Readings on Lacan (But really having nothing to do with)

By what one does not know,
The lingering scent of an arm, a charmed thought

In his dreams, his mother lies dying
In a breathing bed.
Her pores are big, he thinks.

As if to absorb him back
Into her body.

He remembers her birth
For her, in the
White of the hospital room,
When he stares into the mirror. He wonders
About the chalk of his
Lover’s thighs.

What a night in Chicago, the noisy trains
Rampaging across
River. What a night to be seeing

A person,
For the first time. Struggling
In the water, struggling in time,
Space. Buildings that have risen to the face

Slaps
One awake.

©hRj 2007

Hysteria
(Hoo the Eph Nose)

There was a place we'd linger,
look down to examine the contents of our souls:
that hypnotizing mystery of the body which produces..
And yet they call them sanitary:
gods be pure//gods be clean//gods translated in
to some bullshit//LIKE//the body’s presence//DEAR
GOD//only through absence.

That summer afternoon, frank with its fragrance
the visitation of a form bled into her reverie; the obtrusive stares
of her young brothers. Your mistress' sharp hush that snapped
the twiglike magic of youth//Lil' Kim has opened her legs//DEAR//
Lil' Kim has swallowed a gallon of cum//GOD//We like her the
way we like//Why not find
beauty in exposure? That
ravernous duality, immanently open-
ended.

©hRj 2007

Cafe Still Life

Of yesterdays' contemplations and decaying touches.
Beyond the glass pane at four corners
of the bustling intersection, lights red orange green; go.
go to. I affixed the stamp of your bedroom clutches, bareskin rushes
and wondered what the future holds, what it held.
Faith, a streaming swirl, caffeine cupped.
By what miracle that is each leap across ourselves to others! As angels
no longer terrify, now that they have found their gonads
in some safeboxes, in some large bank, (in some movie.) Do you remember how it happened?
How we willed and acted? How they delighted and auctioned their wings
on ebay? You'd lay me up and put me out
like a city on fire. But I'm still burning.
Burning the wooden chair, burning desires and bills:
I bought a latte, I bought muffins,
cupcakes, sandwiches, sodas, mints, conversations, artifice.
I even bought a bum.
Who ran away.
Beyond. Past. Though here I sit,
each inch of skin tingling; memories that have no source,
and no questions, inexplicably attached to a violence with no force.

©hRj 2007

Intent#43

You were the verb that was gently weaned from my tongue's grasp;
And I've forgotten; how hollow, how somber, how fast
Laughter turns into nouns
in the dark; how questions grow legs.
O mirror mirror on the wall, who is your mistress down the hall?
I saw you fancying, I saw your thoughts;
I saw you flipping, then I saw your tail;
Passions of the head
And the head of passion, you were the verb,
That was hastily wiped when I asked,
Mirror mirror down the hall,
Why is your mistress
Spread on the wall?

©hRj 2007

somewhere there are movies about some war

Weeping willows will, rest reluctant-lee. ream rectum ream. & charmers charr.
Each thought a dagger, each breath sink. They had
a dream that everywhere is the enemy. That
we are who we are. To be civil entails a praxis; some mildly spicy death upon
the barbaric. Wave wave, the gloating flag. Free free,
all nations. United we stand, our progeny to march
march towards the dusty end. Peace demands a sacrifice of principle;
Peace, that hungry whore. As trains prattle on, poets make their money
today, just like the rest of us. Us. us. Go tell it to the neighbors,
that in dreams we are struggling and this struggle is a glorious,
sublime cake. Emeril! the show must go on. In dreams there
are television screens, conversations, and blood. Theories that chorus
to symphonies of slaughter. You, old man in your tie; wearer of thick-rimmed professor
spectacles, wearer of that dashing beard! We want to hear you
sing. Sing of economic boom, sing into the microphone like it affects
all of us; that the city streets will be paved in middle eastern bling. Everywhere
is the enemy. Orange is the next best color. Wear it like the fashionistas,
wear it like the self tanning self medicating self preserving God fearing
God loving gods we are.

©hRj 2007