I miss the way the trees shiver
Between the still moments of breath
When the crow’s caveat-
A pulse for scavengers and death
Always states itself
A solitary wayfarer
And the smell of white static
Annexes the cubes
And enlivens my tongue
To push its ghost past my lips
To dissolve with the trees
A key for the palisades
You can imagine the pressure on my chest
Encompassing my lungs
My ears dipped in and out of muddy lake water
Some moments I heard the trees
And others the muffled breathing of fish
Like the Devil’s hands cupping my ears
I could look up —
And sink back
And see the spotted, white sky
Pushing the leaves
Moving the birds
And the sounds would be simple
But foreign.
—
2 am
We were sitting in a terminal waiting for a flight
My head leaned against her shoulder
Her arm across my back
My thoughts dimming into sleep
I could feel her voice through her sweater
As she discussed Coq Au Vin with an elderly woman in the next row
The words were muffled
But the hum was still there
Since this is a repost by special request I thought I might add a little history to it. Dada was basically my attempt to replicate Duchamp’s ready mades (who, by the way, is one of my favorite artists). The poem was taken directly from the warranty of my Sony radio alarm clock with a few alterations. The line “Sophism” and “Commercialism” was added to play on the broad nature of the warranty’s void under “Acts of God” which I repeated for emphasis and valued connection with the poems last line, “Only in the United States of America.” This poem won me a small prize from the Muntz Library Student Poetry Competition.
Dada
This Limited Warranty,
Only covers products,
Issues caused by defects,
In material,
During normal — consumer use.
It does not cover,
Issues caused by,
Acts of God,
Misuse,
Modification,
Acts of God,
Commercialism,
Imperialism,
Sophism,
Limits in technology,
Or acts of God.
This Limited Warranty,
Does not cover,
Products sold as is,
Or products sold — without faults.
This Limited Warranty,
Is invalid,
If the serial number,
Is altered… or removed.
This Limited Warranty,
Is valid,
Only in the United States of America.
Since I was young I’ve seen my heartbeat
Stitched into opaque depths of purple backdrops
Drie Susters
Devised by emaciated fingers that cackle and chatter
Over who misplaced their palisades
When they grazed their milky teeth against my freckled skin
And my benumbed lips with their desiccating kiss
So I knew what controlled the world
Wasn’t me
Or nature
Or God.
Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka:
Two beats for love
One beat for loss.
I captain glass ships
Over salty hazel crescents
Climbing latitudes by loose stars
And making progress
Until the day I saw
Her iris shatter
And pierce my compass-
My ocean hand
With thin grassy fingers
Like the earth showered the rain
It starts at the rim-
A reflective crevice
Where black crescents drop
At the pull of comet tails
And sweep chariots
On amber orbits
While bowed fingers
Model oblong waves
And slip the forehead
Into a damp seepage
As the eyelid peels
Against its salt and muscle
And the ocean ears
Are the last to sink.
We live on the lighted face of drying black ink
Where from our cryptic piercings
Tip toe delicate golden cuffs
Attached to dollar coin watches
With fancy wood like finishes and
Initialed casings.
She swallows her watch
Because she likes the way it looks in her stomach
With her hand pressed against her naval
And the seconds push out like little feet.
He pretends its click is a crack
And talks about it
With white teeth and elevated chins
Like it always knew he was there.
And I use picks to pull mine apart
And place its splintered lens against my eye
So that it scuffs and muddles my perspicacity
Of my companions
Whose names I can’t remember.
I’ve made a lifestyle of pushing my teeth-
In artistic clay and picking at their roots.
To me these are corroded apartments
With coffee stained windows
And pale white ledges
Which segregates the gargoyles
From communication
For the purpose of entropy.
And as I press my tongue
Against its brick gray, astringent idioms
I feel their palms like white droplets
Deject my finger tips…
Because the Earth will never stop.
A loquacious feather of playful antecedents
Trickled through a brackish illustration
Which flooded the bowed alleys of daylight
And exposed itself like abrasive fingers
Picking leafs off sickle branches
For soft ears pressed to swells of lavender
Shaded over floating plateaus and
Defending affection wrapped in pastel sheets
Against the thickness of obscurity
A city of colors
Carries perfumes
Sweet and salty
Red and white
Columns leading cuddled
Hands of blue and caressing
Fluorescent concertos of
Merchants, music, and mirth
Like the smudge of
Yellow baskets which
Rotate as casual comets
Just above delicately
Threaded fingers
Curving into tips of
Painted lips parted and
Pressed in brief to me.
