TRAKL, III
------------------------------------
I open my drug box and take out my drugs.
I do my drugs.
You can follow my dreams.
It’s windy. One can see the wind
Moving the trees. One cannot see the wind.
One can see the ocean of the trees
One confuses with murders
And returns before the next song begins
To laugh at dead darkness.
---------------------------------------
He sat on his knees
in the middle of the bed, masturbating, breathing
like a dog. She put her hand down her
skirt and into her cunt. I remember
they’re just there. She put her hand down her jeans
in the middle of class. He masturbated to fall asleep.
He came on a glossy magazine spread of a pink pussy
spread open by cherry red painted fingernails.
She her fingers as down as unexpected
remote and still. Remote and still, all. At the foot
of the bed with her legs spread going nowhere
the stars cattle, the earth a bull
sashed with flowers lines neon
where thing compared to is thing thing cantata.
Her cunt astral and moody
like an agreeable tube-like cunt. Her cunt like a beer
named after a river. The sweat that drains form his chest
will it hemorrhage once again from a cloud.
I took the drink. They on either side of me
spat on my shoulder so that the spit
dribbled to my elbows, from there it fell.
I used coke strength to lift
the lid of the outdoor supine refrigerator
and grabbed another beer and the half bottle
of Vodka from the freezer compartment. It
becomes a gentleman to be enterprising, to move
forward from confusion to confusion and if possible
explain it. This I said plaintively, as the syringe
broke the skin of my arm
like projection light through a key hole.
There was nothing to fulfill, I saw mpoths but ignored
them, they came as like from a velvet purple black
backround they swallowed themselves and
came forth again, different mouths, or the same,
unknown. Look at these clearest of scenes
and close if you can a circle around it
trapping it holding it in your artificial spite
don’t you become indolent, don’t you see her
airing herself from the waist down
and bending to pick up a sock in your t-shirt?
She had just got off the bed after being there
with a novel and finger in her hole.
Let’s go to that place. There’s no forest outside
this voluptuous lair, only one forget that’s true
when one is here, within. It was on this voyage that
we find our hero, lying shattered in
the upperhousing of the tumescent grand vault.
He awoke to the tooting of ship horns. Rubbed his head
and remembered his valise, deep in the chasms
of the holds. How he sweated and longed for his valise,
but why. Sweat, explicable, valise in hold longing
who knows why. It was past breakfast time, the sun
mocked him. He could make no empirical discoveries
as to his orientation in the world of seas
but he assumed that somewhere across the ocean
was the ship and therefore he upon said ship
also was. It was clear that he had been degraded in
someway but could not find the signs, not any unusual
ones, and felt illumined, radiant, like the smearing
of after dinner fingerprints across a solid platinum
banister, of which there was one on this ship
the stems of the potted plants wavered and so therefore
did their leaves. There is nothing here and nothing
he’d like to discover. Maybe a bottle, but there is none.
His head hurts. Culture seemed to shatter like glass
waves on his heels.
WHEN JUSTIN AND I SMOKED CRACK
When Justin and I smoked crack in his car parked
Next to the dumpster in the parking lot of turkey hill
I thought the dash board would whang out and whap me
In the face. It was the crack. Justin got it from a guy
We gave a ride too, who got it from the guy
We gave him a ride to, then we took him home so that he could smoke crack
And play video games. He was about my height but stooped from so much sitting around
And clouds of bleached smoke and whatever attenuated flickers do
When they race around while turning your body
Into wet bread. When I mentioned earlier that crack in the wall
I didn’t know the universe was so empty, hours, and hours….
We smoked two rocks, across from the graveyard. A police car passed
Unnoticed. Then another. The air felt like plastic…that crack…
Before we did all that, Justin said, I’m not smoking crack alone.
