by Ryan Adams
and particles
a particle machine spitting clouds
and ash
cussing up flags and money slots
bickering
shitty and mad
swollen and green
from not using myself like i ought to
or being clean
i am though
just something
like a tiny thing
inside the breathing monster
i am a part of the insides
made out of oceans
like one of its dreams
I REFUSE
I refuse to edit*
I am but a single life
I refuse to edit
look away
if you choose
but these bulbs
will burn in cycles
if forever
was a single night
*Editor’s Note: This poem was originally 32 pages long. —JT
Alit Daffodil
oh,
wasn’t your lover from here, alit daffodil?
hmmm
i eat his food
they serve me and smile
i compliment the chef
for i cannot help myself
not born
into the coin
myself
i was born into a love of things
with the lights on
gunfire came later
mashed potato
when i say a thing is good
a mouth
someone’s
it just opens up
and the teeth come out as the lips resurface
without the knowing
for the lighting of the grin
of a truth
blinding its way in,
doll-face
–you call it charm
–i call that being warm
and i agree to disagree
still
you are a plastic
invisible menace
and mean
as snakes
mean as snakes pissed on
on fire
oh,
and HIM
“a writer” you say with a smirk and a grin
that tells me where he’s been
he worked, what?
8 hours a day
and saved himself for you
for two years
and he’s FRENCH …
ha ha ha
that’s funny
i bet he did
S U R E
because
you loved loved loved his lashings
and like a shark
you were helpless in his arms
because you must never stop moving
and once the blur of gray
went into fins
and madness
you could both reach full potential
as losers together
causing mutual sadness
upper-class voodoo
what money does to bright children
with bad names
plucked up from novels
two shelves up
up a fucking ladder
bathing in the glow of a room of air
poor people would breathe in
hungry
with hungry stares
if only they could eat you
in the alpines
where all was fair
so
I buy a book then
(of course not his–
he couldn’t publish
if his mother sold the house
and bought xerox
held his hand in front of a pillar of blank white paper
and begged
words do not come from eggs
asshole)
nobody coughing over their shoulder
making a sound like a cough
if it went HA CC KKKK
spoiled first he was self-served
THEN became a brat
(one must allow ample time at university for that)
oh, and plenty of hip-hop
white people on porches memorizing rap
about setting themselves free
from your fucking parents’ money trap
and corporations companies
and
however many fucking people
they could summon with fire truck hoses and baseball bats
i wish they could punch your ancestors
in the face
for every noose
because you created a class system
when you were born
your parents’ lawyers advising them
if you want to pretend to be human
you’ll need evidence
(somebody grab the aftermints)
him
get a typewriter before his fingers go flat
and his mother’s suit’s damp
not wet
it’s the upper east side, for god’s sake
and they have words for that
for what i am
and then
and after the wedding
which “just came up”
with entire villas reserved
plus
master-planning
my payment of your airline ticket
notwithstanding
don’t forget
to bring the photos of the orgy
and reminisce
it will be good for the book,
he says
that one he never writes
for writing
is written
so
so i buy the bad ones close enough
in the clearance bin
one for every hundred push pins
i find words he would use
and i stick them in
i imagine his eyes
and
what adorns that face
and dream a swarm of hornets
hovering with pulsing stems
of unicorns unstoppable
with fangs
trampling his bones
crushing his limbs
and pirates
named Jephry
dressed as businessmen idle and unbusy
with friends with names like Hank and Lou
marrying your daughters
your mouth’s agape
as they off them to the suburbs
where
track housing and television dreams
eventually bury them
except their souls
which they suffer through their children
your legacy
your second generation
for
every wasted word
i demand a shift
when i light the candle
i make a wish
black
black as a fucking hole
in the universe
in the walls
of the house of the damned
and i smile
perfect timing
perfect pitch
on note over coffee
not even trying
half smoking a cigarette
and
i saturate this place with my scent
like a tiger let loose
on the wronged
and i am screaming mad and covered in sweat
devouring every moment
you lied
like i was starving and blind
for love
which i was
thumbing the wall for anything
anything that felt alive
or like a switch
i needed a light
you gave me a church burning
with eyes of amethyst
but get this,
get this,
when the bottom comes up, if this ship is intact
on its side
you will salute a ruin maybe
a revenge, not likely
done unto a thing
because
i am alone
in my lost
and
in this fire
we do not burn together
us,
separated only by the lines
of mistrust
waiting on the roller-coaster rides
in that endless ring
of unneeded desires
broken
for how hard you hit it
the last time it rang
now it’s rung
a rich person’s problem
up comes another museum
because
i was just a fantasy fuck
a cinemax
and i will always be better
and so much more
than that
your mother’s daughter, you certainly are not
but also
they will know that
for genius always “outs”
and if nothing else
coin-born book of skin
any old whore can be something great
but to be a knower of a home
and refuse
to be better banged
with a later coming eventually and steady
down the midnight shift of the telephone
that was mine
is surely just another slut with wheels
waiting for another to be trapped
and caught under your horrid tasteless heels
those get-away sticks
with trashy give-aways
stuck on the bottom
matching
in tweed and twit
so
from his home country
in my labored rest
i say fuck you
assholes
you deserve it all
and
all the best
i hope you are happy
and ready
for the balance is so strong
and steady
even it penetrates through
the houses of the printers
of the slavery you call money
honeybee
so thanks
it’s like i got out of jail for free
with a silent
golden pardon
now if you will excuse me,
back to my book
my perfect omelette
Baltic Sea
Baltic Sea
that was her
at night with the striped socks, legs exposed
under the quilt
watching t.v.
