Something Touched My Heart

There was a time when songs were magic.
I’ve seen films of this time and when I catch myself
watching these films over and over I feel dead.
Rimbaud in front of the mirror buttering his hair
like he’s Bob Dylan. All I want to do
is the dishes but here I am secretly singing
along, worrying about the rent and surrealism
has it gone out of style? I believe
this life continues into that life
so looking forward to death holds no purpose,
but I do it anyway unsure of my purpose
or who relies on me for their purpose
which someone surely does as I scribble on a wall,
kick over a trashcan and dismiss people from my life
without so much as saying one word to them.
I apologize for falling from grace,
causing your embodied descent and forced
redemption, but that said I could use
another kind of salvation into
the headphoned world of song,
out of this one where I don’t rightly love
those I love for fear of having to love
too long and again with the same love
when it changes. No one can help
lift the weight of the world so real,
and tumbling from the sky she goes
and now she knows she’ll never be
afraid. Just because an action exists
in history doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it.
So we’re stoned what are you going to do
tell us about the Beatles?
I don’t believe in Beatles I only believe
love is nothing but a memento mori.
Move me to see my one holy life through two eyes.
The zinnia is so much more real today
than anyone with a mouth I think I’ll slip
inside it and eat some tomatoes.

The Huge Feeling

My skin is dull and mossy
with tiny mushrooms
sprouting in the pores.
Will the sun shine
on my teeth today?
Or will I be fruitlessly baring
them at clouds again
until nighttime when
I will wait for you to spear me
in the soft place
with a dirty icicle
you sucked down to a point?

Recess

Once when I was small a great big granddaughter came up to me and said how do you do? I am illegitimate & dumb what’s your name? Test scores show me to be in the bottom of my class should we be friends? Sure I said why not you only have one time on this carousel of grotesquely defined bumblebees & juice is an elixir want some? No she said I want proof. What’s your name? Long before last Christmas I said I sought a hammer to shape my name but I hurt my elbow see? The sunlight is on my mind she said so I don’t believe it. C’mon I said I cared for you inside my head when we played Follow the Leader—When the leader said snap she said you snapped two times! That shut me up. Lay me down in a bed of brown rice and return on occasion to doubt she said. Layer my surface with mustard greens & call an ambulance. I can’t keep up I lied but it was too dark for secrets & two mewling associates had taken her away from the gates by then.

Smile

The calm position of my wind-chapped face
after a day outside and a night of bloody noses
feels so cinematic. Behind it I picture
my self as I would like to be seen—
empty of all self-regard, importance, loathing—
but my teeth yellow as they recede
away from spectators, into my mouth.
Only good friends and a few lovers know.
Everyone else regards two shiny fronts and a crinkled smile.
Charming. “Always home on time for dinner.”
“No more midnight drives into the mountains on acid.”
“No more vain attempts to live outside the jurisdiction.”
A human sees itself unexpectedly reflected,
brushing the teeth, suddenly ordinary, ugly, ready to die.