Born in the Year of the Butterfly Knife: 1 Read online

  cast to kiss sailors ready to die.

  Some are ready to die.

  Her hair looks as if she’d been running with a man in black and white

  through the sets of dangerous cities.

  Her few hard lines are just symptoms of sleeping on her face,

  Amelia ruins pillowcases with her lipstick.

  Zip focus into the darkness where her lips should meet.

  God, Those corners.

  The black pockets-empty and full

  like poverty.

  These are not simple.

  Endless. Hungry. Surrounded.

  Dragging air like jets of the atmosphere.

  Drawing it in

  in slow motion,

  drawing it in freehand

  into those corner lip pockets.

  The separations open and close

  move elastic in melody with her chest.

  1,2,3,4, 1,2,3,4 1…

  Air marches in

  and then nothing more marches out.

  I could low-crawl inside those corner pockets,

  grab her gums

  see if they’re bleeding

  to see if she wondered if she said the right thing,

  to see if there was some sign of wonder or weakness or nervous,

  the way dogs watch you after they’ve been hit by cars.

  A sign that speaks of all normal persons having fear,

  a bite in the cheek-a grind in the crowns

  something that will give her away…

  “C’mon Amelia. Come on. This is not chess, Amelia.”

  She says “Shh. Save your yelling for sex and riots.”

  Peeking at the daylight from the corners of her mouth.

  The dryness chaps.

  I look for bats

  or sailors’ initials

  but nothing.

  For now it is dead in here.

  The fifth of July.

  January second,

  December twenty sixth, etc.

  I wait under the quilt of her tongue.

  Unthawed.

  Searching for blood.

  Carving letters on her canines.

  “Amelia. If you leave, don’t you ever come back.”

  Alone in the cockpit, her propellers began to spin.

  12:55

  12:55

  This poem was inspired by the make-up I saw on a hand at a wake. I don’t think many ever got the idea that clock hands at the 12:55 position look like hands raised toward God. It doesn’t matter.

  You never thought a human hand could look like this.

  Desert cracks.

  Folds brought together by age.

  Your fingertips slide across this fortune teller’s nightmare.

  You notice the bruised knuckles from the years he drove his fists into the walls

  looking for answers.

  The hands of a captain who lost the entire sea.

  Now the smell enters you:

  The air conditioning ducts pumping medicine,

  The people of white aprons, their shoulders raised from the cold

  and the motionless silver goodnight machines.

  The cold, the white aprons, the blood and tools,

  reminders of science class and butcher shops

  It hits you that this building

  this room

  was someone’s last

  toilet handle

  last pillow

  their last press on the power button

  of a faded black remote control

  You feel sorry for the nurse that lost the draw and had to make the call;

  “You must come now. The doctor says 1-2 days tops.”

  You lean down.

  His eyes haunt and float between two worlds .

  He is your father,

  and you can’t stop seeing him carrying you on his back

  through the blink of youth.

  “I’d take ya for a piggyback ride kiddo…but I think it would kill me.”

  You laugh. He coughs. You wait.

  His eyebrows lift.

  They are your eyebrows

  Head tilts to see your face,

  “Ya know, if there’s one thing I wish I would’ve done in my life,

  I wish I would’ve spent more time at the office, for you.”

  “Really, Dad?”

  “Of course not, you moron. Don’t be so moronic…

  Drink your coffee son. Don’t waste it. “

  “You got me, Pop.”

  “Well, it’s about time.”

  The clock hands at 12:55 A.M. look like they’re surrendering

  and you think to yourself—

  ‘This is bad coffee. My God, probably the worst.

  How can they give him this shit?

  Don’t they know who he is?’

  You drink it cause you get to drink together

  and you hold his hand

  wondering if anyone would notice

  if you took him from this place

  on your back.

  THE DECLARATION OF INTERDEPENDENCE

  There is this odd, black splotch on my back about the size of Gorbachev’s birthmark. I look forward to having a wife someday to paint over it. This was written for my best friend Buzzy and his bride Beth’s wedding. They are inspiring because the kids in them will not die. They had a kid and named him Captain. Nice.

  There is a portion of my back that is very dirty

  I just—can’t—reach—it

  I want to.

  I’m incapable by design

  Sheesh

  Married people have very clean backs.

  The education of cleansing each other.

  The lover is now taught kissing as listening.

  Laughter follows her flowing eye black make-up.

  The voices echoing around the embrace.

  Everyone in love is slippery.

  And the water beats the back of your brain, girl.

  You are silent with your head to his breast

  searching for the heartbeat.

  You hear something spinning in his torso

  You hear horses wandering

  A double feature of Black Beauty with Black Stallion.

