Abrupt

 

 
rough stuff

 

 
tickle

 

 

 

 

 

 
* puff *

 

 

(from a conversation with xrew)

CONQUEST BACKLOG
——————

SCROLL BACK
I REMEMBER
ALL YOUR BODIES
A NETWORK OF TWISTED PAIRS

Creamy coral eyes
Salty hypnotize
Filmy mermaid’s delight
Flying fish, fishy flight
Giant sponge
Where you lunge
On the seabed at night
Where the manta ray flaps
And the fish-harlot slaps
Her oily buttocks to say…

  We got red roe
  We got jelly
  Come rub some on my belly
  Smoke some seaweed
  What do you need?
  Put this hook in your mouth

Garlic bread on a board
Old wood counters, etched with cuts
Cups and wicker
Pots hung on the makeshift wall
Tea brews

You can lean through plants here
And see Brooklyn
Through a high kitchen window
Try not to topple the handmade vase

A house of music
And movies — old black-and-whites
And wine
In her room, a futon on the floor,

It took me how long to figure
I wasn’t there to fix
Her computer?
Some men drink liquor
Or golf the time away
But for me life has a certain sorrow
Scenting my fingers still next day

I was young I was old
But I was mostly in between
The music was fine
And the books were fine
The stars were wrong
– but the movies were fine

When I left there, we were smiling
Unashamed and unfulfilled
With not much left to say
On her desk sat a working computer
Still, on her desk sat a working computer
And in my pocket some notes
On the music she’d
Played
Through the night

I was digging through old stuff and found this piece. It’s from 1999 at the latest — probably much earlier. Usually I’m not one for metered rhyme, but we all have to dabble in stilted Elizabethan verse at some point in our careers, no? This is what routine intoxication will do to you, kids! (Secretly, I like this one a lot.)

Elysian grove, pink petals bright,
With twisted wood, and dome of light.
An endless orchard sweet as skin,
enchanted, with narcotic wind.

Night’s greenest depths resound with chords:
a ringing out of birthing worlds.
The life-force throbbing in the void,
the ecstasy of parts rejoined.