Baltic Sea,
whatever, ok, whatever
she would say
over and over
over and over
eating ice cream
straight from the container
uninterested in conspiracy
or
laughter
or
fucking
even
i can remember pictures though
fucking some man in a villa
at a goddamn wedding
much like the one you know
she was attending
while i walked the coast-lit lined beaches
of Amsterdam
furious
bloodletting
into myself
Baltic Sea
so confused of the night
i am a tugboat
hauling with me terrors and sight
empty of horizons
the sway only of the waves
and the endless crossings
of oceans
in efforts to elaborate my plays
so where were you that night
if not in that picture
with that man
Baltic Sea
heart like a fire engine on fire
in the snow
awful lover stuttering bedroom talker
and slow
huh Baltic Sea
“i don’t know anymore,” she says, “i dunno.”
ha ha ha
for a nickel
and a laugh
we
we got touched by a ghost
in the ghost house
ha ha ha
it cost
like, a nickel
but you pay later
because
well, you know why cause
after you walk out the back
and that place
it looks like the back of any place
the back parking lot like
you know,
where the Real ghosts are
well
you know you done it now
and
ain’t no use pretending now
just get in
get in the car
and when
when she drives you home
you go in
and now,
now this is your world
not hers
that is haunted
and you
you
that’s fucked
for a night of peace
for a nickel and a laugh
ha ha ha
i can see you still
oh my mouth won’t say your name
it says ( )
like treasures
in a chest
so many
a sea could digest
and i
i am the drag of the pulley
at the end of the sea
and the pier
tied with shift-ships
sailing into port
i am still
i see those birds
those seagulls
pesty critters
picking at the popcorn
while you and i
you and i, we ride the rides
at that place
where the subway ends
or used to
on that line
lines after avenue
X, Y, Z, and Q
i think of you now
as i imagine all of it is
your face, so many
stars
i feel the ships pulling in fast
and then slow,
you know
too aware of a dock
to collide
and make them feel the water inside
new eyes
like when you and i were young
younger
and from the well
we drank each drop
like it grew up
each bone
you kicked your leg against the gravel
outside the restaurant
me
across the street on the telephone
now i sleep all bad
and dream of being at sea
at one with an ocean
like so many treasures
like
how i think of you as i write this
your face,
so many
stars
At a Distance
At a distance it moves
this thing in me
that growls at my gut
it plays strange games
with cards
and sneers at me
from the shadows
it stays SUPER busy
when i escape
i am lucky
if only for an instant
At a distance I can see myself
a grown man aged 33
but none at all in years
if those years mean
each one
like a fallen wall not a built thing
a piece of mortar maybe
missing from the bright
morning-side wonder
thrown through a window
by a child
because
becausewhy
maybe then, yes i can see myself
but at a distance
at a distance from myself
from you
from e
veryone
safe enough
that you might never get through
i know that i do not know
and that neither do you
not your gods
nor your books
not your analyst
not your family of crooks
because
like all things
they too
they too will pass us by, as we pass
and fade into the dry-mouth
of history
barely a stain
on a rug of electricity
floating in space
so,
pardon me if i grow up already
i see
something shiny
beautiful maybe
over that way again
at a distance
but my feet will never give
not even if they were but a bone
stuck bone through
a tennis shoe
i was there
i was standing in front of you
my hands were out
i held a heart the size of a question
up to you
with marvelous affection
star-struck from heaven
like an ocean made of everything
a love has ever given
but
not too close
at a distance
i felt the spit
and that
that is that
i guess.
Babydoll
let’s just take three hands
one free
and make a machine
that sweats
on summertime beds
pour a glass
of sweet tea
over our heads
ok,
or
instead,
let’s build bridges from here to Leningrad
with lights attached
that fade
into the hyper-lit orange sun parade
because
we
us folks
don’t talk about our feelings
no
not us
of course, unless it is too late
and
the night is at the door
rapping away
on the metal handle
wood shaking
our endless ceilings
babydoll
i
i am not your feelings.
A New Party of One
goddamn heavy strings of shiny purple
shoelaces
with cherry print
tied
in a bow
go
on top of a box
with pages
–this thing i make from words
to be given
at once, suddenly
to her
and be forgot
or
swallowed and drowned
with sugar on top
also
from a spoon
is the nectar in my lungs
suffocated like a scream
round my tooth
for the only girl i knew
who