Lore

Lore

 

Scratch marks on the inside

of the only door that locks—your

closet—are the glyphs that ghosts are

made of. There is only one

level of drunk that makes us sleep

in that room; as if the whole house weren’t

infected by rumor; here where we pinch

frozen whispers between our elephant thumbs

 

and pinky fingers. Two murders here, before

we played McGuyvers of death and

fashioned nooses from saved shopping

bags & abandoned hair follicles

only to kick each other, kick

until the chandelier crashed and

none of us expired like: the bulbs,

eggs, stories, or back-porch champagne­—

 

popped, frozen, forgotten mid-celebration.

Jealousy drove me to drink it, drink it all.

It’s obstinate to purge the supernatural.

It’s our only excuse. “This house,” she said

“this house has destroyed everything.”

 

The Girl from Nowhere

To: the Houdini Man

From: the Girl From Nowhere

 

And again I’m tracing black holes with a single finger in any bathroom mirror.

            I broke another snow-filled-sun-down porch with

        a fever. Flailing as the slats combusted in slow-mo, your pre-prohibition

tusk Voodoo (the one you widdled my last name into) hung against my throat like 

          a clavicle. Some things are immune to gravity. I couldn’t help imagine life inside

 

a snow globe to be something like Purgatory.

      

     You were the shaker, booty quake thrust. You were always busy

                 balancing cheap beer on your chin-beard, and when you drippled

     I’d cup the drool with my hands, put it in a pitcher--save the taste for

           when we missed it.

 

I use boys like books. I need action to resolve things. Busy waiting for a

                serious accident to appreciate this cigarette, I tap my heel

    to the sound of alley honks and dumpster lids and give fantasy an unfair advantage.

          

When the city feels too big for

              me, I rock in a rocker and smoke with my eyes

      closed until I’m comfortable in the dark. 

And I unpack my backpack and I re-pack my pack and

        repeat again. I now know comforters for what they are: cover overs for

   

        sex, itchy and heavy, permeable shields. Admit it, you invented the signs,

 

the twists and horizontal stamps of sleeplessness; the suicidal wish to make your

      junk disappear, junk and the armless hugs and funny- bone convos with

    local heroes at the pub we call Church. Road signs shine like

 

God in the dark. I’m going nowhere again. Leave

            parchment in bottles and stick your initials in cement.

           

  I’ll track stories of your whereabouts, like my Grandmother, the Native. Bar

   flies and ripped coasters--Again I’m feeding on

          your trail, satiating necessity with misdemeanors and giggles. Remember that time

     we sat Indian-style in the deep-end of the pool? Did you pretend to sip the tea

  for sustenance or because you weren’t afraid to drown? 

A Year in Chicago

When the silver pin-holes pock the

big black blanket just so I fall

instinctual--in this mushroom orb

of synthetic light airplanes are

inconsistent but accepted as

 

infinite--O’Hare the God of

Gas and Firmament.

 

A groundhog surfaces

once, if only to gnaw dandelion

leaves, jostles the stalk & the fluff reminds us

of snow--that was Summer.

 

Trees impetuously undress themselves

for Winter--shimmy-shake-strip

in the wind--but Winter doesn’t notice.

They are left to shiver & shiver.

 

Welcome furnaces & hot showers with

an amphibious heart & love them

for what they are (necessary). Quick, 

track my boot crumbs in the snow--keep

close or we’ll lose ourselves in the whiteness. 

Masquerade Man

Cover yourself in pretend

to forget the nights that 

made holidays inside of me and     

 

your nose. But nobody does except

that mucus bridge between your eyes

 

and their love of the mirror  ( but only

when the lights are low.)

Those eyes that can’t sink, not lower than

 

your wreck,  rotted wood with no stiffness

inside  your nudity—there’s no elusive X

because I  don’t care to draw the map.

 

Remember when:

the shaved legs you volunteered

rubbed my political statement, my hair?

 

Remember what you spread

inside  (pink noose, fake

feathers) my open-for-suggestions mouth?           

 

Remember:

I will never pay you

—thanks— since you learned to sell the free soap

of your  one-room castle to anybody else. 

Ah, the first drafts of poetry

Ice Queen

She’s sleeping with icicles,

squeezing them with white

fists until the daggers bleed water

or stab the cavern’s ice-tray chest.

 

There is fire in her sickness.

The flu is a commoner’s dilemma.

She calls her sweat: prophecy! the coming of

a prophet! in midday hallucinations.

 

Fetal position, hands between

that primal space between her

legs. Think of royalty in deep

blue holes and think of spring

in moldy sculptures—fields of

poisonous dandelions.

 

The flames are only mirror-tricks.

Some prefer to live in fantasy.

Apocalyptic revival! Bolt the doors! 

Eat imported ice and I'll feed myself 

the frozen grapes! Remember what living

 

can do to a sensitive stomach.

What would they murmur if

they could only see her so hot?

Embracing the stalactites and gmites

of perpetuity (for balance) she stumbles

towards carved clear and blue.

 

 

'Lucid' Living

Little Fred is intermittently drooling on his chin and asking if someone can open his smokes in between mumbles of your so cute and do you have sixty cents? I really need sixty cents. No one can give him change because when we look at Little Fred we see a broken nose through dirty city windows and we know how drunk he got on another sucker’s jingle.

Pockets empty I can open the smokes but can’t force myself to stand close enough to excuse him for being human. Then the subway overhead chimes like church and the doors close. I can’t stop looking for the bus.

I need directions here. There isn’t enough time to get lost because walking costs. My cold is getting worse and I can only buy so many coffees until one café can print the narcissistic claims of my past—my resume. Look at every suit and say: I’m fucking awesome, hire me. That’s what I want to do, but know I won’t because that might never work—nobody wants to hire a failure.

 I’ve found a place with endless alleys to explore but I’ve lost my voice in the hollowness, in this echo of: bin man machines, high beams, honks, ice cold cigarette smokers, their smoke, buskers, other people screaming at brick walls.

Newsstands and flutes are his bag. They’re not in it, just what he does. He rarely speaks, but the blue eyes behind his Santy beard tell stories in a glance. Glances that lend to ‘moments’ ; in Logan Square on the Spaulding side of street downstairs towards the blue line to here or there. Same song every time I walk by, it seems, but I don’t know the notes or have patience to pay attention.

There is where I’m going: The Empty Bottle. Not because I drank it but because there’s music and plaid shirts and dollar-fifty beers. Floridians are waiting for me off Western. I wonder what Saiid would say.

Drinking the cheapest red in a skeleton mug by the Christmas tree in January. Location seems to be what matters. Geographically speaking I’m on a plain near a lake somewhere in an alleyway chasing my voice. Looking for the first place I made an echo so I can stop the noise, capture it in a glass like Lightning bugs, put the glass near my bed, and sleep while the sound suffocates itself. But I’m here. Still hunting for reverberation when instead I should know that everything changes and only skeletons will stay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Surviving Lust

Surviving Lust (A shout out to Josh Bell) 

 

Remember my worst act?

I try to forget it. Hands in pockets.

St. Stephen’s green; statues and moldy fountains.

Tell me where I am, north green or

south, then bike to me

in short shorts—you pen the fancy

lettering on my leg. Your name.

My good hairs stand-up

and tell me we’re alone. Live

thoughts squirm, cranial and worm-like.

Art museum, oil canvas, ard mhusaem. Your hand

on my ass proves you don’t care.

That real things only feel magical.

Remember me as your fingers do

my thigh. I’ll remember you as

the tour guide with a halfsie.