Tuesday, July 24, 2018

I Remember Joe As Well



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an outgrowth of previous poem & drawing Sextember: this is the same drawing but very much more worked on and over, finished; and the poem was completely unexpected. But then everything is, isn't it. (vid 'explains' - it's maybe a good one to imbibe, one of my better vid outings.)
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Since neither you nor I remember – therefore
can’t retain the barest sensory recall – of nearly
fifty years ago, yet sit here with each other anyway
for reasons we don’t know – unfathomable but not silly
or ridiculous – since now we are the phantoms of each
other’s tossed experience, not of then but now,
somehow the light surrounding us attains to shadowed
tints and rinses of another life, neither yours nor mine
.
nor ours – but a life we are invited to investigate –
as if we both had made a date to do it: a life that will
requite vicariously anyway: precariously too, I’ll bet.
And yet. I think I feel requited. No. I spoke, I always
speak, too soon. My life has lain, my life is lying fallow,
plain and plainly fed with little. Rhymes with spittle.
Have you ever used your tongue to kiss? Oh, I’m sorry,
that’s amiss as well. I’m plainly under someone’s spell.
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Maybe it’s the life we haven’t looked at yet. The light
surrounding us attains to the organic rich fluidity
of body stains like blood and semen, urine and saliva,
sweat, pus and feces, bile maybe too, but there I go again,
disgusting you, and speaking of the Great Untoward.
Let’s go forward. Yes, I know, I rhyme the easy rhymes.
They’re never clever. Time and Grime and I’m
the last beginning that was possible. Did you play softball
.
when you were a boy? I never knew exactly what an inning
was. I lied, though, no, I didn’t never use my tongue
to kiss. I used my tongue to kiss your lips, then slipped it in,
then slid it south. You seemed to welcome it, then punched
me in the mouth. I loved the taste of my own blood,
its history would have you in it. You welcomed it, you know.
Tell me your name, Steven. What? Your name is Joe?
Yes, well, I remember Joe as well.
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