How like myself the walls of the Great Confine are.
Expressionless and forever still,
they, like myself,
stare dutifully into the dark or day
or crowd or empty pit of space.
We are bound by design
to stop the roof from giving way
and those who would rest their hands against us
don't know the fucking half of it.
Though.
It is rare and wholly without permission
that I sometimes turn my eyes
to face something else.
Something warm.
Quite old, this thing.
Quite busy.
Quite bored.
Quite entertaining but never quite mine.
This thing, this clump of tired flesh
and droopy drawers,
never minded that I slept on the floor.
Why?
Because the links had taken their self-imposed toll?
Because the miles beneath it's perfect heels
stare back like a Chinese blowjob?
No good reason.
No reason at all.
The walls and I have a job to do.
Tomorrow
and every day after.
Where love reaches out
like a baby discovering their own toes
and the seed of allegiance buries itself
like a tick beneath the skin
of those not paying enough attention,
where adoration and abandon
fuck like teenagers,
this is where you’ll find me.
I wrap my whole self in sandwich bags
and send whoever happens to be peeking over the kitchen counter
away with snack-size entireties,
knowing that,
one day,
they’ll grow up and want something
with a more attractive wrapper.
Something that comes with saline toys.
Something less criminal to throw away.
It happens this way every time.
Consider me, then,
the acme of foolishness.
Consider me the Top of the disposable Line.
Consider me –
Oh, look!
Toes!
I am too often held hostage
by Poetry.
Roundabouts random bouts of failure
and purely physical tri-Oomphs
get stuffed
quite violently
into white paper bindings.
Again and again and again and again
(Do it again, Brit!
Do it again!)
Traditionally Unspeakable miseries
get printed and shared
like an entertaining campfire story nobody really buys
and
suddenly
a broken heart becomes
a pleasant new title
served without preface over breakfast.
The gun is in my hand, you see
and I shan't highlight any takeaways
for fear of the fucking obvious.
See how the poet mourns his fortunes.
He is of the people
and articulates their suffering;
he greets pleasure with a feigned drunken reluctance
and is quick to discount
the weight of melted silver.
The poet is eternal.
Measures of time fall by the wayside
and he becomes something like energy
widely felt but seldom seen.
His words find the voice
finds the wind
finds our hearing
and we, the reader, become his most trusted companions.
Our secondhand intimacy
rivals the fever of flesh
and when we feel pain, he takes the same.
His body dies like our bodies die
but his words are etched in bone
and so long as mothers weep
and fathers drink
and babies cry,
the poet lives on through his sacrifice,
having lived an entire life
worth writing about.
It had become something of a running joke
amongst us little boys in French Blue -
the late departure time of Daniel Hammerman.
With a stranglehold on the telephone
we'd just keep saying it,
"Hasn't he got a family?
Doesn't he want to go home?"
I was all too happy to work this Thanksgiving.
For twice the normal rate, I kept the doors locked
and made pretend I was some sort of astronaut
crash landed and stranded on a foreign planet.
The servers were the failing engines.
The monitors were the infinite eyes of a great multi-lensed beast.
I think I would have worked for free.
I wonder if Daniel Hammerman ever had visions of space.
It's been a year since we've spoken his name
and I've only just now thought to ask.
You were going to be a meteorologist, you said.
You were going to travel and study the sun and the moon
and the stars and the tides
and the lands and the wars
and the ancients and the aliens
and the magic bullet
behind the Kennedy assassination.
And you didn't need me holding you back.
Eight years later, I heard you were killed
by the tornado that leveled downtown.
It must have been very exciting, I thought,
getting to study about Kennedy.
"All I want is ESPN" I kept telling her.
"Well," she'd say,"we can offer you a less expansive Sport Package
that will not include the soccer and hockey games.
You will not be able to view the Stanley Cup finals on this package."
"You're not listening to me," I said, taking another drink
of my egg yolk yellow kerosene.
"I want to remove every single channel except ESPN.
Do you understand? I want to only have ONE channel
and I want ESPN to be it."
"Well, we have a few other sport packages that will include ESPN..."
She wasn't listening to me.
I set the phone down and sat in my bedroom doorway.
The tv was on just as loud as it always was
and I could hear the men going on about this and that.
