Line 411ƒ

For Francis Bacon  &  George Dyer 


How turns the key
That turns but once,
That's heard but once?
Does it lock or free?

What sensible nonsense! 

What freedom whilst memory persists?

Whilst indictments stand?

When remembrance convicts?

The key heard by the living

justly locks, and can only lock
Till the cells of memory give up,
Discharging these small potentials.

There is no otherwise, no other way.
The key once turned is the door locked,
Always locked, till the death of memory
enacts the voiding absolution on the lost. 

  

Francis Bacon's studio reconstituted at the City Gallery - The Hugh Lane, Dublin, Ireland.
Photo by Antoine Moreau - Copyleft

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Mean

“Schick’s a mean bastard,” the boy thought when he saw him in the distance, walking in Seattle’s grey snow, down beside the tracks. Under the bridge’s thrumming perpetual shadow, the boy saw him step onto the steep concrete and stone embankment, and begin to climb. The boy melted. But then he scrambled to hide his food and empty his pockets of change. It was too late. Schick had seen him.

Schick announced his arrival by clouting the boy's face with a closed fist. The boy fell and stayed down. He felt the grit of concrete and loose gravel under his face, against his split swelling lip. Schick kicked the boy twice, once in the ass and once in the ribs. His voice was thin and grating, demanding money. The boy turned out his pockets as Schick stood over him. When he was done, two dollars and twenty cents in change lay at Schick’s feet.

Schick was not happy. He said “It’s not enough.” He kicked the boy again, once in the arm where it meets the shoulder, and in the gut, to the left of the navel. The boy curled there, his hands covering his head. Within the boy’s breath-stealing pain, shame vied with fear as he shat his pants. Schick scooped up the change and walked to the boy’s house, wedged between the embankment and the bridge above.  

The cardboard of the boy’s house gave way to Schick’s hands and feet. He lifted a blanket, wadded it and threw it down to the railroad tracks below.  The boy’s prized sleeping bag and scraps of his clothing went into a dank oily puddle in the darkness where great steel girders met concrete. A book of Whitman’s poetry flew from Schick’s hand, landing open to the snow, outside the bridge’s shadow. Schick found the boy's stash, a small metal can. He crushed it, pocketing a few dollars and a half smoked joint.

The boy’s breath mixed with tears. His face flushed and he made a high keening sound when Schick turned from the ruin of cardboard and cloth and said again, “It’s not enough.”

A chaos of kicks and blows left Schick’s boots damp with the boy’s blood. Bones broke. Screams rose in pitch then faded to whimpers. There came a silence deeper than the constancy of rushing machine noise above. The rage, the madness of Schick’s insufficiency was sated. 

Schick was tired. He paused for a moment to light the roach he’d found, taking a deep hit, and then another. As he exhaled the smoke, he pulled down his zipper and pissed over the boy’s still form. Yellow and red mixed, painting the concrete and loose gravel, running downward in thinning fingers.

In the morning they found Schick’s body first, head crushed against the steel track below. His boots were encrusted in black half dried blood, blood that had lubricated his fall. The boy’s body was not found until later in the day, when an observant police woman tried to find the precise place where Schick had fallen. From below the embankment’s edge she looked upward into the gloom and spied the crumpled still form of the boy.

“Father Abraham,” cried out Schick across the abyss. “send me a drop of water, for the fire burns without ending!” To his great surprise, he could see a glint falling from the higher radiance. Closer and faster it fell through the æther. Schick’s mouth agape, he felt a bead of water strike his tongue. Heaven’s dew met the infernal and passed to steam. He cried out, “It’s not enough!”

Above, in a place of seeing and knowing, of warm shade and cool light, a place where enough was enough, the boy smiled as he heard Schick’s cry, and again he pissed.

And the angels of God sang praises for the victory of the lamb.

---------
[This is a reworked version of a story I first published to this blog in 2008, and is part of a fiction series written out of the experience of being a homeless teen in Seattle.]

Waltz

rhythm
between morphine

and mortuary

The Hidden Meaning of Birds

truth is a residue
of unfettered habit

Red Shoes

.

.

rhythm
between morphine
and mortuary
3/4  beat
not a two-step
just  waltz

Dance
fast
widening steps
breath
faint  blue

feet
aswirl
not red shoes
the same

Morphine played
too short
blue into red
short steps
razors
razors
always
the same

.

.

Debris

.

.

The detritus
of angelic copula
is as thin
as the beating
of the sparrow's wing.
It takes the shape
of a suspension
of rhyme.

.

.

Hurt

...

...

She hurt me tonight.

It was the first time
in all the years of her care.



In all the years
of shared sorrow
she had never hurt me.






She was careless tonight,
that too was new.



She was angry and tired
and she didn’t care.




But she was shocked
jerking back when I flinched.



I think she hurt
more than me.

...

...

...

... 

...  

Pain (Neuropathy) i.

I am that maddend dog

that chews its leg,

that last unknowing.

I am the breath that burns

a gasp of fire

a sound rises from me

from me

it trumpets

in hoarse staccato pain

The sun burns bare skin

until char takes the place of blister

and the bone feels the roast

then there is no bone

no thing at all

the trumpet sounds

but only a pitiless

unsounding

there is no gabriel

but only that other angel

that from his throne

condemns

no soul

no soul

but only soulless

pain

pain

and again pain

clouds cast a shadow

light burns more slowly

bone are recast

sinews knit

fat is reclaimed from the fire

morphia claims the reborn soul

to cross a river, but not fall

not fall but trespass against

that other angel and gabriel both

and sleep

sleep were neither gods nor angels

can confound or heal or burn

sleep

only sleep

Pain (Neuropathy) ii.

