AUTOMOBILES AS HOSPITAL BEDS
We begin life knowing that
teen queens will grow old,
fast kids must slow down for blinking lights,
priests and bishops will French kiss sometimes.
Let me rephrase:
Priests and bishops will Freedom kiss always because
I've been living on an extract of
dust covers, mechanical infants,
and endless oil paint spills.
These are the things you breathe when you own nothing.
This is what you inhale exhale when you've been bought.
I have considered living under a tree like Buddha,
singing to a crucifix like Pontius Pilate, swinging
in the autumn.
I forget enough to know that
when you get right down to it there are only
two actions between the cannibal
stars and her nervous system:
Betray and Extract.
Extract.
Today I'm thinking about breaking
open ten AAA batteries and drinking
the acid that dances around inside,
and it would only take a miracle
for you to sip with me.
And just so we can set the record straight,
you were correct:
I could never love you
as much as your television does.
Your cathode rays will go supernova some day
and I'll swim inside of you to know the stars.
And so we return to the same
questions, the self analysis that never
shuts up, the outer dialysis that changes
my blood into water to make me lighter.
This makes me easier to discard.
Now I fold into four even parts so
you can toss me into the trash head first.
We live in the first landfill in space.
Yes, I'm thinking about starting it all over.
And now I'm singing:
Yes, I'm thinking about starting it all over.
I know that tomorrow I can't cry myself to sleep,
and these days will be "those days".
FINISHED AT 1:33 A.M.
I'm wishing I was small.
Tiny enough to fit into your
back pocket; To be carried,
lifted, floating until oxygen
escapes me.
I'm laying near you in your
evening coma. We are
two sets of legs, one complete
collection of complication,
four arms between us,
two heads aren't better than one..
"The ends justify the means!"
poets cry through hollows and
brushfires, butterfly mortuaries,
the graveyards where all of my
dead, empty liquor jugs
rest together. Sleep now,
in unsinkable ships whistling
sailor dirges into the waves.
You remind me of rum.
Of can't stand up nights.
Of shotguns and cigarettes,
and how these cigarettes
burn so loud when you
listen careful enough,
alone enough.
And though I won't say I love you,
I will say "I miss you".
I'm not looking to shift opinions
or break legs, so
if you never got my apology I
expect it's lost to sea,
swimming inside of a bottle
like this poet.
As for explanations,
cursory glances toward
other sets of breasts,
or funerary condolences
for living bodies...
I have nothing left to offer
save for what I've just read.
EULOGY FOR A KOOL AID WINO
42. (Tokyo-Massachusetts Express)
i saw richard brautigan this morning as
i smoked my cigarette
on this end of summer lawn.
he walked by in the form of
a truck with rot eating its belly.
42. (Too Many Rivers For Sale)
this evening the sky ran into echoes &
echoes pounded on him yelling "let me in!"
until sky opened up and sat still. "hello, echoes," the sky rained.
richard sat them both down
and talked about their problems.
they smoked 3 joints and ended up
in the same sleeping bag, listening for morning.
42. (Ianthe & inBOIL)
today brautigan told me how charles baudelaire
sat in the spruce outside his childhood home. said when his
mom hit him charles would rub the mark, spill raindrops onto his
hair, they'd drink kool-aid together. few believed richard about
baudelaire's visits, fewer believe me about richard's. we think that's sad.
42. (The Girl With The Lantern)
you read some of richard's poetry last night
and said he wrote pieces of poems,
that the rest of his thoughts were missing.
i let you know i disagreed: they weren't missing, it's that
richard saved them for himself.
43. (Richard Again, Again, Again, Again, Again)
somewhere between iDEATH and tijuana i lost track of
richard. said he needed a bottle of whisky and
some flower seeds. when he returned, he said, we'd take sips off the
seeds and plant the bottle next to an insect grave. but he never did.
i found myself
fishing less and less until it became so distant that i couldn't hear the rain
anymore.
it's hard to lose someone you never knew.