by Ryan Adams
to something
anything
symmetrical lines ripe with train machines
like arms
branches of trees stuck to this rock
out-stretching
blowing up fast
through
shadow mole-holes
and
rain
rain rain rain
so dirty
so dirty and mean
hands like a battling machine
like a failed robotic attempt
like an interruption at the movies
like texting your former lover
or future
because he will not stop your nevers
not here
with a little touch of america
at your service door
flags in the yard
dogs in the house
his name above
loose and no growl
little ones go teary and cross
while the plate gets heavy with
cigarettes and lip gloss
and gin-scum breath
and cigarette-tray stains
and a hand gets bit by an animal
but nobody screams
or says anything
the mall dies
so eventually
store by store
the zombies outside they aren’t scary anymore
before the movies went cold before before
and the film backed up on the shilling and trade post
and chicken meat got hormonal and plain
so dirty
so dirty
and so mean
little and loud
angry
and effortlessly proud
of nothing
and plain
just a little touch of america
rain
rain rain rain
Becausewhy
because we are bored
We War
Because we are bored
We Fuck
sexy or not
and
Because we were born to fight
inside
we know
our children too, eventually will die
this is how it is
in the universe of ours
us against time
and
in this place,
show me where god stood up
and said otherwise
i say he does not speak
and may be everything
inside that thought
you are allowed
but may not keep
for the growing
of things
immeasurable
i have not seen him
while i have been alive
and regardless
heaven
that would not work
if men and women
were anything like this
someplace else
especially an elsewhere
of brights
and
if so
that is not a good place to go
i would not dine there
how could one relax
infinitely
in a place like that
so why?
becausewhy
that’s what
that’s what they say
right before
“shut up”
and i’m like
ok
no
never.
Fuck-Face.
Sisters
two of them
sisters
one of them
my lover
t.v. on stutter
news on gray
room aged white
windows half open
early,
but night
two of them
sisters
one of them
my lover
both of them
i like
i like
they look at funny pictures
inside fashion magazines
while people say the world
it is dying
i think it is
i think a lot
i think it might
don’t sigh
i had a panic attack, then tea
there were these monsters
just outside of me
in this place, this rotten hole
of a face
a church mouse wouldn’t enter
even bother
to remember
crossed
like a crucifix lost
or an open-backed dress
you buy at cost
i feel calm
around them
early,
but night
hotel room bed
bathed in the pillow-fight
not happening
nice blanket
unusually nice
sisters
two of them
one of them my lover
two of them
i like
i like
Electric Blue
Electric Blue light, right outside,
makes audible light, noisy-like
i think of nada
clear
like imagining everything before it emerged
from the deep
it’s all new
my eyes are having a birthday party
happiness is invited
c’mon down
my lens are stuck and what,
what is this color?
Electric Blue Audible Orb
something
as if i mean to say, “the sky outside,
and the buildings, they’re being born now, ok?”
before my very soul
and i
i would weep if it weren’t for the joy or say
lack of water in the well, where
i buried myself again today
in those stupid sorrows
your memories, are they worth even a dollar
in pennies
you count, you’re good at that
Amulette
your house is the spinner
brown
tornado
pulling up trucks and telephone poles
in the cotton-swell of rows of corn
like danglings
and you
you stick me inside that place
that bomb shelter
and tell me i am safe
i am NOT
but in you i know a terrible truth
the colors and a texture
like a strawberry sundae
cool pink and glass
and melting all over the place
only thing missing–polka dots
and
a few books on outer space
i saved some just in case
thank god
on the day we said goodbye to you and saluted the sea
no one
a casket slipping into the ocean like Elvis
a mystery
made of dream-silk
and spiders’ eyes
that see everything to better invade a space
that your quiet punishment coughs go loudly in
and
it was as if you were lost at sea
and
god, even a few of my guy friends wept
seriously
what the fuck
what are you, a magician
is that your disappearing act?
my insides
become my outsides
so yuck
and are asked to leave
these numbers next to the words they go nicely like they’re told
they go well with all this red, this book-binder and pen
fitting nicely in my front pocket
and your umbrella matched
no hood this time
just a heeled foot
<
br /> a scarf and some gloves
and
my knees riddled with knicksandknacks from thisandthat
but puddle-water happy
jumping
and
rain-come-down wanting
sigh
i will sit here forever, me, just wondering why
watching
each pulse ripple from my neck vein on sheets
whimpering
like it was forever
for a second
on repeat
BUT
this is not pain
like
that was not love
like
this is all new
like
either way i am set free
and
like an animal
under the harsh globe metal-armed light
i get sewn back up
insides intact
but no anesthetic
eyes put back in
paws lifted
trying to understand english all of a sudden
how is this so
is this Electric-Rodeo Accident sky?
letting the puddles be the color i make
when i mix orange and white
plus gloss and clouds
if clouds are around
to be stuck in my paint’s muck
how?
how is this so?
