les pauvres cœurs


Sunday, February 24, 2008

Mary, Mary

speak to her in blasphemies wild and unkempt
curls and whirls a tangle of swirls
the wind sweeping sweetly
about her face
give her a taste of the brand new place
and plant little nothings in her womb gardens
they'll never stick
for her time has slowed
and body called to radioactivity
come here and lick
the nuclear holocaust from her chin
laid bare beneath
the neon concealer
all the little lights
turned on by her smile

Clenched

Quick, the government is coming
get angry
for all we missed
shake your fist
found my lieben lost
all it is
für nicht alles
shake your fist
I won't blame you

I love drunk poems.

now we kiss beer and forget all we used to know of simple American life
for the flavors
of Germany have invaded
our blood
Amidst techno and Kolsch
we have lost our heritage
in Feist
and whatever we used to know
we have Lost!Milesly
we know not even ourselves

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Confession

repent and recant
all your posessions and
feeble-minded knick-knacks
possessively playing the passive
role of the perfect little wife

repent and recant
your head will not be emptied
no savior son no savoire faire
to taste light in life
on top of the world

repent and recant
on your knees in the kitchen
the oven is still broken
no meat for your family no
not this day

repent and recant
the company you are keeping
spilling bloodfrom hildren's eyes
sacrificial knife your own
chopping board the base of guillotine

repent and recant
your sins before me
taste the forgiveness lying deep
within my cunt
the first piece you take

repent and recant
before your father returns
and sees the mess
that you've made of mother
dead women don't clean house

repent and recant
a bittersweet redemption lies
awaiting to acquit
your holy soul O my child
what have you done

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

fresh excerpt: Orange

We entered a café/head shop. All I could see was orange. It was like being inside a cheetoh, or a carrot. Orange. I looked at my hands. Suddenly they were orange too. Shit! Shit! I was turning orange! I went to the bathroom. It was also orange. There was no escape from the orange. I peed and washed my hands. Shit, I had to throw up. Did I have anything in my stomach to throw up? No, I hadn’t eaten at all except for the mushrooms. Would throwing up make me feel better? Maybe? I didn’t know. I went to try.

I strangled a scream of terror while bent over the toilet. It would be no good to have somebody rushing in here wondering what the fuck I was screaming about. What was I screaming about? I looked in the toilet. My puke was orange! The orange had invaded my body! It was in my veins, in my lungs, even my stomach! There was no escaping it. I washed my hands again and took a drink from the sink, then looked in the mirror.

“Conscious choice? Fuck that, Steve.” I muttered, and traced my reflection’s outline. I painted my self-portrait in trails of water as somebody else came into the bathroom. They spoke to me, in English, I thought, but I couldn’t answer. All brain functions had ceased. I was an orange zombie. I exited the bathroom, wondering how long I had been there, and found my friends at a table. I looked at Antony. “I gotta go.”

“Where?"

"Um... um... I don't know. But it's... it's too orange. It's everywhere. All over me! And I can't get it off!" I could hear the panic summoned from the depths of my stomach.

“All right, let’s get you some fresh air.” Antony took my hand and led me outside. “D’you need a cigarette?”

“Yeah.” Cigarettes were oddly familiar – I loved them, but had no idea why. And it took ages to smoke one. We smoked and talked a little. He reassured me.

“Forgive me if I’m forward, sweetheart, but I think you’re really quite frightened. And tripping balls in the middle of a city you don’t know.” I looked at him. “Are you listening?” I nodded. “Good. I’m a good guy. So are James and Antony, we’re all good guys – we’re not going to leave you. I’m going to take care of you.”

I smiled and felt a little better. The air was nice. The cigarette smoke was blue. I could feel it swirling down in my lungs and going through my bloodstream, rinsing it of all the orange. It wrapped itself around each singular cell, choked the color out of it, made it blue and red again. I watched as the orange leeched off my skin and crept wickedly back inside.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

"The Bus Mall" - The Decemberists (Picaresque)

In matching blue raincoats,
Our shoes were our show boats
We kicked around.
From stairway to station
We made a sensation
With the gadabout crowd.
And oh, what a bargain,
We're two easy targets
For the old men at the off-tracks,
Who've paid in palaver
And crumpled old dollars,
Which we squirreled away
In our rat trap hotel by the freeway.
And we slept-in Sundays.

Your parents were anxious,
Your cool was contagious
At the old school.
You left without leaving
A note for your grieving
Sweet mother, while
Your brother was so cruel.
And here in the alleys
Your spirits were rallied
As you learned quick to make a fast buck.
In bathrooms and barrooms,
On dumpsters and heirlooms,
We bit our tongues.
Sucked our lips into our lungs
'til we were falling.
Such was our calling.

And here in our hollow we fuse like a family,
But I will not mourn for you.
So take up your makeup
And pocket your pills away.
We're kings among runaways
On the bus mall.
We're down
On the bus mall.

Among all the urchins and old Chinese merchants
Of the old town,
We reigned at the pool hall
With one iron cue ball
And we never let the bastards get us down.
And we laughed off the quick tricks--
The old men with limp dicks--
On the colonnades of the waterfront park.
As 4 in the morning came on, cold and boring,
We huddled close
In the bus stop enclosure enfolding.
Our hands tightly holding.

