California

This is my very first postcard story. Really, it leans toward a dramatic monologue, I think...but really, who draws the lines if not the artist, so I'm drawing a line and calling this postcard fiction.

One day I’m going to move to California. Me and my roommate James, we’ll drive out there in a brand new 1968 Bel Air in the middle of summer, and we’ll arrive in California when the sun is high and the breeze is grand and that’ll be our oyster, California.

darling dolly

our arithmetic fails
when summing his life;
adding persistence,
temptation, a pomegranate,
forgetting how he ran to Breton,
then called him nothing
by proclaiming himself
the embodiment.

how lucky the world remembers
him young and left.

yours was not the only betrayal,
though probably the cruellest.

you, (he)art’s martyr,
so defined by who you loved?

your green verses
—not green like Juliet’s moon,
but bright, like lime trees—
have altered landscapes
more than any cubist interpretation
of space and form.

as long as nobody hears about this in Leicester

how sick in that
final moment
that you would
have to watch

your sister’s hands
ash-grey: a baker
measuring flour,
baking soda, salt.

but the agent
says it’s a
gesture, dear,
not a recipe

and you could not speak
to beg separate eternity.

defined: Ortonesque

The Lover
left a note;
“If you read his diary,
all will be explained,”

before

The Lover
bestowed nine hammered
kisses, took
twenty-two Nembutal
tabs and
sixteen ounces
canned grapefruit syrup.

still

The Lover
cooled first,
naked, in a shared
Islington flat,

while

The Loved
slept, imagining life
without nightmares.

“married, buried”

Note: sadly, I still have no idea how to indent lines. this poem is not flush left margin in what I would consider to be its right form. also, the title should be italicized. again, formatting knowledge fail.

crowned golden prince
of grunge on a disingenuous throne;
the unsolicited by-product of
instincts, altered chemistry,
esurient critics, bleach.
a history abridged by spirit.
your empathy
exploited, sensitivity
squandered.

you only gave Polly a throat,
a voice of her own.
yet you held the blame
for these hideous things.
your syllogism:
you wrote the song,
the song wrote the sin...
but those wasted eggs
sang something not the same.
the act changed intentions;
fully realized the wrong.

talent takes
and takes
and takes from
the brain, leaves
waste, cassette tapes,
blame for all you heard.
the generosity
of what’s wrought by genius,
the gall, the glib violence,
venom grafted into veins.

then something’s more a sin
about that shot;
you set suicide’s standard.

and they flocked to seattle

like they didn’t see it coming
like you hadn’t already given
all apologies in the world
like the story wasn’t
a tragedy since the beginning.

chanteuse

for Ashleigh

you
pursue that liquid groove
in pluvial elusivity,

and I,

I just want to be your body
to feel you inhale—
and eluviate dichroic, dual moves to:
exuviate epithelials,
liaise with the muses—

and deify myself
in the sweat
that clings to your skin.

mesothelioma

Man’s got
mesozoic bones
and miso soup for organs.
This thief
steals months and years,
leaves stones and jewels
turned over.
Messy tunes
peal out to confused ears.
Left this stolen moment
with hospital Jell-o.