fragility

based on a dream i had the night before, so i'm not quite sure what it means, so i'm letting it sit, and would love to hear any commentary on it - it's still a work in progress.

give me your hands & let’s pick up

from the hay beds filled with dead chicks

& the flood of broken toys,

their primary colors staining

the bottom of your socks

 

oh give me your hands & let’s never fall asleep again

the elevators follow us, fleeing,

but I’m always one step ahead, always looking back

at you and your expressionless face

& the bits of irony stuck up your nose

 

flaming bug bites obscure our pale bodies like malignant mountains,

your belly button the ocean for a thousand million beings

my lips untouched, my back aching,

I chop off my thumbs & throw them into the river in the woods

before the water becomes as stale as the canned bread you bought last week

 

o, darling, give me your hands,

not your words

you never needed them

& we never will again

we will go into the forest with the rhinocerous beetles

 

give me your hands & let’s pick up

all the broken things at our feet, tie them together with golden rings,

watch them sink down to the bottom of the river:

our gameboys & the nerve wires we pulled out of each other’s spines

like spicy cajun hands on crayfish, we are surgeons

 

so darling give me your hands & I’ll give you the knife

abortion specialist, cut the mystery right out of me

remove the tear ducts as a bluelight special

so I can revert to the red light

& why not take my corneas too & I’ll implant them on your empty sockets

 

now you can see the yellow lighthouse on the dock

you’ve been sailing blind too long, wolfsuit & t-shirt,

with your VHS & hollow steering wheel & collar for the dog that got away,

the pads of his feet moist with the lyse of dead chicks

before I woke to find grass between my toes we howl

 

so give me your hands

& we’ll cover that hole in your maw your jaw your la-la-la

yes, we will be surgeons & never again will anyone say anything stupid

about going into the woods, about belonging there

& no one will ever have to dream again

 

with elevators & architecture, gospel choirs & yellow light

with billboards full of useless words

in some otherness we must chop into our salads of quarks, bolts & mercury

& the lesbians in that david foster wallace story

with all their lies about why they were the way they were

 

but we could pick them out like string from cheap christmases,

like the tremble in her voice on stage,

like black sheep in a crowd,

but the words were in another language

oh god damn babylon god damn it all

 

we will be surgeons & disrupt the flow

add in some iron so you can go go go

her harp is at the bottom of the river

the black keys are at the bottom of the river

our feet are at the bottom of the river

 

so we never have to look at them again

so we never have to look at each other again

so we never have to look back again

don’t get your scarf caught in the blood’s path darling

give me your hand

 

 

 

 

Reviews

[the in between]

Wow extremely colorful. It was like a collage of many images but it felt like a song to me. I get the feeling life is not about words but actions :) nice