Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
nothing comes to mind. i am dispersed
on a page of ugly newsprint
the faraway noise of a child's cry
in the eleventh hour. i wait. it seems it
will take another five hundred years
this side of Eden
for shapelessness/to take form
and fashion, i wait. and the darkness stains
my eyes as i read
the fine print and footnotes, where
is my history/the full blood
minus bromides and falsities? who has
stamped happy faces
over my sorrow and broken erratic prose?
memory divides me against myself
without resolution. injunctions
from the court of public opinion
deny me access to the light.
my mother is plaintiff, her insurmountable rage
imprisons my heart
guilty. yes. i am as guilty as ever
never having quite awakened from sleep
indulging the molestations of The Sandman
encouraging a perverse and deepening
state of rimming, and having the nerve to
walk and talk/somnambulate in my discourse
what details shall be revealed when
the jailer sounds time to rise and shine?
imagination fails. all i see can be fondled
or broken, the ridiculous mattress with
its flesh-seeking springs, the thin itchy woolen
blanket thrown to the concrete, the steel
metal that tosses back my petulance
this stupid colorless uniform
is cut to fit a woman with no ass
there are no clocks here. the notion of time's
irrelevance is reinforced, spend your life
for little-to-no compensation. (yes. guilty
of nonconformity and the wickedness of high thought.)
settle into those mighty hips
like a tablespoon into semisweet chocolate dessert
i am an outlaw, they assert.
there's a ten-digit number stamped on my frontal lobe
i close my eyes to hear
joy. the terrible music of leaden wings
i am a child and tremble as i climb the ether
on my last day of heaven, i abandoned her womb
to claim my glory in her blood
there is no one here but me. from behind this glass
i see the guard's station, prisoners are watched
on TV monitors, a camera in each cell. if i move,
i see the wisp of my movement on the monitor.
i am here through no fault of my own as a result
of doing more for others than for myself, all the guards
are men. they can watch me undress and make my toilet.
they can watch me caress myself in my nightmares.
there is a pay phone in the prisoners' rec room
that does not take coins, communication is futile at worst,
faulty at best. i have learned that i am friendless.
no one has sympathy for me. i have learned
that misplaced trust can dismantle a life
as a result of this punishment, i have learned
it pays to be more selfish with desire.
memory divides me against the light
the body with tracks. the body on track. body tracks
i am blackness waking
my mother's face on my father's gift
i am the utter meaning
immeasurable, sensual and stark
i am the jetflow of subterranean events
my father's gentleness on my mother's savagery
i am blackness, the awakening
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