(no subject)
Faced with a blank page, he wrote the following:
Here begins my book of poetry, recounting as best I can, each and every premonition of death I’ve had since birth; this will be the original manuscript, typed out on a Remington Scout.
“I imagine myself eaten by the pretty dog”
I was three
years-old, in a red blazer
outisde of Canondale Church; a
blonde dog eyed me
with its tongue out and its
blonde coat riffling in the wind
beneath the bright sun
and I imagined the dog
biting my face
off.
“I imagine the church collapse”
I was sitting in a pew
in my red blazer
and my mom rubbed down my
cowlick with saliva
and I imagined the apse
of the sanctuary
falling heavily
on my head
and mangling my body
in my blazer and slacks.
“I imagine our Hyundai crashing I”
We had a yellow Hyundai
and on the drive home
I imagined my father finding
the bodies of my mother and I strewn
among the pine trees,
thrown from the vehicle when she
hit one, blinded by the sun.
“I imagine a clown hand descending from my plaster ceiling”
Supine in my bed I kept imagining
the arm of some elastic clown reaching for me
out of the white of the ceiling;
when I went to sleep I dreamt of
the same maniacal hand following me through buildings.
“I imagine myself dying of cancer at age three”
The next day I stared at the sun
when I stepped outside to go to daycare
and it hurt my eyes
and I suddenly imagined myself wasting away
from eye cancer
(over years)
as if seeing another life entirely;
the cancer took my vision and then invaded
the rest of my head.
I was imagining the color
black eating me away
from within the orbs of
my eyes and the misshapen
orb of my skull.
“I imagine drowning in a swimming pool, and it is much like drinking milk”
At lunch I drank whole milk from
a red frosted-plastic cup
which was incredibly hot
but filled with cold milk;
smelling the hot plastic and the
dairy deeply, I imagined something like
a chlorine-scent and pictured my lungs filling with
cold water while the sunlight
is tossed around me
(in the pool)
in a gentle aquacade
and the cement is hot enough
to burn a naked sole,
even running.
Here begins my book of poetry, recounting as best I can, each and every premonition of death I’ve had since birth; this will be the original manuscript, typed out on a Remington Scout.
“I imagine myself eaten by the pretty dog”
I was three
years-old, in a red blazer
outisde of Canondale Church; a
blonde dog eyed me
with its tongue out and its
blonde coat riffling in the wind
beneath the bright sun
and I imagined the dog
biting my face
off.
“I imagine the church collapse”
I was sitting in a pew
in my red blazer
and my mom rubbed down my
cowlick with saliva
and I imagined the apse
of the sanctuary
falling heavily
on my head
and mangling my body
in my blazer and slacks.
“I imagine our Hyundai crashing I”
We had a yellow Hyundai
and on the drive home
I imagined my father finding
the bodies of my mother and I strewn
among the pine trees,
thrown from the vehicle when she
hit one, blinded by the sun.
“I imagine a clown hand descending from my plaster ceiling”
Supine in my bed I kept imagining
the arm of some elastic clown reaching for me
out of the white of the ceiling;
when I went to sleep I dreamt of
the same maniacal hand following me through buildings.
“I imagine myself dying of cancer at age three”
The next day I stared at the sun
when I stepped outside to go to daycare
and it hurt my eyes
and I suddenly imagined myself wasting away
from eye cancer
(over years)
as if seeing another life entirely;
the cancer took my vision and then invaded
the rest of my head.
I was imagining the color
black eating me away
from within the orbs of
my eyes and the misshapen
orb of my skull.
“I imagine drowning in a swimming pool, and it is much like drinking milk”
At lunch I drank whole milk from
a red frosted-plastic cup
which was incredibly hot
but filled with cold milk;
smelling the hot plastic and the
dairy deeply, I imagined something like
a chlorine-scent and pictured my lungs filling with
cold water while the sunlight
is tossed around me
(in the pool)
in a gentle aquacade
and the cement is hot enough
to burn a naked sole,
even running.