Dear Dr. Frankenstein
I, too, know the sciences of building men Out of fragments in little light Where I’ll be damned if lightning don’t
Strike as I forget one May have a thief’s thumb,
Another, a murderer’s arm, And watch the men I’ve made leave Like an idea I meant to write down,
Like a vehicle stuck In reverse, like the monster
God came to know the moment Adam named animals and claimed Eve, turning from heaven to her
As if she was his To run. No word he said could be tamed.
No science. No design. Nothing taken Gently into his hand or your hand or mine, Nothing we erect is our own.
- Jericho Brown (The New Testament)
I swallowed the entire ocean, just to make sure that you could never drown again.
dontforgetcoffee (via wnq-writers)
I do not want to name it, / I want to watch it faint / heart-beat, pulse-beat / as it quivers, I do not want / to talk about it, / I want to minimize thought / concentrate on it / till I shrink, / dematerialize / and am drawn into it.
H.D., from Selected Poems; “Tribute to the Angel,” (via xshayarsha)
on my way to the airport to pick up my mother. her first time in Europe, her first time crossing an entire ocean... we haven't seen each other in almost two years & it all feels as if i'm defying the rules of existing; bodies usually explode when exposed to such levels of luminous love & nostalgia
I am pulling myself from the magician’s hat, night after night.
Guante, from A Love Song, A Death Rattle, A Battle Cry
Guante’s phenomenal collection of writing is available at the Button Store. Check it out today!
(via buttonpoetry)
skin open the poet to find out how books have been deceiving you: not all hearts pump blood; some, expand in rhymes & contract in line breaks.
skin open the poet to confirm the rumor that between the liver & the spleen lives a tiny being; an imp, absent in daydreams -a social drinker- & a lover of the sax.
1.- take the poet’s arm, & rip off a tear of skin. behold a waterfall of metaphors soak your shoes in summer’s breeze.
2.- on a surgical table, lay your poet down in such way that his pointy nose threats to drill into the ground. & with the help of a sharp knife, split the meadow on his back into two nations that might have lost it all in war. proceed then to spread open these lands, & discover that a poet’s spine abides as marble columns once did in falling rome: oh the burn or the glory? 3.- light a match & heat the poet’s earlobes to 95 °. careful, the smoky smell of blue winter shades might stupefy your brains whilst the poet’s head gets caught in flames. if so: no stress, your poet’s mouth muscles might stretch into a smile, but do keep in mind it’s just an involuntary contraction. or not.
4.- once the fire’s out & the buzzcut’s ready, grab your baseball bat & crack the poet’s tibia by the half. hollow bones & secret chambers. see that rolled up paper hidden in there? take it out & read it to the skies; correct, it is nothing but the transcripts of the poet’s conversations with the moon. tally marks for bleeding hearts.
5.- as a final act of this medical extravaganza, severe the poet’s head & hold it between your hands. do you feel it slowly floating, as if being drawn toward the clouds? stitch the head back in place using a silver needle & a thread of slurred speech. remember poets heal on empty illusions & broken things.
that is all for poetic anatomy 101… …now wake up the poet.
- @skinthepoet