the twit

    5.08.2008

    paranoid/lovesick: found poems 1-4

    a mixtape and companion poems generated by different methods of extraction.




    found poem 1

    1.

    not sure
    if you mind
    if I dance with you

    2.

    now I’m watching
    the moon

    I’m watching
    all turn

    electric lights
    I think I’m falling

    for you



    3.

    you were out of my league
    at a distance that I didn’t want to see

    I still believed in the phrases that we breathed
    but I know the distance isn’t fair to cross

    at a distance that I didn’t want to see
    I wanted you nearer

    I love the place where we shared our tiny grace
    but just because it’s real don’t mean it’s gonna work



    4.

    it’s a secret
    I’ve been keeping from you

    it’s a secret
    I’ve been keeping for you



    5.

    tell me that

    the temperature is rising
    in your head

    tell me that
    love is not to be

    **

    this way
    the reason why I’m trying
    to make it

    alright trying
    to drive through
    girl wish it

    **

    tonight don’t you expect to
    make a phone call

    tonight treat me
    like a motherfucker
    who was right

    **

    take me to your bed
    and show me some trees



    6.

    then she’s gone and my friends can come along
    and it’s never strange just how long she stays



    7.

    I like the way you hold
    your head

    let me stay here
    for a week on your couch

    but I would rather
    sleep in your bed or

    even better yet we could
    run away
    and never rest

    your mind is filled
    with fantasies

    you give me
    your insanity



    8.

    so tell me why didn’t I leave
    four hours ago at least
    I’ve seen your glare

    down county road 8
    salty lips and whirred fans
    shine on

    catfish angel
    you know they can’t
    hurt me like you do



    9.

    I have your good clothes in the car
    I have your dreams and your teeth marks

    I don’t have any questions
    you were right about the end

    you must have known I’d do this someday



    10.

    fluids of a summer night
    a delicate blend of sweat

    take my lip between your teeth
    fingers underneath
    stains and scars I can’t explain



    11.

    I don’t want to be your friend
    I just want to be a part of you



    12.

    you know I went home
    last night sat down on my bed
    and cried

    **

    I woke up to find it
    nothing but a dream
    that’s why I sing
    this lonesome song



    13.

    tell me
    you don’t want me anymore
    time don’t matter anymore

    if you want to fight
    just bring it on
    and if the glass will shatter
    it’s deeper when you fall



    14.

    a young man came by
    with a beard on his cheek
    and a gleam in his eye



    15.

    I sailed a wild wild sea
    beneath a weeping willow tree
    afraid to do the things
    that I knew I had to do



    16.

    anyone can see
    I’m in love with
    how you feel



    17.

    the sound of the spectacle
    everything we ever said

    we like to get our kicks
    in this way sometimes

    you tell me



    found poem 2


    1.

    dancing like heroes would,
    it’s sad that you think we were all passion;

    it don’t think it’s all flailing limbs, twisted dispatches—

    it’s you,
    it’s me.



    2.

    the universe is everything,
    I always thought

    now I’m considering watching
    the trains, and the clouds--

    I didn’t have to be all ashamed;
    it’s the universe.



    3.

    I was and you were the sea.

    Down to the bottom—bubbles
    and twenty-thousand affections—
    my depths made a pressure,
    and all your fluids the force
    underneath my distance.

    I wanted you nearer,
    and affection floats like a stone:
    so close, so all alone.

    And you were underneath,
    you were nearer.



    4.

    I’ve been
    a secret
    for you.



    5.

    all the little words down
    like a spider through the cracks;

    all the things I thought
    come through a song;

    all the glass will try
    to tell you: nowhere.



    6.

    you’ll never see;
    I’m happier.



    7.

    undeclared: a dream
    stays vanity.



    8.

    wild stars hanging there—
    they know she floats beneath.



    9.

    hair and fingernails
    arms around arms.

    time riots; they
    must have known



    10.

    tongue forced: quoting
    what had been devouring;
    things left unsaid.



    11.

    it is so hard to want
    just a part of you.



    12.

    I can’t know the nightmare
    when you go.



    13.

    I remember, bright-eyed,
    the light fell:

    maybe time don’t matter.




    14.

    dear, take from me; shove and steal—
    brick and barbed wire to beard, cheek, and eye:

    to remember a parting, stiff and sore,
    from nights heard perfectly and time brief.



    15.

    wild and brief, the pieces of light;
    short is the night, and the sun a young fool.

    an escapade sailed beneath some
    questions, lay time as short as song.



    16.

    a shadow swinging in the church,
    the trees rumbling in trying fits:
    Don Quixote is at the bottom of anyone.



    17.

    the spectacle wasn’t everything;
    everything means ourselves, I guess.



    found poem 3


    if there’s one thing that I could never confess
    that will be the end of everything:

    at a distance that I didn’t want to see, I wanted
    you nearer—it’s a secret I’ve been keeping from you.

    I know we’re going to need a lucky one
    that I don’t think I recognize, but

    if I had the chance to hold your hand
    and I’d know you’re hanging there for me—

    out among the missing sons and daughters,
    head awash with what had been.

    I just want to be a part of you; I don’t care
    when you go; I don’t care how long you stay;

    time don’t matter anymore. I’m stiff and
    I’m sore; afraid to do the things that I knew

    I have to do. I will find my nitch in everything
    we ever said, everything we might have done:

    you tell me.



    found poem 4


    Out in every song is the back of my mind: expanding
    out of clouds, confused and electric; falling
    and waving—first at a distance. Nearer, a pressure
    punctures the thirst, because it’s real: of the sea
    of affection underneath a secret, a kind of trickle
    coming through cracks in the sun, through a phone
    call between trees: perfect and lost all night. I wouldn’t
    hold a dream undeclared; at least hanging stars shine
    on, sweet-toothed fans of difference, and everything
    must be forgiven by questions of imperatives, trampled
    impressions of things unsaid—to see a part of it,
    when little shines through. It’s a fight to shatter
    the secret, singing with a smile and barbed wire
    and a beard and a brick—meeting and parting and sore
    from sleeping on suggested time. Distress, though,
    like a wild sea beneath my feet, is brief: pieces of this
    song now lay broken and short, but starry
    pebbles trying to love in shiny fits of everything.

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