Volume 16 ~ Spring 2004 ~ ISSN 1543-6063

KEVIN KILLIAN

HEAVY HANDED

When two people sit down to eat, after a long period
in which they saw each other in San Diego and
misunderstood the others’ intentions, like me and Jennifer
they raise their glasses and say, “A la croute!”

Let’s eat!  A la prochaine we will quarrel no more,
A la votre, I say, to her under the dark San Diego moon
on the balcony where the final scenes of
Jurassic Park, Part III were laid, or The Iliad.

How'd I get to be so fly there?  A ballon d’essai,
a mere wave of a whimsical fan, try it, Chum, for once
you go Braque you never go back . . .

When two people are feeling heavy-handed and yet,
their hearts are like pink crystal pills, radically
transparent, well, ce ne fait rien—
never mind the bollocks, here’s Kylie Minogue

all Gallic and Bardot-inspired since her very first date
with Olivier Martinez, cela va sans dire, or does
that go without saying?  C’est bonnet blanc et
blanc bonnet, ce ne fait rien, he’s six inches
of man or man inches of six . . .

My mind pacing on Wellbutrin, like a cat burglar
avoiding the chimneys of the roof, Paris skyline,
that’s my mind, racing,

but always coming back to you—you thinking I was
lying to you, when I wasn’t,

This one time I wasn’t, when
I was heavy handed-
ly telling the what’s the word? the truth to you
as we sat down to eat tasteless, lowfat nuts

FLY

All Greece hates
the still eyes in the Australian face,
the luster as of ecstasy tablets
where she wraps
a microphone around her legs.

All Greece begs
Kylie Minogue to lay her eggs,
a bird in a golden nest
which you could lay like a trowel
recalling Allen Ginsberg’s Howl
—modernist screed, or coffee dregs?

Greece sees her fly,
to the prime minister next
to Michael Hutchence, in excess
the beauty of his cool feet
cramped in a noose
pushed out from tiled bathroom wall
the shower curtain thump,
white ash amid funeral *fragment*

Not silver, nor nemesis, nor orgone box
Shall cover thee,
Nor Dolce et Gabbana, nor many of
Allen Ginsberg’s musical song poems on harmonium
or Nick Cave,
Nor the wild rose
nor last summer’s wilder rave

Lethe has forgotten thee, and forgiven
your mother, who began this war
Even Iraq says, okay,
she had sex with Michael
Hutchence on an airplane, it’s not
the end of the world, wrap it up,

yet Greece reviles
that five-foot pop princess and
the more I look the more I see
her story is that of *fragment*

YOUR DISCO NEEDS YOU (VIDEO)

                                                                    for Matthew Greene

Hold on, Matt, gonna put you on the
manspeaker . . .   Uh-huh, uh-huh, “the flowers
that spring up from our carcasses will be
deadly?”  Right on . . . 

Ever see that movie about the
            last dude on Earth?  Vincent Price,
or Charlton Heston, shivering behind
bolted door, then at sunrise
he tip-toe out, watch further incursions
as zombie deer come lick at his cock
in empty street, repeat, repeat, I am the legend
Matt Greene . . .  

At night they storm his shack, the
zombies of new Atlanta.

“One golden shot means another poor victim
has come to a glittering end.”

Meanwhile massive trees have whispered thumbs
up to his painting

He paints so much his hand gets tired

Trees admire that about a man with

a golden gun

hopeless at Scrabble

sold on vanity

but that’s so see-through

Ten thousand Kylies march in unison, mad
machine cyborg dolls, spelling out the
letters of her own name (and the word, “Disco”)

She officiates at the massive funereal ceremony that marks
the death of the human, count backwards, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

Hints that as everyone knows, “discovery” is a back
formation of “disco” plus the qualifier “very”

Ow fuck, I jerked off for ten hours in a row,
watching your paint dry

Oh my hand is a withered limb on the
tree of disco, vestigial and dry

Throw up the clay humans in a row,
one by one,
shoot them down in the carnival

Used to be able to split them to sand,
leaving the world to Goth armadillos, mesquite

Now, I’m not so sure.  From Soho to Singapore,

“love is required whenever he’s hired,
It comes just before the kill”

Poem © Kevin Killian 2004. All rights reserved.

Duncan Hannah
www.jamesgrahamandsons.com

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