Where did everybody go?
Ikea.
Why?
To blow it up.
What you doing?
Keeping my eye on you.
How, if you don’t look at me?
I’ve been listening for you.
Where have we been all day?
There, eating eggs.
It’s hard to believe that I have been away from myself for so many hours and I do not feel the least bit rested. In fact, what’s all this on my shoulders? What’s pouring out of my eyes and toes? Not my chi. Where’s that? He closes his eyes as S. pulls him by the hand. Aware of their destination and confident that S. will deliver them there, he takes the opportunity to put order to his mind.
Now let’s see … where is that chi? Inside himself again, walking through some chamber with his head down, he glimpses a photo on the floor. It’s damaged, ripped in several pieces—but he recognizes the face. His. Taken a few years ago.
I remember the store I’m posed in front of. I used to meet the group there. How did this picture get separated from the others? And why is it destroyed? He looks around with caution, as if caught “in” something. Then snaps, this is my mind, no one else should be here, against a creeping fear of being post-invasion.
The next morning he wakes with his ass pressed against Adolfo’s hip, concentrating on his dreams. Monotonous as always but with a new array of characters, who are much more violent than the nights before. —Wait, he thinks it’s Adolfo. The pain in his ass is the same, so it must be Adolfo. Yet besides what he knows to have existed in the past, there is no other evidence. Soon he will have to turn around to see. But there is no light, no sun shining through his blackened windows. He will have to touch his face to know.
If he turns around and it’s not Adolfo, he will want to squash whomever it is, unless that person’s stronger. He might even give in to rage. No, the best way to find out if it’s Adolfo is to get the person to talk.
He’s thinking of something to say. Says in one of my dreams people were playing with firearms and I was not sure what to do. Silence. Says then there was glass everywhere. I wonder if I screamed. Did I scream? Silence, as that following cell death. He imagines himself embraced by a lifeless body and with a mixture of disgust and anticipation he reaches his hand back to tap the hip bone, and it jumps.
—waking again, sometime during the day. He looks around himself and supposes that he has slept for a week. This time he is not in his bed but at a breakfast table in front of a plate of eggs. The group is there.
When he comes to, M. is speaking.
What is she talking about? Monique is not using regular language. It’s a code! And everyone seems to know it, but me! Where did they pick this up? She keeps saying, “Ha chini chini” and the rest of them nod their heads. Did I comprehend this shit before I woke up? Maybe if I relax I will find that I too speak this language.
He leans back in this chair, clears his mind and utters:
“Ma chaney aravici delimatool. Econ ha chini chini.”
The response is as expected. Faces turn to him. He thinks, damn I should have asked a question, then they would have been forced to answer. Monique continues talking. She says many things, but “ha chini chini” is all he hears.
I keep thinking about those words … as though I know them—
S. pokes him in the side with her elbow and whispers, Isa uma kuni. Monique ma uma kuni. He shakes her off. Argh! What’s this? Something’s sticking me. He reaches under his ass and finds some pieces of wire. He shouts, Ja se pa cahini, then clamps his hand over his mouth. Why did I say that? Holding the wire in his hand, which Freddie grabs and places in a box.
The last time I was in a box it was Spring, he recalls. The old group had gone downtown to sell papers and left me behind to clean up. We had rented a small room in the old warehouse district. Somebody left a box open, one of the kinds we used when mailing things overseas, and I step back into it. Laid there for hours, not because I couldn’t get up but because I was comfortable there. I couldn’t remember who we were against. Lying there, that was all I wanted to picture. I thought, On my back and safe in this tiny room, I want to think about my enemies. It was easy. No one intruded—everything was fine. I stayed behind. But the image never surfaced. That’s not true. Several images came to me, but none of them seemed right. I kept saying, no this couldn’t be the enemy, discarding the idea.