 Breath.

Breath excreted
between yellow sour teeth
sudden and sharp


What does this mean,
sudden and sharp?
How can that be
that breath moving
between pursed lips
can be sharp?

Can we not be like a knife?
But, it is not like a knife
it has no sharpness
it cannot cut
no pain is set forth.

Breath excreted
between yellow and sour teeth
on the edge of a scream

Screams do not mean
listen to me, listen
for the pain in the scream
it's there.

But you cannot feel,
what is in the scream
me undiluted
me at the moment
that the shot shatters
and I am gone.

But you cannot feel,
what is in the scream,
me undiluted
me at the moment
that the knife slides home
and I am gone

Me undiluted,
me at the moment
when the fall ends
and I am gone

Me at the moment
when I tire
of sipping for air
me at that moment
and I am gone

Me at that moment
when an invisible world
has fallen and crushed my chest
me at that moment
and I'm gone

Me undiluted,
me at the moment
when all that is left
is bone and sinew
me at that moment
and I'm gone

Me undiluted,
me at that moment
when the hot blackness
and burning fat
is all that is left
me at that moment
and I'm gone

Screams do not mean
listen to me, listen
for the pain in the scream
it's there.

It bites at me
the scream hurts
leaving lungs and bone and sinew
broken behind the pain
listen to the scream
and learn.
it means.

Breath.

Bear Away

bear away

past the steel hard edge

of discontent and Muses lost.

bear away

past the itching and slicing poison

of unearned hope and geodesy drawn

to a sculpted land beneath a divine hand.

See there — the holy and high

who walk in feet amucked,

soaked in the tears and dander

of pierced eyes and tight stretched skins:

lampshades they are amaking

of gutted infidels or they that disagree.

bear a way

past that land of sure and certain hope

resurrected from the broken bones

and torn sinews of the innocent

that is to say “silent,” partners

in the discourse of Tweedledee

and Tweedledee dumb that defines

those fit for the divine hotplate

or not.

Look alive, my innocent

unborn to controversy

full of vigor and heart,

who sees not two, but one

one dance that is all in all

one moment that is neither history nor hope

but one, one.

But, my innocent

be deaf and be blind

mark not your chart or heart

with the land of the dying and dead

or difference dragons

of dimpled dicks and pussy wounds

that would, obdurate and mean,

encoil and grasp with broken scales.

bear a way, far away

I will not be there.

I have taken to that path

onto that map, a course from which

I cannot turn,

even turn to be not two

but one with you

my love, who is away.

Be away my love

away from this I see

gristled refuse of what could be

of mercy and one that in bleeding

did a new cup make

to drink with strangers and walk in hope

not of the sure, uncertain of certain

but with the dead

that they might alive be

and like me they might be

not angry nor forlorn

but full of songs,

unsung and new

And they might sing for you.

But my love

do bear away

away from conceits and defeats

from thoise ancient difference dragons

that still hold in three pronged claws

the hearts of those who see

a cup, now a lie

but that once did

free and tear away

those things done and undone

but that us do now lead

to an ordinary decay.

But, bear a way

away from this

away from here

away from any measurement

that makes two of one,

and not just one

bear a way

to something new

that I and we

cannot see.

Odd number,

this mark of three

that would chain

me and many

and you,

you my love.

So my love

do bear away

from those ranks,

rank upon rank

of Saints and soldiers

of martyrs and virgins held

conscripted and confined

to arms unarmed and yet still

an Army of ghosts

that marches

to an odd beat of threes.

Please my love, flee

stay clear of the land

of twos and threes

of the flowered graves

of diversity and

grave monstrances

where one is confined

and glass walls contain

bread so thin as to near

disappear.

So my love

as yet unafeared and unafraid

in all fear please do,

not stay but bear away,

away.


[for Noah]

Gray Paint

I went to paint today
and my only brush was gray

I painted red today
The color of blood and blazing skies
but my only brush was gray

I painted green today
The color of life and broken bile
but my only brush was gray

I painted blue today
the color of water, air and tired souls
but my only brush with gray

I painted black today
the color of shadows deep and deciding lines
but my only brush was are gray

Unbidden Breath

Breath excreted

between yellow sour teeth

sudden and sharp

What does this mean,

sudden and sharp?

How can that be

that breath moving

between pursed lips

can be sharp?

Can we not be like a knife?

But, it is not like a knife

it has no sharpness

it cannot cut

it is only a rush

unbidden from

the racked body.

Breath excreted

between yellow and sour teeth

on the edge of words

but no longer meaning

the sounds do not mean

listen to me, listen

for the pain in the sound

the unbidden air

it's there.

But you cannot feel,

what is in the sound

me undiluted

me at the moment

that the shot shatters

and I am gone.

But you cannot feel,

what is in the sound,

me undiluted

me at the moment

that the knife slides home

and I am gone

Me undiluted,

me at the moment

when the fall ends

and I am gone

Me at the moment

when I tire

of sipping for air

me at that moment

and I am gone

Me at that moment

when an invisible world

has fallen and crushed my chest

me at that moment

and I'm gone

Me undiluted,

me at the moment

when all that is left

is burned bare

bone and sinew

me at that moment

and I'm gone

Me undiluted,

me at that moment

when the hot blackness

and burning fat

is all that is left

me at that moment

and I'm gone

This breath does not mean

listen to me, listen

for the pain in the sound

it's there.

It bites at me

the sound hurts

leaving lungs and bone and sinew

broken behind the pain

listen to the breath

the excreted sound

and learn.

it means.