But here in our hollow we fuse like a family,
But I will not mourn for you.
So take up your makeup
And pocket your pills away.
We're kings among runaways
On the bus mall.
We're down
On the bus mall.
We're down
On the bus mall.
Down on the bus mall.
Oh ooh oh

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

jet stream unconcious knowledge

The controversy is in the conversion

to rise and awaken my beaten
beat body beat soul oh my
Kerouac and Ginsberg leaning keeping
that lamp in its place
broken glass the lightbulb he dropped
sticking feet bloody tracks the floor
the floor how can we forget the floor
smeared 'cross your lips the shine
mein lieben ich brauchen ein package
zu Amerika the land of foreign nationals
and currency that I have lost
dizzied from the dizzy heights
the tower we've leapt from
the waters we lap from
the Rhein where we never swam and can't
too cold it is forever too cold

sleep oh sweet sleep of blackness
forever forgetting dreams of nonsense
explosions hearts beat faster
in the dark we know each other
or rather you are trying to know me
and I will not let you I hate your
wandering hands and prying eyes
kiss my sweet American lips
that fuzzy place is coming the gray before dawn
a moment before I am aware
the rain that beats in shamed silence
the fog that pulls to faraway memories
the things I miss while I drift in
seas of dreamsand and your fingerskins
my back
no
stop
don't. touch. me.

Saturday, February 9, 2008

Fresh Air

Prayer escapes me/holy lines of writ/sacrificed to poets of midnight/seeking jazz and soup and endless sex/along the old untended freight rails/of Germany/Escaping the facades of my American vernacular/lost in the sounds of PVC slick against skin and vinyl/a broken record a wrenched open heart/to do battle/against your endless fortress walls/you can touch me o please my master/touch me/performing surgeries with sharpened can tops/and kisses that belie our secrets wants/yours to shut me up/and mine for you to want her/slowly I think feel rock pray/my mouth moving to the words in the background/now we are speaking of Berlin/a cellar pub/leashed and collared shall I be yours/Nein! mein Herr when we have reached that cabaretic city/I will not sully her naivete/with our sordid games/the other one/she thinks she loves you/but I will set/her free/from all that you offer/your handcuffed playtime of red asses/and cock harnesses/she is learning/what it means to live/and at last/the air is sweet to her skin

endless trains

Wuppertal to Koeln
I am speeding home to Fabian
and the boys who don't know
what to do with me
and away from the boy who only knows
one thing
Crammed into this commuter train
on hard blue seats
fake velous covering
Now changed to green
a week later
one more train one more
dying second class passenger
Maastricht to Aachen
Aachen to Horren
Horrem to Loevenich
my beloved Sbahn!
back to the men who don't
know what to do with me
and away from the boy
who truly knows only one thing
I've left my heart
somewhere over the swollen atlantic
don't bring it back, whatever you do

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Recalling Your Voice

German trains are mad
and my handwriting has
changed inexplicably.
How I long for Amsterdam
and the sweet lilt of
a London accent.
Antony -- where are you?

Drunk Letter to Ginsberg, 010208

Dear Allen

Tonight I learned that when the mask comes off, there is naught but madness and jealousy. Every German girl is prettier, blonder, thinner, and all I can think is how much I want to cover that damn boy's face in kisses. When is it my turn, daddy? When? When do I get the man they've been telling me I deserve for so long? I don't want to be second best, I won't fucking settle for that, not ever again.

Ha, I bet I won't be able to read this tomorrow.

But just remember your rule, Milesly, fall in love often, but keep two or three at the most.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't fucking matter.

I want Michael.

Love,
Milesly

Untitled, 010208

Nobody
could hold a candle to you
Jessie.
And I may be drunk
but my secret has always been
how much
I loved you.
Germany girls can be as pretty
as they want
but nothing will compare
to you.

Every Little Thing

Without fail
every city I am in
reminds me of the two of you
scantily clad dreaming
two different points/times/places
I am still two different people
still enhanced enchanted
by the majesty of your innocence

Those eyes look at me
across time and space
so I am always seeking everything
I can never find
all the things I found
in your precious/multi-hued/faceted eyes
I couldn't be bothered to take

Forgive a simple writer for her crimes
and accept a penance
of every jazz bar entered is a reminder
of you.

crawling through space, 12.2005


I crawled through your door
Only to lie on your bed once again
In all my naked glory,
Covered only by your flesh
Salt-swept body of the sea
Plunged down upon the dirt red earth.

I rolled over to blaspheming noise
The man pounding on the door
Sitting up to find only that I am alone,
Covered by hardly a sheet
Salt-soaked body of the sea
A mere dream among white frosted fields.

Monday, February 4, 2008

thinking of home

i know that olympia wind --
it has blown across the atlantic
to hit my cheeks in amsterdam
its so cold i would think
the canals should be frozen
and i know those olympia stars --
scattered far across the sky
in the frigid german night
i am thinking of you
in the blue cigarette smoke
wondering how you've been...

Sunday, February 3, 2008

My Love?

Let's go on long walks in Central Park until we find that perfect reading rock and lie in the sunshine with our literature, occasionally reading aloud the most interesting passages. Do you like Hemingway? I don't.

Then, we could get Firecracker popsicles and eat them messily without napkins and kiss the sugary stickiness from each other's faces as we search the city for the perfect refrigerator box to imagine ourselves into outer space. You can hold my hands and I will kiss your forehead, and somewhere, one of us will promise forever -- and the other will agree but not mean it.

Our respective bedrooms will smolder in the summer heat, the fans doing nothing, the windows wide open, and our bodies bared for all the city to see. "Fuck them!" You will cry, "let them watch!" Taking another swig of the tequila, your teeth on my neck, my nails in your back, another achingly quick descent into the mad passion that is the summer night.

But summer ends, dear, and autumn comes. We will be lulled into each other's false sense of security until I see you coming out of our restaurant with a tall blonde, or you see me dashing into the public library with a quick piece of Eurotrash. Words will be said, plates will be thrown, tears will be shed, and one last night of madness before we look at each other and say, "Dear God, if I ever see you again, it will be too soon."