Seven Poems
Laura Moriarty
MEETING
He let go of me
What no one turns
Returns like a wheel (embarks)
Revisits remains
All the sugar in the world
Cafe china fantasy of white not
Leaving here not stopped
A juke box starts
The way back
Now this act
A short song
The road tangled
Apostacy to take
Give oneself up to
One who sings
Has already has left
Sleepy now not
Understanding night
Without sleep
All that is wanted
A phrase away
Is late the street wakes
He takes himself
Not meeting
HOTEL
First dream against walls
The scene pressed into unsaid
But possible as pictured without
Control as with dream the scale
Large the scene clear of will
Of what disturbs you
My question
In the courtyard the hotel statue
The wings of it poised
Too much singing
To yourself, myself
Conventional fountain but dry
Agreement also silent
TIN BOX
Heart with nails
No words
Car starting
The play
Lime and mint
Ciudad
Come here for this
Lit from within
Homage á Jack
His traveling name
Address floating
Paper trembling wings
Fans in this heat
“that was all he could do”
Car start repetition
The dead team Us
FIRST SONG
Tell me to sing
A series to serenade to calm
To clarify to drizzle
Walk go along to the ocean
Without light with light to the sea
You were with me in hell
It wasn’t like hell
We were under the sea
The same as love you were/are
Tell me to embrace you
Carry you off two or three ways
How many in this song
How many times going
Gone by boat to the sea
More sacred to us than something
Tell me to hold you
STUPID MOON
Stupid moon
Unfortunate creature in it
Voice like a whistle
Source of rumors
Used me like a radio
Innuendo of success left
They call it the clap
When after something
A dose men say
That said
My name for you
Not written here
EARTH FORGOTTEN
Stucco to terracotta
In cameo half sky
From one direction the town
Size unclear the eyes also
Too long gone
The constant misremembered
Beginning of time
Depersonalized but okay
Destination Moon
Protagonist cratered and pale
Seeks inaccurate revenge
Travels by thinking
FATE/SONG FORM
Blameless th
is claim
That I or you
Do nothing no one
Knows where you are
Animal or minimal
Second the seconds passed
Allowed by you or that I
Would have
Slowly around us the field
Did you hear me?
With clarity as if not
Needing it to be real
Film Noir
Kevin Young
THE HIDEOUT
Woke up dead
Tired, in my arms
an empty
An instead. Tried
sleeping it off,
My hangover of her,
wishing for some hair
Of the dog—or slow purr—
My tongue
white, eyes red.
The light my eye hurts
I am in chalk, an outline,
a back-alley body
Afraid this face
in the mirror (that hides
My strychnine mouthwash)
may be the only one left.
Do I need again
to lose my skin, start
A new town, man?
Grow a beard
Or become one?
I’m sick of taking
It on the chin, of waking
gimlet-eyed from the gin—
Shoe soles like carpet,
or excuses, grown thin.
Cloudy tap water.
One dusty aspirin.
Outside my newsprint
curtains—the black
& white of words,
yellowing—
What I can no more weather
I watch till I’m sure
no light remains
Night staining the streets clean
THE WAGON
My reputation
exceeds me. Temptation
littering the bar, chanteuse
piano-perched, her sifter
of brandy empty. Fifths
of watered whisky.
Wagoned
or a week, I’m no good
to anyone, soft-
boiled, unsalted.
Haunted—
her quinine kisses
her microphone caress.
Wanted to hold her like her
two-faced fur stole,
that foxy smile.
(Instead teethmarks
punctuate my skin
like perforated parentheses.)
Barkeep’s glass
eye like an olive
The sharks circling the pool
table in the back, sniffing
out green. Felt
myself losing my arm
wrestle bout between
sarsaparilla
& something stronger.
Sleep.
Step on out
into the cold—under
the awning bouncers
stomp & nod
like hunched horses,
their breath billowing.
Lovers pass in hansom
cabs. Who will stop for me,
screech at my jaywalk, honk
to let me in? The moon
winking its way across sky,
I hail like Mary
The Charon Cab Co.
to sail through the city—
my cabbie, an escapee
from the state, swerves
& swears at the salt-
covered cars
brushing so close
you could lean out
into wind & plant
each one a kiss.
MIDNIGHT RAMBLE
Leaving the coffin-cold
theater in winter
Single-barrel moon
aimed above us
He escorted & told me
lies I wanted
To warm my ears
The moon’s lazy eye
razored shut
The two of us
fought that hawk
Walking through wind
across a world that once
Seemed so flat I feared
I might could fall off—
Now Flora, every horizon
got another behind it
Least that’s what
Mama would say—Just you wait—
But I hightailed it north
& changed my name.
