I heard what you said
how you were drawn to this
the way a tongue is drawn to a bad tooth
and yes this avenue —
with its fool's gold and distilled blues,
with its replicating line of ventripotent vixens
and mendacious mendicants, their bull and flower verses —
is a bad translation of an already disastrous ideal
still there are options
a fire escape to the sky
a dime for the darkness in your eyes
ejected squid ink
a black (all colors at once) blood jet
you could paint a chiaroscuro onto this air
which is dying to be a solid
you could let the gypsy children count your teeth
without a care for lost years
never remembering the many uses for piano wire
or the violent color of our first dawn together
I'll tell you once more
about that hypnotic moment just before sleep sets in
the soft roll and rumble of an underground train
the way the windows tremble without breaking
the light at the end of the tunnel
a child's hand reaching for a firefly
and just before the dream hits
it sounds like the rain is falling indoors
a soft sincere applause
the breath rises and falls
says "I'm here, I'm still here"
gives its approbation
knows we all have dreams of falling
into something or someone
knows too, that these dreams always lack conclusion
I fully expect you to reply with
"but this city is stricken with insomnia"
or, after a deeply histrionic sigh,
"is anything still objective?"
with eyes full of circumscribed fire
not unlike an ocelot's
with curious neck outstretched like a terrapin's
head hanging at a sarcastic angle
an angel, if only the light was better
I'll wait for you to stick out your tongue at me
and when you do it will
be a miniature of your heart
and before I reply with head shaking lightly,
with winding sheets of laughter,
I'll know I need to stay.
I.
measure the length of this division
and the subsequent disrupted scenes
before her face split in two
both sides equally beautiful
just as exquisite as the flaws
this intimate camera,
too close for comfort,
always seems to isolate
not to exploit
rather to study
and then celebrate
in remembrance of halcyon moments
where motion was created
only to be suspended
in some kind of weightless surrender,
elegant surrender.
II.
remember the day,
not the same as those before,
that strange feeling —
of flint sparking brightly inside
imagining some approximation of fire —
as if it was promised
when she took you down
to that shattered stone beach
a battered old soul
a sadness which revealed the density of your bones
and that crash, it frightened you,
made you second guess her intentions,
the message your own blood
was urgently pounding out to you
just the restless surf
then an exhausted hiss
before the silence expressed all of it
all the things that never passed her lips
coyly parted as they were.
III.
she told you about the others
she had taken on the rocks,
naked in the sea
measuring the words carelessly —
as if to wound you
and you prayed it was all
just a dispassionate play
a mechanical act,
an animal act,
profoundly meaningless
and you hoped
she wasn't irreparably torn
because in your mind her eyes seemed dead
when sewn inside those vicious scenes
the way they stared back at you,
into you,
saying nothing
as strange tongues
danced in and out of her wounds —
the kind only a woman knows.
IV.
was she not both tragic black dahlia
and beaming cheshire?
one side smiling,
the other howling
shivering in the terrible sunlight
and you felt it strange
her shivering that hard in the sun
and you wondered was it really just the sun
making her shiver so seismically
that sick pink sun
a hostile contagion
which made her skin seem too pale —
almost translucent
her neck too long and exposed
tirelessly pulsing
her lips swollen and almost ugly
two beautiful faces fused together
into something vaguely familiar
yet palpably grotesque
you had no choice
but to recoil
all the while cursing the sky,
your own Judas eyes.
V.
later on
further down the beach
you sat on the rocks
the gulls streaming and screeching
as you watched the waves
breaking around her
she wore the water
like a gown of jewels
and when she slipped it off for you
you knew it was better to stay a stranger
to such impossible beauty.
VI.
sudden night
found her taking another stab at becoming light
opening her eyes,
revelations in their whites,
opening her wrists,
through fat that glistened
down to humming bone
a crooked line of teeth
in a collapsing coal mine
before the great black catastrophe
descending heartless
abattoir darkness
a wind which whistled
an executioner's song.
VII.
you leaned against the dream too long
a crumbling crutch —
a malformed thalidomide limb
sad eyed albatross
deconstructed holy cross
mountains and their grand mal seizures
head first into the sea
ring in the new Pompeii,
same as the old Pompeii
the big sleep promised easy tourism
so you followed her there
she left a trail of broken nimbus
she left her cloying scent
heavy as fire lily
you were numb and lost
in her final set of frames
the camera zooming in so close
capturing you in her eyes
one for each face
and for something like a second
you were home,
improved inside of them
then the camera panned away...
revealing skull and peacock,
penis and broken window,
on the periphery;
the sound of water dripping
then, all too soon, it did return
back to her
just in time to catch her final act
mouthing the word, "nothing"
before the screen went bombazine black.
William Crawford has been writing creatively for over twenty years; he has been published on odd occasion, most recently in Leaf Garden, Calliope Nerve, and Troubadour 21. He's been known to read his work live on his more salient nights. He lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and works in the music industry; he is also involved in animal rights. His first full length collection of poetry, Fire in the Marrow, will be published by NeoPoiesis Press in 2010. He is not the type of person who will only make a brief appearance in his own life story.