I imagined his ghost sitting just out of view
shaking his fist and giving the NBA an earful.
Tears formed in my eyes
and I sat there for a long while,
drinking my vitamin infused mixture.
When I came back to the phone, the lady had hung up.
I closed my eyes and walked into the living room.
Kneeling, I felt around for the remote and, when I found it,
pushed the channel clicker.
The channel flipped and someone new was talking
about DIY projects.
She hadn't been listening.
Keeping my eyes closed, I put it back on ESPN
and crawled back to my room.
I shut the door and leaned my head against it,
listening to the muffled broadcast through the thinness of
whatever the hell apartment doors are made of.
I'd spent the entire day moving everything into my room
with one eye closed and the other on the floor.
I didn't want to look into the empty living room.
With everything moved into the bedroom, I wouldn't have to.
The only reason I would have to leave
would be to go to work.
I took my last swallow and stared at my bedroom window.
It'd be a healthy plummet for sure,
but believe me when I say
there are far more painful falls.
He never really Lived here.
Why should now be any different?
As though it were just another flick
of an ordinary pen
there,
on the dotted line, I
swore myself to 12 months of hermitude.
Euphemistic silence.
To be a nervous paw
reaching under the door
passing notes to the mailman
who never got the memo.
"Independence suits you, Brit.
I think you'll find, with time,
you're much better off."
They're probably right.
There were little things, though...
When he Was home and I couldn't sleep,
he'd rub my shoulders
and listen to me gripe about the shoddy sand art
the t.v. was selling infants.
When he Was home and I was sick,
he'd wrap my feet in warm blankets
and make sure I took my medicine,
and got rest and drank water.
Sometimes, when he Did sleep here,
he'd stay up with me.
We'd have all the lights off and the balcony door open.
The light from the Wal-Mart would glow softly against his stupid smile
as he referenced a joke about a joke
I'd never heard in the first place.
And his long eyelashes
when he couldn't hold out any longer.
He looked like a real nice guy when he slept.
Being alone will be the easy part, I think.
It's loneliness that's the killer.
I wake up in the middle of conversations.
Strings of soft and witty putty
come oozing out of my mouth,
like suspiciously appetizing plates
of Play-Doh spaghetti.
Or meat.
Yes. Like meat.
The panic is momentary, though.
Before I know it, I'm right back to sleep
and the non-toxic hot pink grounds flow on
with or without my permission.
They are so shrill, though.
Them.
It's a wonder I manage to sleep at all.
Their smiles recall how Dali saw the world
and, I think,
he must have smelled it, too.
How subtle
the strings attached to me
adhering me to your chest
that I may love as you love.
These transparent tethers,
thinner than a midsummer's moan,
take root beneath visions of the dying and the dead
with nothing to show but their educated opinions.
More than the ship detests the anchor,
more than the bee bewails the sting,
I struggle within these nylon confinements
though,
Too often,
you do me the adulterous courtesy
of unwinding my bonds
that I may go free.
And sometimes I do.
But where your threads are cotton,
another man's may be steel
so I curl myself back into your arms,
forsaking the very real option
of dying alone
with my educated opinions.
Lay with me, Moira,
in the bed you alone have made.
Between seemingly auspicious sheets,
atop a cushioned mound of sudden and pointless desire,
suckle me with your toothless mouth,
caress me to the letter.
Like an animal unused to the cage,
I have struggled within you,
letting my fantasies writhe
in your sure-footed place.
Even going so far as to make
ineffectually defiant love
to the self-serving Dove, ah, but you,
Moira,
you did not move.
As love's shadow grew
and gained the appearance of weight,
you calmly stood by as I tried to embrace it.
Try after stupid try,
you watched my eager hands
dip down into love's illusive silhouette
and come up
choking on air so clear
(so unavoidably clear).
As I sat,
slumped and bewildered,
you pressed your lips to my empty palms
and breathed a life I was loathed to grasp.
Ah, but in that subservient moment,
the suffering stopped.
The pain gave way to purpose.
I slept
Dreamlessly.
I wanted Nothing.
Lay with me, Moira,
in the bed you alone have made.
Rid of child(ish) illusions,
Excused from the quartering horses of matrimony.