Beneath the shrapnel sky
I wanted to run
From here to the train
& buy me a ticket one way—
I’m tired of eviction
The radio’s same station
Playing woe & blues
Said tired of eviction
the radio’s same station
Arguing whose man is whose.
I want some diesel bound
south, making all stops—
No more neighbor’s
whooping cough
No more leaky
solos from the faucets
Or landlords who pinch,
swapping winks for late rent.
Graveyard-shift moon
that turns men mad—
Let me trade fire
escape for front porch
Let me ride
sunset down to where
Train’s the only whistle
& a girl don’t got to cry
to keep herself company
Where moonshine ain’t just sky
& you can catch catfish
Sure as a man—bearded, polite—
already fixed up & fried.
Five Stein Poems
Jackson Mac Low
SEE THEM TOGETHER
[Stein 59]
See them deciding if you can.
Monday I believe to be dangerous.
Carry do carry the same offer to another.
She is annoyed that in bed he never says anything for days.
Quickly he said the thing he had to say was that he had nothing to say.
The thing that’s shown, why it’s herself.
When the whole thing was mentioned, it’s likely it was not for it to be neglected.
Don’t be like that.
It was an Italian wonder, a hundred men and no mother, no, saw the calamitous poison.
Render what you will so that the forty see sounds or something.
There are many piles of spools there.
This one said that to think meant to beat.
This was the very one who said it was so, that this other one had said that something had seven hands.
Do rivers not render an increase in letters by going where they’re going and not stammering.
Let it stand.
That the prayers looked to be annoying was shown by the laughs.
Really deny that said Mother.
Walter, it is not just any edgy goodness that is splendid said the minister as he fastened himself.
Not coughing there doesn’t do anything for me, for I am seven years of age.
Are those really prayers.
I believe the infant’s helpless separation was what made you what you will or would be.
The country did not come to be splendid in that age of shapely citizens.
They’re cement.
They’re we.
These are the stones that horses believe can light many lamps with the same authority.
That it had not been believed that eggs were meat astonished me.
In London you would be sheer tired she said one day when more of us came late.
We did it together.
Because of those draughts the women complained of a reluctant inclination.
Leaving she mentioned saying that she too had not come splendidly.
She would.
For as far as a mile he, no you, do believe what you hear.
The horses render what they can and no moon is getting into taking the shapes we saw.
This said he surprised them, saying, we don’t need the silvery noise they can make.
Something like th
at.
Seven are enough, but hands in rebellion seldom say this.
Lead us to the sheepdog.
What is that there, what emotion is going into making us believe in it.
When the shouting, when the gently tired mile was over, all that was newly loaned would not do.
No need for it.
During that credit hearing the names did not come out of those we had not seen.
Emile had shown and loudly said there were reasons why some women come so splendidly.
They said this was what they’d said.
Italian rest that shall be blest they wanted, but stupidly said they wanted soup.
He was considering it.
Wondering she rendered rubber not to do mischief but not what they said either.
It meant very little when they did that winding and dangerous shouting but went away gently.
We need that.
She was harnessing a picture.
I was annoyed.
Those women never openly interfere but they do believe the country is the city.
Do name me, and understand I am of age and a shapely citizen, not cement.
Where are the horses.
I believe you are willing toys, coal decides when you cough and when you don’t.
I am at the age of seven, something, I mean SOMEbody.
Are you saying your prayers.
I believe the infant’s world was one country and he said he’d seen that country.
Come back.
It had been an age since our splendid shapely citizens had seen cement horses.
Do you believe that.
You willing toys have decided on coal so you can stand paying any amount.
Fork it over.
Seven somethings were together.
ACT A REVERSIBLE ESCAPE
[Stein 96]
Act from your center: eat.
Explaining expecting is a cover for diversion.
Replacing the floor makes a change.
It is no more and never was a little hole.
Authorized speech is changing nothing.
To whomever that letter comes, a commensurate hanging will also come.
No apple has ever come there.
Color has uses.
Is not moving the same as being under cover?
There the single bell of resistance will separate indecision from hesitation.
What does ordinary sugar stand for?
Separation.
Are there corners in that?
Once, the light had shown on the water in that single central chamber.
Checking a very narrow purchase captured this stranger.
Is being settled and plain reversible?
American Poetry Page 30