Four Skin Confessions
1a)
The
body judges
better than the
mind.
In the
Great Silent Calm
that
always follows,
the afternoon went
soft
and gold,
gold and soft,
on
the slopes
of the dry
San
Gabriels, where
spindle-hag scrub
scratch
out an
odd cuneiform on
the
sky — i.e.
En arche en
ho
logos, kai
ho logos en
pros
ton theon,
kai theos en
ho
logos. Sous
rature. We get
to
carry each
other, carry each
other.
Hey hey …
sha la la.
Sun-
stung shores
ribbon radio snatches.
Trees
catch sound
to throw it
back.
The body
turns, changes colo(u)r.
I’ve
fallen I’ve
fallen into the
book
I’ve fallen
into the book
of
my body.
… I can’t get
up.
Mind judges
the weary body
reading
the lines
on palms and
fingers
and trees
sway like children
bored
in libraries
abandoned by parents
tired
as usual
of the wind.
Each
book stays
still like clay,
while
the moon
pretends to marry
signing
her name
with purple blood.
Think
of it
this way: bodies
dream
with hojas,
libros y árboles.
I’ve
fallen
into the tropical
moondance
of palm
trees: “had I
not
kept fire
for myself, I’d
have
nothing to
call my own”.
And
also for
stretching the spine.
I
read books
looking for You.
I
write books
to quell pronouns
separating
our bodies
from trees, wind,
sky
into mere
letters, all misspelled.
All
of you
alchemizing libraries from
veins
riotous, plentiful
but filling only
one
leaf, sundering
green for gold —
where
ground crumbles,
a specific intimacy.
1b)
Olam
u-melo’o, a
world and the
fullness
thereof, that
you would kiss
me
with the
kisses of your
mouth,
that we
would burn away
all
pronouns, that
we would ride
that
cherub of
light and float
in
18,000 worlds,
listening to heavenly
DJs,
that we
would strut the
widest
Broadways of
our biggest cities,
heads
wrapped in
copper snakes, because
“Copper
snakes are
the right idea …
they
have a
potential for healing.”
Books
and bodies.
Words and worlds.
They
suck you
in, digest you
like
heads swallowed
by shy anacondas.
“I
know this
much is true.”
Still —
let’s not
circle the bush:
reuniting
us here,
in this place,
here
and in
what little time
we
share here,
this deliberate gathering,
is
simply
friendship,
like
the roots
of the forests
of
Manila or
swamps in Florida
or
the dark
rivers of Oaxaca.
Go
there where
you cannot, I
beg
you, as
your friend, like
that
brujo over
there in Catemaco,
who
once predicted
bodies and books
and
trees full
of foreign blood:
hear
where nothing
rings or sounds,
mad
poets, because
“the most impossible
is
possible”, in
litteris, this confession.
2)
Hear
where nothing
is said. Here
where
everything worth
hearing is offered.
En
arche en
ho logos, kai
ho …
the bush
suddenly ablaze, sky
flaming
in your
eyes and mine,
blood
melting to
ink in our
veins,
then leaking
to shape gold
letters
on correspondence
masquerading as books.
Here
where Nothing
is said, hear
where
Nothing is
said, watch smoke rise
off
the tongue,
words like snakes.
The
tongue is
a golden page.
No
golden age,
no smoky page,
no
gold-tongued
rage against dying,
blood
flaming, ink
dyeing, drying, dying.
(Time
stops. Glittering
blackness. First day
after
a coma.
A place like
Wales.
Music, images
of loveable skin.
I’ve
fallen out
of the body.)
In
the beginning
was the body,
bebed,
porque este
es mi cuerpo,
flesh
made word,
red like wine.
But
can faux
bushes exist in
poems
if gold
includes circumcision and
its
multicultural confessions?
Circumfession (once again‽)
experienced
physically as
circumcision without a
single flinch from
allowing the
descent
of the blade.
Nor does
a single
nerve end
flinch.
Indeed,
a grin surfaces,
so perverse
is
hir
funny bone.
Believe it, Honey,
as
a Mohel,
I would bare
proudly-filed,
pyramid-shaped teeth
you didn’t know
hid
behind lips
crimson with lipstick
and
wine and
blood and ink
and
Derrida and
confessions and those
which
never will
be confessed and…
3)
Flick
the dial.
Spicer Satellite Radio:
“ …we
must not
let the paths
of
desire become
overgrown … I am
only
counting on
what comes of
my
own openness,
my eagerness to
wander
in search
of everything … it
keeps
me in
mysterious communication with
other
open beings,
as if we
were
suddenly called
to assemble…” [slow fade…]
“That
was André
the Pope singing
that
old surrealist
classic, Mad Love.
And
now…” Change
the station‽ Nah.
My
lost highway
bends into a
sunset
sky dripping
a thousand mingled
shades
of lipstick,
blood and wine.
Such
dry air —
all the beers
of
San Miguel
will not slake,
dark and bitter,
my thirst
blank,
unspooling as roads
go, no
signals,
flesh nothing but
a limbic
afterthought.
What colo(u)r is
your flesh?
