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.

 

 

1970s Tourister

For oft, when on my couch I lie 

In vacant or in pensive mood,   

They flash upon my inward eye 

Which is the bliss of solitude...

-William Wordsworth "I wondered lonely as a cloud"

Steam rising from my hands, hot water in the sink, and my clothes (hot and wet) gives the dim kitchen a fantastical feel. Outside the line is free, except for clothes pins I know are pastel but look sallow in the darkness settling on the hills and in my concrete backyard.

The hum from the heater and the line “If you don’t love me, let me go,” steadies my breath. The sounds remind me we’re never alone and that silence is to be appreciated by skeletons. Everything is romantic and cold and Dublin loves me.

I hear dragonfly wings, waves, banjos, people of geography—their whispers wash into a constant buzz, like a heart beat. Sometimes I hear my name.

Change the song, turn the heater on high—adjust the living room because it won’t change itself. There is either terror or brilliance in this vacant mood.

The light above the table wobbles in the waves of radiation and then I’m in a train station with Grandpa’s 1970s Tourister in hand and I’m looking back through familiar smoke into the lens that captures part of me: running, black and white, suspenders, old man’s cap. The photograph I imagine is on the mantle here, over the electric fire. 

Existence and Fiction

The question “Who am I?” increases exponentially with the amount of time I spend alone. The longer I am alone the more I try to understand what and why I exist. It’s quasi-philosophical, and yet, because the world isn’t flat and apples fall from trees, I expect provable, definitive answers to my musings.

I constantly define myself in relation to other people or my surroundings—seeking an external justification for my actions and ‘being.’ I wrote this poem a month or so back whilst in the bowls of lust and all else frilly and breathtaking.

MUSIC FOR THE TONE DEAF

You’re a human taxi, a machine fueled by fake Life Savers and vodka.

I’m a traveler, a spontaneous minx, slamming red Solo cups of lager and desire.

You’re the funny one, shaking your shoulders. I’ll brush them off in the rearview.

I’m aging faster than most, afraid and stoned, waltzing towards perdition.

You’re a nervous eater and a newcomer to my comforter (but you look good inside it.)

I’m a human cold compress, and you’re a hot water bottle. Soft skin, pastry warm.

You said you masturbated reading the bible in your schoolyard behind the toilets.

I didn’t believe you because we both laughed for three blocks of green lights.

You’ve a pretty face and you’re talented, you tell me all the time.

I think the same of myself, but am to embarrassed or coy to admit anything.

You’re the best live show, music in front of open windows in a land of “non-believers.”

I’m the fast-fall-asleeper; when I snore in your ear I can’t hear it, you know.

You’re losing teeth faster than you’ll lose my audience, which is good. 1 tooth down.

I’m the one jumping on the bed while you shake your hands and think lunatic but watch.

You are a natural tri-color: red, brown, black.

I’m an Indian. Dark red. Not angry, this is a natural flush. Maybe it’s excitement.

There’s a mark on you, a part of your forever and tomorrow. Now you’ve given it away.

Gift in hand, I think your small secrets and your ginger-ness are: mine, mine, and mine.

Maybe it’s bad for the psyche to constantly evaluate myself in relation to the physical, outside world. Maybe it’s an ego thing—in order to normalize and validate my existence I seek approval in my immediate environment. I wrote this poem not long after my relationship with “the human taxi” ended and I decided I definitely was not “a martyr for independence.”

FICTION

I am an engine driver—listen to the mandolin and harmonica of free passengers and the thud, chug, pull, of coal and god across pre-destined tracks and wilderness.

I am a tea bag, hot and soft and dark.

It’s my flavor not my body you want.

I am a worm. Hear my rage at being

stomped in two—watch my head

grow back in revenge.

 

I am a question mark, curvy and open.

A suggestion of birth and a point of decay.

 

I am a jester, watch humility change

colors on my face, hear church bells sound

in time with my tricks.

 

I am a bicycle—dirty and broken beside the stairs. See the monkey wrench and toolbox there, near my wheel? I stopped trying to move them with my mind months ago.

