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Even where the
cherry emits the only
glow; “can I bum a smoke” and I
love you like an alibi; over the sterno
a marshmallow on a pitchfork blackens;
where the absence of the sparkling is an earring
adored yet neglected in a tackle box, a snelled
fishhook threaded through her lobe in lieu
of the perfectly compassed silver hoop;
Even where security in the dim is a form
of barking through dulled molars;
according to the plummet, according to the dark;
of course a power outage then the tyranny
of the fuse box; near the wick of the lambent
candle on the table a parabola of blue-
blackness inside light inside black-
blueness; close the eyes and squeal;
Even where deeper registers of color
locate deeper registers of sound; the neurotic
wail of an unseen killdeer, a man leaning
into formica to order the appetizer
“bluebirds over bullet wounds”;
the moss-rot smell of indigo space;
according to the plummet, according to the dark;
Even where water alone refuses its own
claustrophobia and every memento
is a form of onyx; the stoic bronze monkey
on the platter’s all shadows and balances
a basket of black opium on his head;
chase the dragon, close the eyes;
look, the hood torn off at dusk to run
screaming through the cherry trees;
Even where at this color and hour you remove
your sadness, fold it in thirds, and place it
at the foot of the mattress to keep
warm for wearing in better light
has become the religion. All former
manner of worship dismantled. The rotted black mandarin as seraphim,
a sledgehammer on the altar. God notwithstanding, God netting
himself hammock-like around antediluvian tools, all over ancient
fruits, into the negative space that shapes them. Middle English
slegge, from Old English slecg; akin to Old Norse sleggja, Old
English slEan to strike – more at TO SLAY. Citrus reticulata, the
wings are charred yet the interior retains its born color.
Tonight, activity over the Caribbean. A
storm of sledges falling from sky to water, steelhead-heavy like
distressed pelicans dive-bombing for mullet. Slender hickory handles
wiffling like tail feathers. This is, of course, all nonsense to the
disengaged. It may in fact be virtuous to disengage.
At communion I used to get literal with
the wafer pressed to my tongue. So this is the taste of human flesh.
So this is the stringy musculature of Christ’s left thigh. So this
is the sweet salt of blood. Beyond actualizing the grape, how else
to taste an otherwise inedible god?
As the hammers splash undetected into
waves, a mandarin on the beach inverts itself. This is no small
spherical feat. Black core, orange viscera sandy in the wind. What
does it mean, really, to die of exposure?
“Then said they unto him, ‘What shall we
do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us?’”
In response I requested to be banished
to the tossing water. Instead I got nothing but the blinking of
plankton, some luminescence. I’m unable to grasp this as punishment
– plankton possess the godliness these objects ceaselessly sought.
All spicule and yolk sac, lucent in the surf. I dunk my fingers in
the spume. To the beach on my right, the inverted mandarin. In front
of my feet, a washed up sledge lathered with seaweed. Though there
is no such thing as true repetition, the sea too seems a fugue,
wearily riffing on itself.
I stand and place two small seashells
over my eyes. There, a frenzied old Norse berserker wanders through
the mangroves, humming as he plucks mandarins from the trees then
clobbers them with his thunder club. This is, perhaps, rapture.
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The blow torch
lodged in my throat
keeps burning small holes
in my nonexistent wife.
Each black or
insinuating black.
Each a spider, an anus, a hammered coal
briquette. Each time I spread my lips
to command her
to come
into being,
this steel tongue,
itself a curved and burnished
thing of indeterminate
beauty, emerges
like a dormant
tapeworm lured forth
from the gut with a slab of raw
meat, dangled above the mouth.
For the
proceedings
I have been afforded neither
anesthesia nor
amnesia; I am more or
less conscious of the conical blue
flamelet that brands her
here, and
here, and now here.
While the
question of pain is secondary.
While the question of smell is primary,
that sense that ossifies memory.
Yet the smell
of each scorched
starburst of flesh, existent or not,
has been lost in the process, as though
the blow torch
in my throat is dying
to declaim
something more than mere
destruction. For instance,
Have you given
ample
consideration
to time and the
nature of material objects?
or
Phoenix.
or
Each diesel engine:
welded,
mounted, wedded
lovingly to
the chassis.
or
You are not depressed,
person, for
if you were, your
violence
would reside necessarily
before, and no
matter how determined
you became, you
could never
inscribe your
violence in “no,”
or
any other sign.
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