bitterness of iron:
remove the milk
in bate of oxen blood spills

a bovine scent coagulates --
two membranes,
five and nine in aluminium

warp the boiling point --
two hundred, ninety degrees Celsius,
left standing, half a day:
cardboard instruction sets carbon constriction

imprinting
burnt hair, burnt hooves  --
the taste of not eating
a liver, raw --

Where is the nameless face
carrying cups of coffee, bought
on a journey
somewhere, and nowhere et al . . .
kindreds, wrapped in the smell of decay:
the uncured hide around his hips,
or was it his wrists, never touching?

he shoulders shame
carrying the weight of the dead,
slung over him

partnering with gravity,
these memory moguls slow him down
though he keeps trudging

when one drops, another
takes his place -- first his father, then
a brother, stillborn

not half the weight of a stone,
yet his carcass bends his back
like any full grown beast

for he did not weep
with his mother when its blue soul
was yanked from her womb

nor did he shed a tear
when his father's heart gave out
a billion beats too soon

when he forgets his sins as son  
he recalls another one--the boy he
slew on a brown river's bank;

floating still in the Mekong, riddled
with the rifle's rabid rounds, he often catches
a ride in memory's stream

leading a relay team of shame shifters
he carries with him every step, though
the world sees him walk alone

We never cracked the mysteries of Pittsburgh,
and Baltimore bled out inconveniently before

our eyes, another nervous snitch knifed outside
the corner convenience store in broad daylight.

Salt Lake City was too pure, too white,
theocracy carved into a wafer of snow.

We grew tired of watching Los Angeles
pleasure itself in the sun like a **** star,
interminably tan and vacuous.

And Chicago was too ******* cold.

So we settled here, where streets turn
the soles of our shoes to palimpsests

where every apartment elevator
offers a wall of infinite buttons

where grocery stores stock their shelves
with bottles and bottles of octopus ink

where neighbors open their curtains
and stand shimmering in moonlight

where weather mixes with nostalgia,
creating immutable, poetic forecasts

where water tastes like redemption
and the skyline rises like a chorus,

so much taller than the cities
we inhabited when we were

alive.

The right winter
for dope and ice
for walks along the river route
home

The right winter
for arctic pin-***** wind
holes in boots
turquoise dress coat
far too thin
for walks along the river

But The Merrimack couldn’t find her way
when fabric moguls migrated south
Fascinated by nylon nasties
they traded their silks and cottons
for those petro-polyesterdays

While she—
could no more manufacture life
than mint their money
So, they blamed her
Pronounced her—“Dead”
Decried her “*****”

Now—
She wanders sadly under bridges
stopping to eddy in an overhang of birches
In dank canals, I found her sleeping
angered only at the falls

Poor outcast!
with current edge she splinters light
from cities sadder still
retching her oily stench 
        past Plum Island
into the sea— into me

What’re a few warm tears
falling from someplace on a bridge
to the icy waters of the Merrimack?
Rivers get lost in the ocean don’t they?

Let them find each other there

sound sounds like this in english. sounds familiar.

in the morning,             heartening                 lorries,

mansel davis, north to south and back again reverse

turn.



garden, sounds fresh so early,                           outdoor

noise.      indoors,

the radio plays.                                             brittle.      news

mumbo jumbo of politics.



birds sing.



tinnitus continues,                                                 softer now





sbm.

(20 minute poetry)

Begin as follows
watching
hollowed eyes
they'll
despise your face
the
dimples in your cheeks

seek and you will find
unless the seeker's blind.

Do you see me
on the periphery?

Not content to be a footnote

acting out the final scenes  
unsure if
a life is living in my dreams
and I have some small part
to play.

Today
is Monday
I bear this in mind
as I follow through on
these things that I must do.


Even so
I sway slightly in the morning breeze
to please, albeit unconsciously myself
and if or if it ever seems that a switch occurs and dreams become
a means towards an end
I will begin again.

CHOCOLATE EXPLANATIONS

“Right. . .!”

I try to explain it
with chocolates

that she( girlishly )
keeps trying to eat.

I pick a luscious
dark chocolate seahorse

And I say “Now this is. . .”

( and she finishes my sentence for me )

“. . .your hippocampus!”

She squeals. . . delighted with herself.

“That’s correct!”
I praise her
“. . .it’s shaped like this seahorse!”

“And it controls
your memories of you
your “who you are”

your “how your self assembles
its sense of self

. . .with all its past and future mysteries!”

“Yes. . .yes. . .that’s it!

She claps her hands
thrilled to bits

by the familiar telling
the reassurance of sounds.

And this twisted twirl of almond
with a real almond in the centre of it

“. . . is your amygdala!”

She blurts out before me.

“You got it”
I smile.

“Everyone’s got one!
a seahorse & an almond
one on each side of our brain.”

“Now the almond tells you how
to respond to the things
that you’ve assembled
into a sense of self

. . .with the proper emotion

. . .the right feeling.

. . .whether you just like

or love it”

“Oh, I love it. . .I love it!”

She almost sings.

“Now, explain it to me again!”

I give her the finished explanations
and she eats them

with much exaggerated
mmmmming & ohhhhhing.

“I love your explanations
about what’s wrong with my thingy”

She knocks upon her head
like it was a door
to a self that she had
locked herself outside of.

Most times
she doesn’t even know

her name

or who

or what

she is.

But she loves this story of

HIPPOCAMPUS AND ITS FAITHFUL AMYGDALA

She loves

each sound

each word

each letter

each pause

of the chocolate

explanations.