I wanted to see the bag so he showed it to me, I forget what it looked like, but
I’ve seen pictures since then that fill this gaping lacuna. I’m sure it was pure
And granulated in small hunks and his hand looked like a surprisingly soft
And dextrous appendage. I wish I was back there
Smoking crack with him. This reminds me of the story
Zach Lau told, on such a night as tonight, when he was walking along
And found a little baggy with white little
Nugget inside. He took them home and smoked them, convinced it had been
Crack. He might have been smoking coagulated nuggets
Of baking soda, rat poison, nutrasweet,
Etc. He did not say whether he felt
Anything at all. (ask him if he did). When people are shown
Smoking crack in the movies they are usually shown
Holding a pipe, and an implement
For producing flame, be it a lighter or often enough
A blowtorch. Crack smokers are almost never shown using matches
With the reason perhaps being that matches can never obtain
The necessary temperature by which crack
Becomes a gas. A crack pipe is usually made
Of tempered glass, with a 4 inch stem
Attached to a bowl or cup-shaped aperture where the rock is dutifully
Inserted. The hole within this aperture is of course small enough
To prevent the rock from trundling
Into the stem, but wide enough
Such that the smoke may pass through without much struggle
By the handler. Air flow is important to the crack user
For the obvious reason that it’s the gaseous element
Catylized by heat in flameform that makes the crack user
High. It doesn’t matter if a doge’s worth of crack is brought in to the user
On a sapphire wheelbarrow, the crack user bereft of a world of flame
Be it lighter, match, blow torch, or magnifying glass, would not be able
To ignite his stuff. He might be able to triturate the mound
Into a snortable form, but this method naturally
Will shed the enterprise of the glamour
Of proving oneself a higher order primate
Through the use
Of tools. Obviously, for the veteran crack user
Wheelbarrows full of crack are a fantasy
Skimming along the surging tropism
Of a powerful toke. This fantasy sheds itself quickly,
And no world without lighters
Is ever conceived of, just as you can’t imagine a gallows
Without a noose. The lighter in fact transforms into a kind of bottle
That must be spun on a grubby oval coffee table
In the between rock hours, it determines nothing but the fact
That it slows to a stop and points in an odd direction
Seems significant. This idleness can be hypnotic, in the manner
Of tropical surf. I can’t hide the fact that
I’m a poet, not in writing anyway, but if I wanted to I would tell
A long winding story about the one time
I smoked crack, including an instructional portion
On the manner in which crack is as they say
Smoked. Crack is a crystal that burns
At high temperature. I felt an almost sympathetic insouciance
To the way the crack cloud glides into the lungs
And gives purchasee to all manner of form in the grid
Of imagination. I read a lot of books peopled by innkeepers
That is, I know how the business of subjection may proceed
Without the need for physical contact
Or enmity. Commerce, the prickly epiphenomena of known ends
Enacting continuity. A cat wandered in, looking disoriented,
We fed it, gave it a bed,
And called it ours. I suppose
This is how crack feels, whenever anyone smokes it
For the first time. Our error had been to think that the cat
Had no previous home. When the cat left, we’d wondered
Why, and maybe this wondering is the reason another cat
Came along, to eat the rest of the food we’d bought
For our original friend. I am further reminded of the night Justin Ramsey
Bought an enormous quantity of mushrooms
And a bunch of us ate them
In his apartment. One girl, Amy, suggested
We smoked some, and Justin said
We’d better not, for it caused spidering
Of the lungs. Amy’s a school teacher,
And Justin works
In television.
Next to the dumpster in the parking lot of turkey hill
I thought the dash board would whang out and whap me
In the face. It was the crack. Justin got it from a guy
We gave a ride too, who got it from the guy
We gave him a ride to, then we took him home so that he could smoke crack
And play video games. He was about my height but stooped from so much sitting around
And clouds of bleached smoke and whatever attenuated flickers do
When they race around while turning your body
Into wet bread. When I mentioned earlier that crack in the wall
I didn’t know the universe was so empty, hours, and hours….
We smoked two rocks, across from the graveyard. A police car passed
Unnoticed. Then another. The air felt like plastic…that crack…
Before we did all that, Justin said, I’m not smoking crack alone.
