Sunday, January 22, 2012

on track.

man dies on a track.
man lived on a track
can't figure out where he went off course
of course
because from afar man was always on track

man on track
man on track
train is coming
but the man is still on track.

couldn't stop to see what passed him by
couldn't stop to see what was right in front of him
couldn't see through darkened windows
to the light at the end-
lights at the end of the tunnel
approaching
man on track
man on track
train is coming
but I couldn't stop--

-- --
-- --
-- --

-- --

the man on track
the blood on track
the melted snow, the rotting rats, the discarded possessions
the piss the puke the pandemonium
on track
the running and the feet and the crowds and the haze
on track
the life of the lives of the living
on track
the trip trip tripping and the drip drip dripping
and the drop drop drop
on track
of track on track
keeping track of
track on track on track on track.


monday morning comes and the trains are running back-- -- while the stale subway gutters glean a darker sheen of red, and everyones' lives are right back-- --to normal.

Friday, January 20, 2012

mortality.


does art betray the love it seeks to honor?
to wait until the last seconds to stop what has been happening since the start.
injunctions against gaze

i did not want my desire to overwhelm hers
is any memory of love not informed by mourning?
how love's hope--the sudden breath in the heart-- responds to death--the end of all breath
death is an event with both spatial and temporal location
after life before death

if only he hadn't looked back
to return without turning is akin to repeating something that has no original

When heart is gone, how can it be that I am living?


his quest seems to require her death


(nods to Peggy Phelan, as these are mostly her words, not mine.)

Sunday, January 15, 2012

what happens when you reinhabit a body you used to own
but no longer remember
except for the soft squishy areas
where flesh and sinew
meet intimacy and nostalgia.
The words no longer aligning with the movement
so you make up for
lost time
lost fantasies
lost lovers.
I always thought we'd get married
or at least go through the actions
that marriage signifies:
an exchange of trust
a commitment to the longevity of the relationship
a reciprocated investment of time and energy
a walk through mid morning mist in the dusk of our lives
shared cook, cleans, and cuddles
wrestling in the sheets
a slow dance in silence
a fight over something remote.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

if you forget me

it is perhaps because i did not love you enough
or perhaps you did not love me enough
or perhaps you never loved me at all.

if you forget the small of my back
where the pulps of your fingers pressed exhales
in the spaces between vertebrae in my spine
i will have forgotten the dimples in your ass
and the swerve of your child bearing hips
that end in bowed knees and duck flared feet.
your syncopated walk only the shadow of an image
echoing its dissimilarity in each ticking of this
second hand memory feasting on borrowed time.

i,

if you forget the moment that you broke me
that you broke into me
that love and pain became synonymous
and we took it anyway because somehow
masochism meant that at least we could still feel something
anything
that the pain killers and ssris
those sorry sons of an irresponsible system
hadn't numbed us yet
if you forget,
i've already forgotten what you feel like inside me
can barely locate the cells we exchanged
in the currency of friction.

if i forget you,
where will i go home?

Sunday, January 8, 2012

and then

it was over
your letters no longer haunting my shadow
your rhythm no longer dictating my steps
it doesn't hurt like it used to
because i don't remember what you felt like
inside me
anymore