Unpick
these new stitches,
like stark
dashes,
down a lipsticked,
wined, blooded
road.
Jerry,
in London,
he told John:
“We blew Monterey
and Woodstock:
bang
crash roar,
then Hendrix set
fire to everything,
then we
whooooosh…”
This
note will
sustain as long
as you like.
The next
step
is
the note
that catches, the
last form is,
by far,
hardest
to
achieve. Once
you play this
loud,
the entire
stage becomes sensitive
to feedback: celestial
tone, crimson
kiss.
Song
of crimson
kisses kissing crimson
into you until
your flesh
crimsons
from osmosis with
bloodied bloody
words.
The colo(u)r of
my flesh?
Word.
4)
This
moves like
a festival now.
The mud the
crowd the
mosh
the
fire. My
flesh? My flesh,
that word that’s
so … that’s
so …
I
lost my
body once, on
2000 mics and
an endless
celestial
crimson
feedback burning
bush Garcia solo,
and I laughed,
because … I
DIDN’T
NEED
IT. But
I needed it
later. I need
it now.
What
colo(u)r
is my
flesh? Word. What
word? I don’t
know. All
I
know:
only you
can speak it.
Speak my flesh
into your
microphone,
flesh
is word
is love, Love.
Here’s the sound
of my
skin
blooming
crimson kisses,
kissing shady desire,
stars underfoot, words
hang above,
constellar
sunshine,
la crème
de la créme,
the milky way
of skin
written
with
birth spots
a divine battle
and all I
do is
worship
scars,
ever-more scars —
how do you
measure the years?
Never healed
scars —
impossible scars, impossible
scars bloomed
to
fruit
by poetry
which doesn’t heal
but compels you
to keep
breathing.
Breathe
through anything
and everything thrown
at you by
even the
stars —
suddenly miserable points
of light
which
can’t help but
illumine. Scars
seared
with the most
crimson-ridden
light.
Like
refusing to
put I love
you under erasure.
Keep on
dancing
until
daylight … as
Sherril Jaffe wrote
those
many years
ago, “Scars make
your
body more
interesting.” Impossible scars
bloomed to fruit,
sticky-sweet,
seed-
bearing …
Rest, and
look at this
goddamned red wheelbarrow.
Whatever it
is.
5)
Forgive
me, you
were delicious cold
or … well, so
much depends
on …
forgive
me, you
were so warm,
so
good to
dance near your
raised
flesh, the tracks
sewn over, scars
tell
stories, all
they know, time
punctuates
the skin.
Here you are.
Here
I am
with a story
of abiding love,
because there
are
flowers
also in
hell, and I
cannot cross out
your name,
scarred,
inked
over this
skin you once
made only yours
by kissing,
“I
didn’t know
tattoos were felt,”
you told me
that night
we
read
The Torah
looking for the
beginning of your name,
Raquel, who
waited
for
years for
love, abiding love,
and the candles
died out,
slowly
dripping
white blood
over your earrings,
until one day
you did
not
forget
them here,
but your fingers
traced the name,
the tracks
of
my
story, literally
raised flesh, Darling.
What do I
remember, remember,
that
was
shaped as
this thing we
are still afraid
to call
love?
6)
What I forgot
and now
remember
because you love
me (and
me)
is why I answered
Homer’s Odyssey
and Iliad
when an anthology
editor asked
for
favorite books which
influenced my
poetry.
I recalled Homer’s
books not
just
for their words
but their
“physicality.”
In my birthland
_____ _____
books
were/are expensive.
A bookshelf
held
Glory in our
living room.
Mama
ensured we children
understood that
treasures
lived on those
shelves: Odyssey,
Iliad,
many more books.
Even now
my
fingers itch remembering
the edges
of pages
as I leafed
through their
stories,
words blooming flesh
touching other
flesh.
But let me
recall, too,
a twin:
the horror ever
lurking within
my
mind, my body:
me and
You!
:Something else was
born that
day
when I first
tip-toed to
reach
for my first
book to
read.
When I began
to write
Poetry
I had nothing
to say.
And
I thought that
okay. Many
Masters
in the poetry
universe had
proclaimed:
Poetry is not
meaning, but
language.
Relatedly, the authors
died. So
I
concocted fiction for
my poems,
often
dark tales since
one must
be
dramatic, no? But
then I
began
to live those
stories with
nothing
less than my
own body.
stars—
suddenly miserable points
of light
which
can’t help but
illumine. Scars
seared
with the most
crimson-ridden
light.
Snow
spread through my
veins until
my
eyes blossomed crimson.
No Master
ever
warned me: in
Poetry, someone
always
speaks. Someone always
feels. Someone
always
bleeds. Someone always
scars. Someone
often
with bared teeth.
No one
warned:
in Poetry, Dear
One(s), this
poet
may concoct fiction,
but will
never
lie. Come, Darling,
see my
beautiful
eyes. See how
anguish has
bled
my eyes bright.
See how
anguish
surfaced snow in
my crimson
vision.
See how poetry
lit me
purple
from within, then
turned me
blind.
The Chained Hay(na)ku Project: An Invitation 