I wanted to see the bag so he showed it to me, I forget what it looked like, but
I’ve seen pictures since then that fill this gaping lacuna. I’m sure it was pure
And granulated in small hunks and his hand looked like a surprisingly soft
And dextrous appendage. I wish I was back there
Smoking crack with him. This reminds me of the story
Zach Lau told, on such a night as tonight, when he was walking along
And found a little baggy with white little
Nugget inside. He took them home and smoked them, convinced it had been
Crack. He might have been smoking coagulated nuggets
Of baking soda, rat poison, nutrasweet,
Etc. He did not say whether he felt
Anything at all. (ask him if he did). When people are shown
Smoking crack in the movies they are usually shown
Holding a pipe, and an implement
For producing flame, be it a lighter or often enough
A blowtorch. Crack smokers are almost never shown using matches
With the reason perhaps being that matches can never obtain
The necessary temperature by which crack
Becomes a gas. A crack pipe is usually made
Of tempered glass, with a 4 inch stem
Attached to a bowl or cup-shaped aperture where the rock is dutifully
Inserted. The hole within this aperture is of course small enough
To prevent the rock from trundling
Into the stem, but wide enough
Such that the smoke may pass through without much struggle
By the handler. Air flow is important to the crack user
For the obvious reason that it’s the gaseous element
Catylized by heat in flameform that makes the crack user
High. It doesn’t matter if a doge’s worth of crack is brought in to the user
On a sapphire wheelbarrow, the crack user bereft of a world of flame
Be it lighter, match, blow torch, or magnifying glass, would not be able
To ignite his stuff. He might be able to triturate the mound
Into a snortable form, but this method naturally
Will shed the enterprise of the glamour
Of proving oneself a higher order primate
Through the use
Of tools. Obviously, for the veteran crack user
Wheelbarrows full of crack are a fantasy
Skimming along the surging tropism
Of a powerful toke. This fantasy sheds itself quickly,
And no world without lighters
Is ever conceived of, just as you can’t imagine a gallows
Without a noose. The lighter in fact transforms into a kind of bottle
That must be spun on a grubby oval coffee table
In the between rock hours, it determines nothing but the fact
That it slows to a stop and points in an odd direction
Seems significant. This idleness can be hypnotic, in the manner
Of tropical surf. I can’t hide the fact that
I’m a poet, not in writing anyway, but if I wanted to I would tell
A long winding story about the one time
I smoked crack, including an instructional portion
On the manner in which crack is as they say
Smoked. Crack is a crystal that burns
At high temperature. I felt an almost sympathetic insouciance
To the way the crack cloud glides into the lungs
And gives purchasee to all manner of form in the grid
Of imagination. I read a lot of books peopled by innkeepers
That is, I know how the business of subjection may proceed
Without the need for physical contact
Or enmity. Commerce, the prickly epiphenomena of known ends
Enacting continuity. A cat wandered in, looking disoriented,
We fed it, gave it a bed,
And called it ours. I suppose
This is how crack feels, whenever anyone smokes it
For the first time. Our error had been to think that the cat
Had no previous home. When the cat left, we’d wondered
Why, and maybe this wondering is the reason another cat
Came along, to eat the rest of the food we’d bought
For our original friend. I am further reminded of the night Justin Ramsey
Bought an enormous quantity of mushrooms
And a bunch of us ate them
In his apartment. One girl, Amy, suggested
We smoked some, and Justin said
We’d better not, for it caused spidering
Of the lungs. Amy’s a school teacher,
And Justin works
In television.
https://soundcloud.com/themedievaldiarrheas, and Daphne Augustus:
http://daphneaugustus.tumblr.com/.
Their video works can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/user/purdeyk, and their photofolktales at : 1thousandand101001nights.tumblr.com.
They are continually imagining Sphinx by David Lindsay at ssyrinxs.tumblr.com.
http://daphneaugustus.tumblr.com/.
Their video works can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/user/purdeyk, and their photofolktales at : 1thousandand101001nights.tumblr.com.
They are continually imagining Sphinx by David Lindsay at ssyrinxs.tumblr.com.