
and i have nothing but my ignorance to give to you.
nothing to be said; rather, silence.
not a single bit of re-cognition
in my own head,
and on my face. you are
a species to be studied; you are not me;
i see nothing of myself beyond my first fifteen.
and yet, you appear all the happier.
you are protean and languid;
bombastic, maladjusted--
and yet, and yet:
you've no-
one to acquaint with.