Now I Hang Out With Many Selves

“Struggling with words not written but already speaking through the way I wear my morning.”

Now I hang out with many selves

one pretty

mirror painting

self

two inches thick

curly and worried

seeking her same self

through the same prettiness self

that she is

There’s another self who aint seen a mirror

darker than my mirror self

colorless color the

kind that don’t like to show up in the mirror self

the mule carrying the wait of living so the pretty self

can keep lying to herself

hiding behind her pretty planning parties for people she doesn’t know

but will know and love her because she has made a long career

out of being her pretty self.

 

There’s the kinky self

flesh eating, craving, hunting, biting, angry, raging  self

the sex is for punishment self

the dirty not caring what you think of her dirtiness self

and the self-righteous self

who beats the hell out

of the sex to kill self

breaks her arms…twists her ankles…bleaches her skin…so she can be

the cute innocent

who me? self

the oops forgetful me, uh-oh puppy dog eyed

you couldn’t possible hurt me could ya self

woman in a girl’s skirt self

the are you my daddy mr. stranger self

purposely disposes of her age

when she wants to forget how much time has passed

since she felt it last

make me a warm bottle

rock me to sleep

just this once resurrect what died before I knew it did

… …. ….

again/ness

same/itude

Crawled and scraped my knees on the road’s of bone’s saw dust

I have been to this void/ful divine promise

I have spilled my worthless blood on the ground

to be stepped on by a psychiatrists’ parade

I’ve been in the ambulance explaining why being

so beautiful I want to take my life. So God…

God?

GOD?

This is rock bottom

Grant me the serenity

to accept the things that have been changed

and the strength and wisdom to go again

down these dark alleys

of several selves with every self

in it’s painful rage and raging pain.

 

 

 

 

‘Self’ Aint Easy Chil’

Dance in the living

show dying people

how much innocent soldiers mean.

‘Are we talking about war?’

‘Yeah chil’ the one where you wake up?

Both guns fully loaded left hand an right hand got no allies.

How many of ‘em dead girl, and you aint even went ta tha funeral?’

GOD!

GOD!

GOD give me,

GOD give me somethin

peaceful

to give myself.

What made you start?

I was also there

just said ‘fuck it’ if it’s to be written why not today?

Struggling with words not

written but already

speaking

through the way I

wear my morning.

On The Plays I Play

On the plays I play

hidden characters

one woman show

several voices

emotional wigs

stolen/ness

stolen/ness

premature baldness

‘Damn it!

The wound is still there,

we’ve been here before.’

But have you felt it like this?

Whatever is safe.

Whatever buys me cheap acceptance.

Whatever covers the stench momentarily

Whatever slips off the tongue and sounds right

smart, daring, cool

Come find me.

Come find me and I will labyrinth you in a maze of doors and mix-matched keys.

 

An open wound

to stick your finger into

loudly.

 

 

 

Male Gilda (Homme Fatale)

“Put the blame on Maine boys put the blame on Maine”

and I, pouting my lips, sought to be like her. I knew I was a boy they called me narcissistic after all… poor fellow

still vertical pools that they laugh I can’t get out of. it’s a curse to be called beautiful it becomes your ademic excitement, your tree of knowledge, your carnal sunrise.

Anyway, like I’ve said I wanted to be Rita well I mean I wanted to be Gilda
wear an old movie no one knows to make it brand new I wanted to be Gilda until I met you.

You and your countries
You and your slurred accents
I’m so glad to be thinking writing this
You black composition in white Coming in of color to confuse me on your size. (That actually is an allusion to The Giver not Gilda but as you cross genres it takes time to get there…)

We shave our leg, wear our rouge or let our rouge wear us one of the two… FishNETS, and uncommon scents whose purpose is to disrupt logic for the king must be checked before mated (that is not to say you are a king only that I treated you as one.)

