Isn't it strange living in another person's head?
It's like Being John Malkovich,
or Anne Sexton
as I rode along with her
wild rides into sand at the beach,
lost in Boston again,
inside a mind
that was different but still mine
because I saw
that very street lamp she did,
and in her advice to me,
that yet unborn memory
that would never be,
I heard her words in soft puffs
of nicotine-scented tickles
in my ear, warm air
before young lungs
had ever breathed in,
and I cried
because she was speaking to me,
though she never knew it
when the words clattered
from that old Remington
like a machine gun-
I was just an idea
she never really had,
a wish in soft feathery hair
on the chest of man
she shared lust with as he slept,
not knowing he would father
a specter delivered from a womb
that had closed for business.
Our walks
along an asylum lawn,
returning waves
to suspicious grass,
green oceans to get lost in
after sewing leather wallets
from our own hardened skins
as if projects could ever fix
the worlds of sin we lived in,
pandering doctors offering
officious pretense of cure
against the sweet furies
of sunrises, sunsets,
earth worms and *****.
So, can I cry
having crossed a divide
into another,
for moments residing
in the soul and belly of a mother
who was never mine,
though I feel her pain
as if we own it together?

I saw you in my dreams

You came to my side

Desire burning in your eyes

I then became yours

My soul belonged to you



You were there in my mind

Your eyes so crystal clear

Moving with purity of grace

Being my Angel in the night

Showing me a piece of Heaven



But when I awoke, you were gone

The memory still lingers of you

The feel of how you moved

And the secrets you showed me

I am awaiting you in my dreams again

Go to sleep my baby boy;
Momma’s only gonna be here
for a little while.

Nod your head my precious boy—
Can I kiss you
before I go?

I’ve waited ten dark years
to see your face,
and now I know—

Momma’s been a sinner
and she’s only gonna be here
for a little while.

Momma gripped the infant soul.
She clutched that child to her meager heart,
Hoping like a dying man in fever
To swallow salvation before his hour of going.
Then she heard the eerie angels singing—
The Man stepped out through the cloudy mantel.
She looked to Him and cried:

Oh Lord, please forgive me,
I’m an unwanted guest—
But I snuck in through a back door

And I’ve been to see my boy
before you send me on my way.
I’ve had a ten years’ wait

Since I’ve learned to love my baby,
Only let me stay,
Let me stay enough and be forgiven—

She descended, her back to the place
From which she had came
And the next of her days would be warmed
By the devil’s burly chortle,
By her midwife’s toil in the nursery of demons,
And the smoke from below,
Which rises through three worlds she’s seen
And scratches even the angels’ throats to coughing.

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body.  i like what it does,
i like its hows.  i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones,and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the,shocking fuzz
of your electric furr,and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh….And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you so quite new

It's never quite right, he said, the way people look,
the way the music sounds, the way the words are
written.
It's never quite right, he said, all the things we are
taught, all the loves we chase, all the deaths we
die, all the lives we live,
they are never quite right,
they are hardly close to right,
these lives we live
one after the other,
piled there as history,
the waste of the species,
the crushing of the light and the way,
it's not quite right,
it's hardly right at all
he said.

don't I know it? I
answered.

I walked away from the mirror.
it was morning, it was afternoon, it was
night

nothing changed
it was locked in place.
something flashed, something broke, something
remained.

I walked down the stairway and
into it.

Can you hear the voice calling this night?
Is this all a trick within my mind?
Because somewhere in the darkened shadows
I can hear something calling out my name
And I hide under the covers, let it go away

But curiosity takes me to the window, to look out
To look out on a dark night of hidden fear
I open my window and on the chilled wind I hear it
Like a voice from a secret grave still calling my name
"Leave me be, who are you to haunt me in the dark"?

But I fear my cry goes unheard as the voice calls again
I dress myself, dorn my boots, to solve this mystery
For I alone only seem to hear the voice calling to me
Calling to the shivers that are running down my spine
I go down the stairs and I hesitate before opening the door

I step out and an icy mist seems to surround the air
Chilled to my bones, I follow the voice that comes again
It takes me to the edge of an abandoned church, long forgotten
And somewhere between the overgrown graves it is there
Beckoning me to enter this place that belongs to the dead

I wonder hopelessly to myself, why did not anyone see me?
Surely someone would have stopped me this cold night
Especially from entering this deserted place of ghosts
But once again the voice comes calling like a spectre
And I find myself being drawn towards one forgotten grave

And the horror strikes at me at long last
As I read the name and see only my own, I am dead
It was no voice calling out, it was my own voice in my head
For I did not believe I had gone from the land of the living
And once again I know I must sleep, sleep forever more




copyright Chris Smith December 8th 2009