  Yes the book onscreen, and the text scrolls for hours

  and you tell him that he carries you

  and that your love is a private novel

  others will not be able to turn into a movie.

  The book is better than the movie.

  With his vocal chords finally at rest

  You hear your voice in there

  narrating a life inside him.

  Now the broken down water heater is coughing

  The caramel lightbulb can only whisper…

  ‘Ya’all ‘r broke.’

  In the dark gray sparkling steam

  lids close and you see something you never saw

  when your eyes were open:

  The breath spilling like heavy French fog over her lower lip.

  His tight fever arms gliding around her ribs.

  The calm chorus in the clearing of her throat.

  The volumes of yes in her eyes.

  The room expanding with his every sigh.

  The FBI are thankful they decided to tap your walls.

  They jot down the undocumented facts

  about the suspicious power of poor people

  breathing naked

  in a hard water love

  soaped in the arms of senseless trust

  and silly silly.

  They jot down other things which are of course, classified.

  Filed under Union Shampoo.

  These unions:

  Stars and Travelers.

  God and Mystery.

  Cheech and Chong.

  The details.

  The details make us whole.

  Our worlds are dizzy giggle spinning carousels

  that get shut down, cobwebbed and quiet

  and we can’t find the controls to get the thing running again.r />
  Dirty crooked broken yesterday machines wasting.

  I dream of a being cleaned, of

  being clung to.

  So hoorah for the unions

  that give birth to curious children inside.

  And tonight we release the children

  and we’ll watch the children run to the carousel

  ripping back the dusty cloaks from their favorite painted creatures

  like wee matadors.

  Hey, there’s a crimson-and-green-striped dragon with a twisty gold mustache!

  There’s a Neptune Blue seahorse with a magenta smile like your mamas juice!

  There’s a gypsy angel in a marigold dress with wild voyaged eyes,

  and the black horse…the black horse is for you.

  The kids grab the rails and run this carousel into momentum

  set it spinning with force

  and if this merry-go-round spins our children fast enough

  you will feel alive enough to forget yesterday

  and you will call the horses, horsies

  and yell to them for more speed

  until it rips faster and faster

  snapping from the base

  spinning into space

  and the children giggle and listen to the earth under them

  and realize

  that some broken-down machines

  can always spin again.

  SPEAKING 12:55 INTO

  THE STUPID COMPUTER DEVICE

  This was a strange experiment that really freaked me out regarding the philosophy that losing control reveals truth in writing. I spoke the 12:55 poem into a computer recorder with an introduction and this is what came out. The computer made parts of it more beautiful. Hello future.

  all vacuum girl’s name was princess

  she was biggest status dope used

  princess of all

  she wore tight hands and the voice used to collar in

  the hand wool

  doesn’t make me a speech

  he has it

  and for that I resent it

  a cheat it should scratch it should it to

  we work not only to produce

  but to give value to time

  you never thought human hand could look like this desert cracks

  folds brought together by age of fortune tellers night your fingertips

  slide across these haunted valleys of rail

  familiar now the smell enters you the AC docks to us duck duct

  the AC ducts pumping medicine bow

  rubbing alcohol dead machines

  you feel sorry for the nurse that lost the drawing

  had to make the call

  you must come now

  quote the doctor

  says he has wanted today’s tops

  the doctor says he has won to two days tops

  you lean down he is your father and you can’t stop seeing him caring

  you aren’t his back through the blink of youth

  I’d like to take it for the Quebec Wright K-ato but I think. it did kill me

  you laugh he costs you wait to now is the chance

  to say something important to your father

  would take telescope to find the right words

  his eyebrows lift is his head tilts to see your face

  you know if there is one thing I wish I would’ve done in my life I wish

  I would’ve spent more time at the fast

  are really debt out about it to do that

  the book about the ice ureters in the city that its a shine and sooner

  and move to be stupid no

  drink your coffee treated all in one

  should wasted by 1/8 into the waste the clock and to 155 a.m.

  look like their surrender and now he figures of this

  is that county probably worse come coffee North America

  the duty to annual the owners in

  one would notice

  it took him from his pace

  on your back.

  ANGELS THAT LEAK

  I love film noir movies like Sunset Boulevard, Double Indemnity and The Lady From Shanghai. This was spawned out of that feel. I’m kind of a scrawny guy but this really happened.

  So what do you like most about me?

  Most? Hmmm. That dress. I like that dress more than anything.

  As the man finished saying this, the woman reached up to her smooth shoulders, shifted thin straps of her dress to her triceps and straightened her arms slowly like a soldier on medication. The dress fell to her feet, silk accordions.

  She stepped from it, struggling with the trap of her heels and stayed still. The man retrieved the dress from the dirty carpet, swung it upon his forearm and said nothing as he turned for the door. Her original body, stiff and cold. She didn’t expect that.