 

Still, other times, I feel like my character is a subject of my surroundings; that my perception of me, Cory as Cory, is informed and somehow dependent on the external. Reaction is the measurement of how much the immediate environment alters my character (in degrees.) The difference between tap-dancing in the shower and drunk dancing in a pub is extreme. Having sex in the backseat of a car along a mountainside road and having sex in a tent produces relatively similar discomfort and excitement—relatively similar positions as well I’ve recently noticed. Burping in a library, graveyard, car, pub, tent, is always just that, burping. Some things are constant—lack of couth and love of nature. The following piece is a recount of one hysteric incident in the monotonous life of a bona-fide bartender / empty pool hall cleaner.

 

HOOVERING

There’s something numbing and empowering in the act of Hoover-ing.

Pssh hh pssh hh pssh hh hhhhh hhhhrrr pssh hh pssh hh. Cross-eyed

cleaner. When I yell Suck it to every particle of dust paper scum each one

obeys—vanishes into this duct-taped, loose-wheeled, electrical void.

I am the Queen of carpet and all else filthy and small. I am:

ruler of my unbathed-unbrushed self: alone in a snooker room screaming at

pieces of what once was something bigger.

 

I’m not Frued, Katherine Shay, or Feuerbach, so I don’t have a proper conclusion to these painfully self-involved hypotheses. In fairness, I’m relieved that I can still sing “Getting to Know You” to the mirror after showers. That when I’m beginning to understand who and what I am, I realize that I only have a vague idea of what I need and no idea what I want. Those musings enter the internal dialogue and next thing I know my favorite color is yellow, not green, and I’ve started drinking tea instead of coffee. As long as I don’t start to de-volve, I think I’ll be okay. Still I wish there was some sort of yes or no, right or wrong, some answer to who, what, and why.

Maybe I just need to embrace the idea that sometimes everything isn’t enough and anything will do.

 

Thanksgiving

I am a recovering vegetarian. Nine years of pretending that Boca tastes like real beef and Silk Soy is better than cow juice. Nine years of pretend and now here I am trying to eat chicken and failing miserably. Why the change of diet? I'm living in Ireland. The veg. here is rotten and free-range, organic meat products are abundant. 

I flail at lunch counters, in restaurants, in the shops. I practice ordering chicken caesar salad over and over in my mind and when the waiter shows I order hummus and falafel. Or I cart around deli meats and when I get to the checkout toss the pieces of poultry onto a candy stand in this strange moralistic panic and then feel guilty for not returning the item to the proper isle. 

The day I believed to be Thanksgiving, Sunday November 23rd, I succeeded in purchasing sliced turkey from the deli. I have celebrated the same holiday for two decades and still somehow mistook this colonialist national holiday for a random Sunday. 

I texted people across the Atlantic with a standard Happy Turkey Day get fat and happy message. No one responded. I strolled around the local shop, bought two bottles of red wine, a cake, real sliced turkey, crisps, and three Smithwick's; walked home under lit street lamps at 3:00 pm, prepared the cheap meal, got locked and tried to figure out what I was thankful for. 

I celebrated three days early and am posting my 'tribute to thanksgiving' five weeks late. Unfortunately Thanksgiving stories aren’t Evergreen. Fortunately I'm not commissioned or on a deadline. 

CONFESSIONS OF A WINO ON AN ORANGE VELVET COUCH 

I’m thankful that the brown bread I bought last week hasn’t gone green; my roommate John will be thankful too since I won’t have to rob his white bread. I’m making turkey sandwiches, drinking wine in an empty house and embracing the melancholy of three p.m. twilight streets. Dine with me mirror, let us shamelessly reflect.

I’m thankful that I can fix my body when it breaks. Sometimes, like now, when I’m not broken, I mend myself anyways—bottle of wine and a good write. Other times, when I’ve cracked a limb or lost a friend, I prove less of an experienced doctor. Let’s play Operation, don’t worry, it’s a mild shock. I’m thankful for the theoretical future.

I’d like to thank my dad. You’ve got the Lewis grip—squeeze, don’t be a punk. It is nearly impossible for me to be socially embarrassed. Short shorts, sun tan, talk-to-the-giant’s-hand, 80s dance moves that should be forgiven before forgotten, nudey calendar (Mr. December) or that thirty-minute infomercial with the sledgehammer versus the un-breakable safe. It is nearly impossible for me to lose a game without secretly wanting to decapitate the winner. It is nearly impossible for me to cry in front of people. It is nearly impossible for me to admit when I’m hurt. I’m thankful for restraint. I’m thankful because when I need a laugh, money, advice, dad is my confidant.

