Wednesday, October 14, 2020

james tate - take back all my kisses

They got me because if a forest has no end I'll go naked

They got me because my mother stood at the end of a runway

        for seven years with her head in her hands

They got me because an empty street is going on without us

They got me because when I drink wine I drink an ocean

        and when I drink from a river I drink a stranger's 

        childhood

They got me because I suffered from whiplash in a dream 

They got me because I got myself first and last

They got me in between

They came and got me at dawn in Missouri

They got me with hands like blond spatulas

I let them take me away because the sun was nearer than I 

        expected and because I expected them to take me away

        and because I had never been there 

They got me because I was elected to go by the dead

They got me because the dead have too many votes but such 

        poor memories

They got me because the neighbors have wings

They got me because deer are hopeless in more ways than one

Because lights are turning on and off in my knees and 

        I can be spotted through a yard of brick

They got me yesterday because I wore a see-through skullcap

        in the gymnasium of sudden death

Because I spit in the eye of the corner guillotine 

Thunder Guggenheim got me today the fourth horseman 

They got me today because a subway wrecked on your lifeline

They got me in kindergarten when I dropped the atomic bomb

J. Edgar Hoover got me for inventing the milkpod

The preacher got me for eloping with a snail

I am convinced I am dizzy and should not be allowed

        to walk the streets of the city after dark alone

I am a menace to the diamonds that shimmer in flowerbeds 

They got me because I begged them not to take me more 

        seriously than they take themselves

Because they believed me when I said I could not change them

Because they moved the curtains back expecting to see eternity

Because eternity was in back of them and I stood in front

As I promised I would never do though I lied

I lied because my feet were nailed to a ship of birds 

They got me because a wall is nothing to another wall

Because I drove my heart into the ground with joy 

As I promised I would never sigh as a tree in the garden

        of pleases

No ghost spoke to me of the blood that drew near me

        but was not mine

They got me because a chimney was found to remember 

They got me suddenly I had been waiting too long

They got me Thursday it was not raining ragas and riches

They got me Monday I can recall the tiny noise

Saturday they got me my mouth was already gagged 

The got me Wednesday a most forgettable day

They got me Tuesday, Sunday, they got me Friday

        how easy to unpack those yellowing odd days 

Because fire is carried in a hat across the desert of birth

They got me because my job was to pluck houses 

        from the blind

Because women were waiting at the needle of bookstores 

Because windows are jumping in you and out of you

They got me with rubber horns and drugged rabbits

They got me when a rug was too tired to fly 

They got me because I'm trembling beneath a stove

They got me because I stalk the stone in daylight 

They got me because caresses are molded into poems 

Yes I never said I didn't fall into their hands like mercury 

Mercury eaten in a fish 

Mercury flashed across an afternoon nightmare 

Tomorrow may be different 

Who will be the last to know