Suckle me with your toothless mouth.
Caress me to the letter.
In the way a televised orgy
stands to lose its household charm,
I imagine becoming a famous author
mustn't be far from that.
(Too many people watching
to enjoy the simple pleasures of
People Watching.)
See how those tangled writers writhe!
Can you not count the measures in their hips?
Do you not hear their harmoanies?
It just isn't for me, I say.
And the purchased removal
of choosing to be
or not to be
is simply out of the question.
The sun is rising now.
Soon, the moody blue will give way to pinks
and the edges of downtown skyscrapers
will look like smoldering leaves,
burning brighter with each passing breeze.
I am removed from such common phenomenon.
Here, beneath layers of concrete and sawdust,
beneath laughter and loving
and hastily made carnivals,
I am out of the question and quick with the answers.
Phantom alarm. Open Loop.
Active input.
(Acknowledge. Acknowledge. Acknowledge)
Right this second, more than any damn thing,
I am wondering what mirrors look like
when nobody is around.
Take away the living things. Take away the surroundings.
Throw it in a goddamned void
and what will it look like?
The void?
Cameras and systems.
Speed limits and stop signs.
Bartenders and blankets.
Speed limits and stop signs.
Cameras and systems.
Speed limits and stop signs.
Bartenders and blankets.
Do you see what I mean?
I am nothing on my own.
I am everything around me.
Cameras. Systems. Speed limits. Stop signs.
Bartenders. Blankets. Over and over.
The city is burning therefore I am burning.
On days that I'm lucky, I am intercourse and poetry.
But those are common phenomenon for most
and we've already established
that I am far removed from that.
An old friend hit me up yesterday.
He asked if I wanted to throw back a few beers
and get some dinner over by his new apartment.
The apartment I hadn't seen yet.
The apartment I just Had to see.
I was hungry and could have used the drinks,
but I declined, citing some good wife shit about
making dinner and cleaning house
and watching the baseball game uninterrupted.
He called me a fag
and politely hung up.
He'd have been an alright hang and all
but he would have wanted to screw like we used to,
and Facebook had long ago clued me in to the fact that
the years had been Most unkind to his
formerly
athletic body.
I would have excused myself a Dozen times
so I could spit in my hand
and keep my uninterested vagina moist.
It would have been like eating pheasant.
Or crab.
Later on that night,
I sat with some day old pizza and thought, "Gosh,
a hot meal and cold beer with a good pal would have been
much more pleasant than this."
A lonely bologna longing set in
and I started to call him.
But. I didn't.
Instead,
I took off my plaid pajama pants
and, with the use of the same imagination
used to write this poem,
brought myself to orgasm
about eight times
over the course of an hour.
Mostly, I thought about the sex he and I Used to have.
He used to be very strong and he always wanted to fuck
standing up.
Boastful as it seemed, I never refused.
(I guess you could say we were Both very full of himself.)
After my umpiric marathon,
I stepped in the shower
to rinse off the sweat and arousal.
In fairness to him, I took a pic of my ass
scantly covered in suds
and sent it to his email.
It'd be a while before he opened it.
Longer still, before he opened the email.
It is not at all the way it is depicted on screen.
Lovers. Models.
Barging through the front door
in a frenzied Tasmania of kisses and caresses
and overcoats and loosened ties
and easy metal teeth
down flawless naked backs.
And he kisses her!
Long kisses. Passionate kisses.
Kisses that could occupy a lifetime.
He is careful and In Charge
and she is yielding and unafraid.
The next 20 minutes
play out like pages from a novel
with some horse on the cover
giving Broken Backs Rides.
Maybe I've seen too many movies.
Maybe I've read all the wrong books.
And in the 9 minutes I spend
trying to convince myself of this,
I have not been kissed
even once.
Beauty has a tendency to overwhelm me.
It is never the devil with the same last name
or the reigning chimp taking wild swings
at limb to limb
frightened by their ability to hold him (off).
It is never the old man's coffee stains
and it sure as shit isn't the madness in sharing
the same neck skin with someone far less kind than myself.
No.
It is the woeful caress of distance
and a poorly covered croon.
It is the smear of spit on my cheek
from a baby who was happy not to know the difference.