  The man closed the door behind him. He could hear the swash of her legs, skin against skin. Maybe she sat down to weep or read. The man counted to thirteen, ten being too predictable, and kicked open her door with the awkward force of a thousand rookie detectives and charged in. Smash clank of his shoe above her doorknob. She inhaled her scream, tried to cover herself but it was too late. Their bodies pounded around the room. Cherry candles vanishing from the heat, rips in the wallpaper, couches torn down to their skeletons.

  This was only the way they kissed.

  Wall to wall,

  with a dress smoldering on the lampshade.

  ALICIA’S SCIENCE VOLUNTEER

  This poem got so weird, I just started chopping it down to what you see here. Oh and this woman did have really deep, beautiful ankles. I was crazed about her.

  If being a small poodle means

  I can lap milk

  from that soft and nameless curvy dish of skin

  behind your ankle

  while you sleep,

  then yes,

  you may put me in the machine.

  SEVEN YEARS TO DIGEST GUM

  There is a real dirtiness to this poem. It was written at a time when I wondered if it was really possible for man to invent lust or if God put it in us to watch what we do with a war like that. It was also inspired when I caught two shoplifting girls when I worked at a magic shop. The looks on their faces as they looked for receipts in their pockets that were never there stays with me. This was written while listening to the Afghan Whigs.

  I have your gold, honey humper

  And guess what?

  I swallowed it

  ‘cause I read a book about internalizing self worth.

  It said to keep something terrible inside me.

  I swallowed your cool liquid gold.

  It’s dripping off my chin.

  You want it?

  Come and get it.

  You want the dogs?

  I’ll cut ‘em loose.

  I’ve got a soundtrack of dogs crawling on their bellies.

  The book said to build molds of beautiful marble hands

  so you can practice letting them go.

  It said to drop them off of buildings

  and record the sound they make failing through the air

  Sound is something we can hold onto.

  Woman D6 chews gum in bed—

  swallows it and talks of bad luck.

  She says I lay in bed like a fallen statue.

  Older women have taught me to hold still.

  The rain tins down.

  The grass will get so tall.

  The dogs need a place to hide—

  pretty dogs.

  Her hovering screen-door-colored skin drapes me,

  shadows melt down the wall,

  we kiss in Spanish,

  nothing is understood.

  She has ascended,

  trapped with the spine of her spirit

  pressed to the roof.

  An angel in amber

  pulled by the warm steady light

  the color of flat ginger soda.

  Pulled deep within my brain

  You find my soundt
racks.

  I have a soundtrack of shoplifters

  looking for their receipts.

  I have a soundtrack of young women’s throats

  clearing in dressing rooms.

  I have a soundtrack of bored jurors

  thinking sex,

  crossing uncrossing pantyhose across pantyhose.

  I have a soundtrack of innocent men

  hanging by their necks,

  kicking their legs denim across denim.

  I have a soundtrack of predators

  caressing the hands of their prey.

  I got a soundtrack of dogs

  crawling on their bellies

  low in the grass

  moving towards the bird.

  A soundtrack of doors only closing.

  Spines banging against the ceiling.

  A soundtrack with songs learned at birth.

  A soundtrack of guardian angels swallowing sleeping pills.

  A soundtrack of drool-slithering, creeping hounds.

  A very catchy song

  in a very catchy loop.

  A soundtrack playing on the needles of our instincts

  rotating

  in every miserable, merciless beast.

  A FEW THINGS YOU PROBABLY ALREADY KNEW ABOUT EMUS

  A FEW THINGS YOU PROBABLY

  ALREADY NEW ABOUT EMUS

  This is one of those poems that was written while it was happening. It’s a bit like a journal due to the little pink notepad I carried around in that unique nation known as Texas. I rarely read this at shows ‘cause my father lost three people he loved soon after this was printed. If he ever does read this, he should call me.

  On the flight into Houston,

  children sitting behind me realize that many words rhyme with

  turkey.

  “Look, it’s a flying turkey

  No, it’s a flying Turkey Murky Jerky!

  No, it’s a flying Murky Jerky Perky Lurky

  Hurky Gurky Durky Quirky Furky Turkey,”

  I feel the Bloody Mary sizzling inside me.

  Kids—What you’re seeing is just an airplane.

  What you’re doing is pissing me off.

  Have Daddy share some of the Ritalin he’s been bogarting

  before I go Monte Cristo on both of your hineys.

  If you want to read or sleep, that’s cool.

  If you continue to irritate and rhyme all flight, I will eat you.

  I will rock you, Amadeus!

  I feel ill and if you don’t calm down

  I’ll swallow both of you whole. Shhhh.

  “Like Jonah.”

  What?