Poem-A-Day #270 : The James Ossuary

The James Ossuary

1
Draw a circle on the blackboard :

Circles are more difficult than you think - they deceive
                    find ways to flatten under your hand :

Make an ouroboros line of salt eating itself :

Lot's wife turns her head to look back at the burning bed of Gomorrah - it is the moment in the movie where the score drops out and the silence hangs there like wool drying in the sun :

If you could step into the chalkboard - into the circle with the flat side you have drawn -
                    you would be standing on a chalkboard in a classroom -
          looking insane -
defying gravity :


2
Chalk is the compressed shell of history :

The ocean's dream of itself :

Darkness bleached of its inky crush :

How does the weightlessness feel in your hand - I remember
               slapping the felt erasers
     against each other

                         until the cloud of dead things welled around me - there
is a feeling of erasing the self a sort of tossing of a smoke bomb - you are Batman
making your escape

     in their blindness
bullets will not find soft places to press :

It was a reward - the erasing :


3
The chalk box had James in it :

And I don't know what that means - he is not here now :

You find a box in a field and it is stained with the brown of dirt and the red of iron and the holes along its surface are oddly beautiful :

Inside the box are the bones :

I dreamt about removing my skeleton again
                    this time we refused to go grocery shopping
          it was Black Friday it was Boxing Day it was the 4th of July -

          we sat in our -
                                   my
                                          - pajamas - we watched episodes of The Simpsons

                     and then I woke up :

4
The box that James was in - sits in front of you - it has been litigated
declared fake - the very idea - !

The issue is that is is historic evidence for Jesus - the inscription :
                    Ya'akov bar-Yosef akhui diYeshua
                    James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus :

It is another scene in a movie where the sound drops out - unless
          it's that kind of movie
                              where heavy strings rise up out of the darkness around us

          telling us that this is now :

This
is now :

5
How goes the circle - the standing against it
          the pausing of physics :

The box is compressed history - your hand
compressing itself - is also a history

You realize that blackboard chalk hasn't been made from chalk for decades - the piece in your hand is made of gypsum -
                                        from the Greek - gypsos
                                        when burnt and rehydrated it can be used as plaster
                    it can build - it is drywall :

The room around you is a box of chalk :

The James Ossuary

Poem-A-Day #161 : Wood (Part 8 : Cain)

I always found Cain more interesting than Abel. You can read Part One HERE.


Wood (Part 8 : Cain)

I stand out back by the dumpster and I have the remains of the picture frame from before with me in a dust pan and I stare up at the hill in front of me that is an embankment that supports the overpass of a highway : this is behind my apartment building and it's August and hot and the clouds are just starting to gather over the mountains and maybe they will come into town tonight and raise Cain :

How does one invoke Cain exactly : is it just the spectre of being up to no good or is there an incantation a sort of rolling back of the tomb door a beckoning finger in the darkness : and what if you do go in that space and do take the hand of the very long dead fictional character : does he eat your brain and infect you with murder do you come out the other side into day :

Be like Abel right : meek and killed : be the one who refuses anger : look at the mountain for a moment : you see the light and dark patches from here it's hard to tell but the dark is pine and the light is aspen : people come from all over to see the aspen turn yellow in the fall : they're called leaf peepers and I find that disturbing : voyeur of leaves :

The point is that the aspen are being killed off by the pine : there was a huge fire up there a hundred years ago aspen are one of the first things to come in and reclaim land after a fire : they have a shared root system and are very resistant to fires : the point is that they are a first wave reclamation plant : they come in and keep erosion away :

The pine trees are what was there what will be there should be there : if you can should at nature let's not debate that but you understand that nature isn't a should or anything like that but for our purposes that mountain should be covered in it : pine not aspen : so those peepers are shit out of luck eventually :

That's invoking Cain : forest fire : an untouchable un-understandable thing like the instant that murder came into the world : uncontrolled and moving and apart from ourselves : so Cain is perhaps still roaming the earth unable to rest : he is Sisyphus pushing a rock up a hill and his rock is death and evil and able to move suddenly far away from him and then he must go seek it :

Poem-A-Day #138 : Legion

I have always wanted to experiment with structure and form. Not in a traditional way. In a weird way. This poem is long. Is weird. Is meant to be read in a ton of different ways with rules that I don't entirely remember. It was to be read by 5 people. It is my attempt to retell the story from the Christian bible of Legion, the man who is many.

The parts can be seen as a cacophony slowly being filtered. A is the most muddled, B retells the narrative from A. C is a sort of clarification of the story as a whole. And D is the implied threat that the creature represents.

I was a weird kid.


Legion (4/9/99)

A (read by 2 people in unison, the words of 1 and 2 should almost alternate, they will create two different meanings)

1
voices endless ceaseless voices enrapture madden voices swirl to mud in my head voices we are existed once sane voices speak of evil voices voices take over

2
we are many never to be whole in our power we are many whole cities in our completeness we are many entwined into an overwhelming force we are many as always forever and ever forever we are many none but us exists here we are many we are many you are us


B (read by one person)

wondering the desert
we discovered a fountainhead
drinking this elixir
immortality

this cleansing syrup is all we need
on earth
drink the air
we are millions

wondering by herds
taking all we cross into ourselves
drink humanity
we take all

we are many


A2 (read by 2 people in unison, the words of 1 and 2 should almost alternate, they will create two different meanings)

1
voices someone must bear this cross voices someone must bear this burden voices someone must set us free voices someone must take this over voices together voices

2
we are many many exist with joy bloody we are many many exist as one no more we are many many exist up to fall down we are many many exist away from we are many others we are many


B2 (read by one person)

for thousands of years
we searched for peace in normalcy
drinking beauty
we could never find

this purpose is clear
as we find that this is our end
drinking in end times
we fall to our feet

for years we knew of him
at his feet we cried
at the feet of him we found
disgrace

we are many


A3 (read by 2 people in unison, the words of 1 and 2 should almost alternate, they will create two different meanings)

1
voices we cannot concentrate voices we will someday escape this shell voices we will no longer be here voices will someday end . . . .

2
we are many who rule this body we are many who never die or end we are many after this body there will be another we are many and we are all . . . .


B3 (read by one person)

threatened with exile
we are dishonored wholly
drinking from this elixir
the stuff of mortality

this man is against us completely
drinking in hatred
lashing with
fists

threatened with exile
we hate him and
drinking from his blood
is all we want

we are many


C (read by one person)

He came to expel us
To make us one out of many
Though we wanted it, we do not wish
to be forced

But we are

driven out

We float away

Driven on

we will find another

Driven

We search for peace
in the desert
Bask in the voices
We are many


D (read by one person)

We are many bring us your children we are thousands give us a toy we are millions bring the young we are many growing we are many biding time bring us the children give them to us we are multiples allow this

Give us what you want
Give us what we need
Give us what we want
And we will go away

We are many