I’m thankful (some would say not thankful enough) for existing and for not having to work tomorrow morning. I’m thankful that I’m queen of this couch and chef of this half-eaten, half-full, half-warm meal. Drink with me, don’t be afraid. Dance with me, don’t forget your name. I’m thankful that here, in Dublin, I’m living a dream and don’t seem to know it yet.

I’m thankful for home—where I keep my clothes and my heart—a pin on the chest of every sweater. I keep pricking myself with the backside of the heart pin because it keeps slipping from loose threads and I can’t sew. I make knots in each sweater and hold myself until my fingers stop bleeding. Even though I’m not domestic enough to stitch things properly, I’m thankful that my fingers aren’t so afraid of pain that they never unfurl—that they’re willing to bleed again and again. I’m thankful that I wear the idea of home—a knotty, stained garment—with vanity in my eyes in pride in my step.

I’m thankful I made it to the pharmacy just before close. Thankful that twelve euros proves I’m not pregnant. Thankful for choice and discovery. I’m thankful I’ll never be too old to jump around the kitchen like a maniac—celebrate with a hip thrust, booty quake, stomp and wiggle.

I’m thankful for my sister and mum—they’re strong and silly and without my mom I’d be lumpy grey matter at the bottom of a stagnant pond and without my sister I’d be a solo crazy in a world of dodo birds hell-bent on normalcy—we hop in circles of laughter. There’s power in our number: three.

None of us have money but we all have empathy. None of us have birthmarks but we all have scars. What we have is love, call-me-when-you-stub-your-toe, miss-you-when-you-take-a-pee / can-I-come-with? love.

The Atlantic divides our bodies as we wish it did our phone bills; even now, in $10, five-minute conversations, we hastily synopsize our lives because we can’t afford not to, because we care. I am also thankful I can out burp, out drink, and out wit the two—all claims that will be challenged, I imagine, at a feastival this Christmas.

Catch the moments that are smoking away, chase them across the Indian sunset. I’m thankful that Elton John is a necessary evil; the shop is only a five minute walk away so I can break my “no smoking” vow; that my live and love on a short time-line mentality is easy to capture, here, on this page. Catch the moments that are smoking away, chase them across the Indian sunset.

I’m thankful for one-night-stands-with-Paddy’s-from-Cork. Thankful for the nights when you remember where you were by the stamps on your wrist and thankful for the horrendous hangovers that accompany them—enlightening and informing my philosophical notions of sobriety. Watch me strip down to my skeleton, play my bones like a piano. I’m thankful for waking up in a previously unexplored part of Dublin—Kimmage. Thankful for the ability to laugh at my sick, naked self. Thankful to Paddy for leaving a piece of paper beside the bed with: directions to town, the code to get out of the estate, and his number; thankful for the bottle of water I stole from his kitchen, without which, I would have died of dry brain. He’s the only h-fund “Buy, buy, sell, sell” guy I know with manky Converse and no drawers or wall decorations—a guy that likes the lights on. I’m thankful for the lights.

I’m thankful that when I’m tired and dirty I can crawl into bed and recover from: the day, grass stains, pictures of people running away, polishing pool balls, longing for people across oceans, burn marks made every time I make a friend, fantasies that are liberating and depressing. I’m thankful that my eyes never shut for too long—that every morning my eyes open, and even when a gust of Irish wind blows them watery I’m not afraid to open them again. Blink with me, hold my hand, and run against the wind. 

 

 

Backpacking and Blogging

At the same time is a very hard task, at least for me, as I proved to be one of the lamest backpacking-bloggers in history. Not a single post. I intended for this blog to be a travelogue. Because plans change, compasses break, booze is delicious, my heart was busted, a city fell in love, I fell out of lust, and because I have already left Florida, lived in Ireland, and just moved to Chicago on Christmas Eve--this blog is not going to be neat or orderly. It seems natural that this blog should mock the backwards, fast-paced, awkward-hip-thrusted-inverted times and dance moves of my life. 

Warning: Like most blogs mine will be shamelessly self-involved. It will be quickly drafted and honest. I will try to coherently interweave stories and poems from now and yesterday and last year. If things get messy I will try and remove the stains in a revisionary laundry mat in the sky--please bear with me as I am not the most domestic of ladies.