BODIES

 

I open an old notebook and find the scribbled over word BODIES, legible but as if wrapped in looping wire.  This partially obscured word was meant to be the title of a poem – a poem which was never written.  Now, in this moment, I see that title under erasure as an inadvertent poem – one which seems better than whatever might have been created with intention.

 

*

Intention and Address.

Attention in a dress.

*

 

Sometimes I carry myself like a series of almost life size cardboard cutouts stolen from an art house cinema lobby.

I impersonate myself and then shrink from the performance.

I peek out at the world through anxiety loops.

 

*

 

I feel myself to be saturated with invisible ink.

I (crossed out) feel (crossed out) afraid (crossed out) and (crossed out) aroused (crossed out) at (crossed out) the (crossed out) same (crossed out) time (crossed out).

 

*

 

I interrogate myself like a potential lover.

I interrogate myself like a cat licking itself and hawking ungodly hair balls.

I interrogate myself as only an insomniac can.  Sleepless in Kent, Ohio.

 

*

 

My heart beats irregularly.

My circulation (both venous and social) is not what it should be.

I’m too tall and frequently bump my head.

 

*

 

It’s difficult being a patchwork of conflicting desires and drifting attention.  Especially as one ages into invisibility.

The abyss beckons as the ellipsis beckoned.

 

*

 

What is to be done?

It is difficult being anyone.

Even the Tyrant shivers in the teeth of Winter.

Weather is indifferent to one’s entreaties.  As is time.

 

*

 

Everything matters, but everything is exhausting.

 

*

 

Beginning over again.  Over and over again.  Continuity and discontinuity.  Parts and Other Pieces.  My life in poetry.

 

*

 

Are you sure?

Are you lachrymose?

 

Are you a boy?

Are you a churl?

 

Are you generous?

Are you sui generis

 

Are you somebody?

Are you you?

 

*

 

Am I off track?  Am I getting my way?  Am I getting in my way?

 

*

 

Liminal and libidinal are not just near homophones.  They refer to crossover states of being.

 

*

 

I (crossed out) feel (crossed out) afraid (crossed out) and (crossed out) aroused (crossed out) at (crossed out) the (crossed out) same (crossed out) time (crossed out).

 

I and you: interchangeable.

Sadly, everyone’s replaceable.

 

*

 

Feeling profoundly unsettled.  Yet, not wanting to turn away from this particular moment.

 

*

 

Noting what’s missing.  Following proverbial breadcrumbs … deep into the present.

Everything is unfinished.