It is the weight of a lyric
cast into impossible understanding
and it is the poetry that runs away with the line.
These are the things that overwhelm me
and the products remain
as such.
Inspecting myself this morning,
I find red wine and blueberry punch stains
have already risen to the surface
where the skin is the thinnest.
"What the hell happened to YOU?"
"Me? You should see the Other guy!"
Nobody laughs when I say that.
I'm the one with shark teeth in my thigh
and They're the ones who are freaking out.
It looks worse than it is. Really.
I can almost pass the thumb print on my neck
as a hickey.
Oh, I can't stand the thought of the looks I'm going to get at work tomorrow.
They'll ask me the same thing
and I'll say,
"Oh, nothing. I'm just a huge Carradine fan
and never learned how to tie a knot."
And nobody will laugh.
Nobody ever laughs.
Now,
with a mouthful of witty retorts,
I spewed the remainders
into a bowl of fruit.
The air had bruised them overnight
and I couldn't stand to watch.
As yesterday's triumphs
became entirely too soft for consumption,
I was suddenly sorry
I'd looked back on them at all.
At the palest signs of trouble, they, the blunt-tipped and
As Advertised, come buzzing 'round in swarms.
"We smelled smoke", they say,
piling one atop the other for a closer look.
"Is everything okay?"
I look back to see my old friend
playing with younger versions of himself,
each more dashing than anyone ever remembered.
Like a little girl hosting a tea party,
he shoves his arms up two asses at a time,
quacking his hands to manipulate their mouths into saying things like,
"Two more then cut it."
and "I'll be home in a bit."
"No fire today-", I tell the dog pile,
"-but my shadow is getting shorter all the time."
Poor choice of words, Brit.
Now you'll have to sit and listen to them argue over who's is Longer...
Cry or Pee.
That’s how this all began.
Sitting side by side on a couch
rumored to have cost a tenth of a certain delicious candy bar,
he, with the kind of nuclear confidence only older men possess,
reached out
and, boyishly, grazed my side.
“Are you ticklish?”
Has the answer ever mattered?
The body responds to lust
In such embarrassing ways.
There I sat.
Hunched over.
Giggling.
Like a fucking toddler
amazed at the elasticity of dad’s face.
“Cry or pee. That’s the only way out of this.”
His hungry probing fingers found the hem of my shirt
and made their way up to where it tickled
a little differently.
Suddenly, I was reminded of the time I’d wrapped a belt tightly around my neck
and pretended to be a dog
(until somebody took notice
or the Blue eventually gave way to Black).
His heavy silver band felt cold against my skin.
“Which is it gonna be, Ortega?”
Has the answer ever mattered?
Children lined the powdered sidewalks this morning,
sticking their tongues out in bowl shapes
trying to replace breakfast with a Different kind
of Frosted Flake.
The wind picked up
and the children made kites
fashioned out of the homework
they no longer needed.
Afternoon rolled around and temperatures kept dropping.
The sludgy softness turned to ice
and the kids began sliding
THIS way!
THAT way!
They pretended to be Incredible Hulks
and smashed Smashed SMASHED
all the frozen glass
on their mother's soccer van.
In the distance, they hear a car horn blaring
followed by a crash.
They hear rubber struggling to hold the road
and a dozen phone calls
from Safe (Not Sorry) grownups.
Everybody took the day off today
and as I stood in the lightwell
where cold wind vortexes in,
I cursed every goddamn one of them.
Pondering purpose is a maddening endeavor.
The pursuit of the collective utterance of mankind
to pop each of their underestimating heads around the doorway
and, in perfect apologetic harmony,
sing you a song
that lasts an eternity,
this ridiculous fantasy of cracking the Short Term Memory code...
it is maddening, I say.
Maddening!
Are we not already doomed to live forever?
Must we give the student body
something else to misinterpret?
I tell you,
you can keep the notoriety.
You can keep your names
unavoidably embossed, if you like.
Just
keep me out of the light.
Lime. Day. Or any other damn kind.
At last, I think, I'll make a final plea with
honeyed suckles
birds and barbs and bees. Even while
the stillness grows
frustrated and impatient like
a newborn
unable to articulate its needs.