Tuesday, November 3, 2020
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
Thursday, October 1, 2020
Tuesday, September 29, 2020
the canoeing trip - russell edson
The Canoeing Trip
I had planned a canoeing trip. But then, after some considerable
thought, I thought I'd rather go canoeing on an ocean liner. They have
more facilities than simple canoes.
But then I saw that an ocean liner would not fit the stream I had
planned for my canoeing trip.
And so, after considerable thought, I decided not to think again, but
simply to exist.
But even that becomes tiresome.
So I began to think again.
But then, after some considerable thought, I decided not to think
again...
Friday, September 25, 2020
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