01 May 2008

White Trash

what's the poison
degradation, the failing
of language — more &
sore swallowing feels the same —
the radiating nervousness,
from the bone out, about
to vomit, to convulse,
in the interest of hiding
your fears you hide them
behind cars, under baseball bats,
inside bottles — half drunk —
in the powder sallow in your
cheek.

'Who's hiding?'
'What voices?'

the stone rolls back, an open grave,
no body. you know things:
you can't hide what hasn't died;
you can love anything,
but you can't love an unloving nothing;
that voice breaks agonizing silence,
that smell rend comfort because
both are haunting, both
familiar specters; a trailer is just a house
and accents straddle words. you know
things & won't let go
of the trash
in the middle of the road.

FUTURES

" ... & wind which the eye loves so deeply it
would spill itself out and liquefy
to pay for it ... "

-from Futures by Jorie Graham


I worry that when I'm dead, someone will exhume my ridiculous Black Books (which WILL be buried with my fleshy flesh flesh) and structure some base cowboy religion on my rants and half-empty ravines.

Religion always beetles people into strange little, indefensible rituals.
Here are yours, from the Lazarus Joe, Pontiff Exhumed:

My followers, all good people, harangue each other into big-city solitude: Stuck up beside your candle collection with an old bean can full of Micron 05s, your thoughts would choke you like mine have choked me, but instead of the bright lights going dimmer, they fall, cold, high-speed film: