1_ porous fire smoldering in soft water
i read will alexander’s tender poem
today
dedicated to the wondrously mad genius
of antonin artaud
& i felt the kind of love
you feel for the first time
for something
you know
you’ve always held dear
& the words helped me peel a silence
from myself
out of an oval form
nested inside my imagination
a form as porous as
water or fire
like the gentle but relentless
smoldering of deep-deep
longing
for something that will never happen
yet has happened
so many times before
in the distant future
2_ the dead nightingales
for our cute little microbial dictator
it is said
when you hold back tears
springs in your eyes may burst
i was all too familiar
once
with the tears’ journey
out of the stomach
up into the heart
throat
trying to pierce
through the eyes
throbbing inside the skull
like a lonely sobbing bird
quarantined in your mouth
the old nightingale
buried yet fluttering
its wings of water
in your chest
as if
bombs of song
were about to spark
out of your eyes
that same bird
gave birth
once
to my winged parents
black angels
quarantined
inside my chest
like that virus
what’s its name again?
freud called it
the unconscious
but plato knew
it was the soul
isolated inside
the corpse
i’ll catch that virus
one day
grow an unconscious
grow a soul
& i’ll chew up
the last nightingale
i’ll grind it with my teeth
while it sings gaelic songs
celtic tales
sung in the language
of the dead
its fading melodies
cracking
inside that freudian thing
as my parents
at very last
spread their wings
& fly out
from your mouth
high up
free
like only
dead nightingales
can
3 _ amphibian she-wolf apparition
crawling on eight legs
For “SPIDER WOMAN” Louise Bourgeois
to those
who assume
i am one
like xx or xy
or hyphenated
like greco-roman
or french-american
i declare
i’m neither one
or two
i am at least
three or seven
bodies without mind
amphibian
she-wolf apparitions
the one true body
my mental fangs
shine
like a bouquet
of weeping spider orchids
& my howls
they grow
inside in the bleeding crotch
of an endangered language
i am
that oblique
martyr of thought
the underwater crow
crawling
towards you
during one of your unique
alchemical dreams
on eight legs
there
my arachnodactyly utter
promiscuous decibels
kachina melodies
tunes in sync
with the molecules of desperate water
& like your utmost faithful nationality-slut
my allegiance evaporates
as fast as one
guttural gonzo glance
like my tresses of synthetic wind
or your plastic genitals
all hide
inside the same hollow consonant
& chuckle
understand
my dear queer friend
i’m not like
your next-door normopath
i cultivate
parasites in my brain
& my body-parts
are partially
sonic
partially visual
i flourish
in that
festering wound
where morally right
& morally wrong
overlap
so understand
i’m not hyphenated
i’m eight-eyes
MADAME LOUISE BOURGEOIS
the amphibian she-wolf
apparition
crawling towards you
on eight legs
during one of your unique
alchemical dreams
Great!
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