my god
my soul will surely explode
i am going to run my hand up the side of that pillar
like it was a sweaty-day leg under a fake yellow sun
and your back
was just lifted up against the bark
and from your knee
to the middle of your thigh
i have hands
big ones
Idea-sized
that fucking pillar has to be crazy tall
glowing gray
also with a halo
and rain-shatter wind-spray dribble
singular then plural
if i could, i would
undo that sky’s dress
one shoulder strap at a time
and
mouth the words
to
the longest song
tune cracked
till it fell apart
into a pool of pink dots
faint
from come
and something a little louder than prayer
my
fucking
word
oh my
Dreamlines for Critics
Could ever a line cover this face; if we are the dreamers, dear reader
could it, i don’t know, it’s fun to say, say it out loud and clearly and let it go
like a hand releasing something alive
like a telephone call ending
like a design flaw
could a line cover this; we need answers; we need people on this
wood-paneled desks; cheap and with good typewriters; coffee
a few eccentrics and their cigarettes and someone, a drinker with no aftermints–
capable;
that is what
like an office to sort through this–
because
if we are reading poetry together now then one of us is amiss
and lost sort of, or looking;
because all that life is on the other side of the word
though the word
how much concrete is it really
right
how much weight on your back
right
and that flight of stairs outside every time
god it changes
it changes
it changes
people might not understand that from far away
we might all look like alley cats
even when we wear our best
expensive coat and vest
too tired in places, we might look
to someone
far outside this field
of the word
its lights burning up dark mellowing spaces in the overbite of entrances and
exits
or be they the same
you know
it’s all a bit “coming” and “going”
if you have no place really
you were going
and
from a small window atop it all
it just looks like little flakes
street snowing
with faces
or
too many ants going too many places
could a line ever cover this;
i wonder
but not really
because
it is all here before us, dear reader, in the word
we find the balance
and the bird
and the string to its claw
and its message
if it is a falcon
if it is a carrier pigeon
stalled
and
like all of them
it might
just
end up belly-up in a fountain
and
there is always a woman crying on these streets alone hurrying home
at least
if you keep your eyes open long enough
and
have the stomach for it
to see
and no line could cover that or her
but a homemade quilt and some kind of corner-store dessert
because
soon
those tears go wilder than that and a face is a drowning place
and
something in the dream has given way while the dreamer
was half sleeping
and half living all awake
but
letting it happen anyway
right
right?
I don’t know either, but
either way
Can a line ever cover this; if that is the question we need a crew, a team, a mass
of engineers
worthy of the pursuit of the mystery
of the origin of tears
because
it goes back before
the boy or girl
and the broken vase or plate
or the screaming
or the other person inside their clothes
when they might have been
at their friend’s house
that afternoon
long before
long before
the being born
that sadness is an ancient thing, an aged storm
a reminder maybe
really, only
and
something inside you is a clock that is ticking in
to count the things
that
lift you up and
drag you under
for
the swells of air if air were water
and
a line cannot cover this
so
no more lines
no more lines
no more lines
no more waiting
no more crying
no
not if you would like to return to the base you
in your soul
because the sun is shining there
and the scary part
is really
the packing and getting ready to go
because
once you are done
and the sheets are soaked
and the mouth is shut
and
you are there with your bags in hand and a motion is about
to set in, you are in charge
of your body
and your things
and
you know
willing
that is where the next step begins
and
if we are dreamers
a line must cover what a lin
e could never cover because
because
when they go,
and they are gone for good,
as are you,
a line is all we have
and
all that’s left
so
get busy dreaming on the line dreamer
and
i will meet you in the after
if
it lets us
have a say
and
we will collect those lines together
maybe
even
forever
Taxi after Taxi…
Taxi after Taxi, I found the horrors; eventual and coming; with a dress; with shoes. Chrysler Building refracting mirrored balls of total madness; the throat choke ten paces from tears, and my face, just the face of a man with new losses to count. This was how it was. This was how it was meant to be. That is what they say to you, your friends, right when the shit is fresh upon the fan, “what will be…” But the colors of an overcoat and the sound of a voice and what fall and winter will mean feel almost as though a storm is on the face of the mountain and exhausted, you are resting in a foot-hold and your gloved hands are stiffening anyway inside the gloves, as the rope swings like a pendulum under new phone numbers to be cut, with a waiting madman below, rubbing his hands together like right before dinner, and you know two things: you are about to fall, and that man below is you.
Is this what a heart ache is?
No.
This is what it means to find the wall.
For every one worth any kiss would surely break them all, if you lined them up,
like bowling balls
and gave THAT ONE the heavylight blue marble ball with the three holes.
One for each finger, not counting the thumb.
PRAY FOR A STRIKE
1. Whoever he is, be he now or next, he is better than you.
2. Reduce the amount of shoes you wear to only one pair; looking down will be
new to you so steadily.
3. Pray for tears and might, because they will come for you, in the middle of the
afternoon when her feet do not, and,
not to sound redundant,
but
Taxi after Taxi, we all know the horrors of the night;
the phone numbers that will not be yours and be his or theirs, you will not
speak through,
there is a party somewhere and they are not focusing on you—and do not hear
sobbing
for music and the possibility.
My God, where is this and why; this is what I think or what I thought as I
watched this last storm go by and destroy the house, for its windows to the garden
looking out, the other side, shrouded in a swarm of doubt around the
trees we planted too fast and too suddenly and this is
how it goes, and this is how it was meant to be.
But in these moments, when a lover leaves, you would like very much the
wrench and the blueprints
of Destiny,
not the hooker Destiny or the dancer you met at the screening of a comedy, a
stage a theater on a street midtown where people do not live, or if they live
there you have never met those people for they live in the heart of the sun of a