In the hour between dog and wolf,
the heart stirs to a boil,
pulling on the breath,
chattering teeth.
The waves pass above us,
like the clouds of Alexandria,
seeing who can hold their breath the longest,
seeing who can touch the bottom.
When we die, we will come back as ships,
hulls beaten,
moving eastward,
off the cliff of the earth,
sailing back into the stars.
Bicycle trails
and broken branches,
one plays the swordsman,
the other the villain,
and in the evenings,
winter catches us again.
We strike their paws awake,
and their fangs tear and pull us,
underneath curtains of snow.
Bloodtrail leads for miles,
to the forest’s edge,
where they find us,
mixed in with the animal,
one jawline leads to the other,
the air just perfect.
The exalted.
White foam ribbons of the ocean
reach up to the mouth,
wrapping around the neck,
dragging the body down,
under,
to the bottom,
to lie in wait like a hunter,
hunting her out.
She comes to me like January;
an embrace ending, another beginning –
sun-kissed skin.
So when will this winter end?
The ship coasts above
without her captain
steered by rebellion
all hands dining on the heart & sternum.
She brings me up to the surface,
not for air,
but to tease me,
so I can see myself at the shoreline
screaming for myself,
but I can’t hear myself,
the foam dividing us out.
The dogs hunt,
for the things they once were;
lost travelers,
along the surface of the moon.
Arrive to shallow graves,
of lime and ash,
no eulogies,
no sympathies,
just our memories sniffing us out.
A long year,
of deceit and faith,
caked under tired hands,
between chipped nails,
despite the confidence to attack.
They strip the animal clean
what they don’t eat
they drop back into the sea
her roar carries the bones east
shuffling the jaw and ribs
when it finally lands on the shore
the children shout “we can make it new again”
“we can make it move and grind again”
so they rebuild it with their buckets and shovels
small hands pile on the flesh
and as the monster begins to blink and breath
we kill it again
spearing holes into its chest
watch as the waves carry it away
setting the beast free again.
We stopped to build horses
made out of bone
whispered in their ears
to teach them speech
rode them through the night
along Indian trails and fire bush
arriving to the horizon by sunrise.
The stranger’s car
drives so sleek and fast
like a living thing
one hand on the wheel
his other hand on the things I made
the creatures that put their faith in me.
This is so much better, I tell myself,
not to live by my own accordance
but to have the road laid out for me
to have the driver driving me.
A coy motherfucker
stands up in the audience
and wags his finger,
so she hits the panic button
unleashing the dogs
to eat him up.
He tickles and shouts,
but they chew him away,
tearing joints and cartilage.
She continues the performance,
a little startled,
the crowd settles.
For act two,
she saws the memory in half
as if it never happened,
and continues
into the darkness,
where the spotlight can’t catch her.
The body drifted
God knows for how long
And when it bumped against the rocks
It bleed again
The man wakes
And looks over the damage done
The heartbreak
The slight discomfort in the lungs
Where the ribs are held up together
As if they never grew larger with age
Two wounds became a scar
A clever reminder
Like a sound that returns you back to school
Days chasing girls into the bathrooms
And so the man sets his body back into the water
The sea that Alexander made
The same waters they later buried him in
Set it all on fire again
As the body bumps into the rocks.
She causes a ruckus,
stirring the loose parts awake.
I thought we were playing touch,
when in fact we were playing tackle.
Rolling down the ruined hill,
past a tree once the color of God,
she stops and pulls me upright,
close by,
only to break my collar.
She makes a sound on my wrists like this:
‘thack, thack, thack’,
and mends me back together.
As a man, the loose parts fall sometimes,
bones out of their sockets,
then I remember:
she pulled me upright, close by,
only to break my collar.
a documentary directed by Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Verena Paravel
I’ve been meaning to watch this documentary for a while after reading about it in the New York Times. It’s a unique cinematic experience, one I should have seen in the theater. So strange, so difficult to forget. I don’t know if it’s fair to recommend it, as I know with very little story to hold on to, the visuals and sounds will probably put most to sleep. But if you’re a bit of a filmmaking geek, you might want to catch this oddity.
words versus pictures 