I breathe clarification
In this I leave you behind in sacred definition
Sensual absorbtion that leaves so many men dry
and I, swinging to be like Rita when she was Gilda, played a dangerous game called love with a loaded poker face

To think of all the things in gorgeous jest I was willing to put unprepared men through until I became Johnny, yes until I became Johnny to you

And i found in my milky emotional mirror you, male Gilda: risky, indecent, criminal, red steaming through the scenes of black and white (I knew as I watched it, it would be risqué even by present standards but there I went watching it anyway. It is the same thing loving you)

I already told you that you were colors and I was numbers
Gilda made friends with mafia men because her love cut like a blade Her poison was especially precious because it was naturally made you fall for her fire and then in pursuit of keeping that fire to yourself you go insane

Gilda my former female goddess blazing through the screen statuesque and supreme is a wench, violent and grotesque

To think I sang and swung to that music and I placed below your feet like a servant all the temptative tough meat I could force on your spurious plate so that even the shadow of me would be “eating you” humbly regret it and set the hunger straight

Every sleepless night I’ve put them through carries its retributive expense
my deep sorrowful pockets two cents
since I was burned to meet my match

Male Gilda I met you.

In Another World- A Letter After An Attempt

Some people need to lose the things they love to appreciate them. But we, children of the darkness, find suicide to be an old and dull subject; better left to the birds of the city. A man shot himself in the head and survived and all he could do with his life thereafter was hang his hands at his sides growling in silence.

Now what I understand about you is that you are also a son of destruction because what seemed indestructible was destroyed before you had the chance to know it. The reason I know this is because I was burned too. Pyromaniacs are scientists who cannot control their passions.

I don’t have to lose you to know what you mean. No one can publishes my unwritten music like you. We are only separated by the sleeve of this demonic and carnal time. Our religion is the same.

Why is it we find it easier to describe the process of crying more than crying itself? High minds belong to orphaned hearts. We’re not a paradox just an paralyzing adaptation. You can only reject a heart every time it reaches out so much before it starts to believe its function is not necessary for survival. Abandonment and cruelty are soft spots that lie above the skin where our childhood trauma is multiplied; because it lives indigenous to pretentious assimilation and is too strong to be broken up into intellectual disregard.

What I know about you and passion is that you feel whatever you see. Not many can feel small rocks in pavement, or scratches on wall or dust on old books. I think this is because one does not get payed meditating on shoe strings, noodles, and empty vases. If what employs you is antiquated you can expect to have several collegues. None but those that are resurrected as they rise from the page and find asylum in our minds. Of course what drives one to insanity, by my latest definition, is not knowing where you start and where your mind ends. Breathing cannot be replaced by thinking.

Pain will not kill you. Only your own hands can in trying to avoid it. You’ve made it pretty far you can go further.

Life is a journey if you allow it to be. Bless the heart. Praise the heart. Accept the heart. Resurrect the heart.

Just when you start to give up again remember what gifts you’ve been given alongside your weaknesses. Gift yourself a flower and put my signature in its fold. Say “today I found love in a flower’s name.” The spiritual will say “he means the name of God and God’s living is love” and those who do not know God will say “anyone whose name is in a flower is loved and flowers are anywhere I go so I am loved.”

I came to this conclusion based on what you said,

“I used to be shocked by martyrs of religion. I am no longer shocked.
would die for love. I would die for you.”

And without knowing it you were in sync with one of the truest scriptures ever written!

No one has love greater than this that he would sacrifice his life on behalf on his friend. (John 15:13)

To be a poet is a gift. To be a poet is a curse. Only a fraction of all we think gets put into what we write.They praise oh you know they praise your work but they would anesthetize themselves before they tried to feel what what it takes to produce it.The boats for their dreams were born in blood and young and supple flesh.

We are not poets as they describe them. We’re really handicapped swimmers who born without arms have compensated by words that befriend and betray us depending on the day and the hour or if we can remember to think about time. (Arms on a wall a lonely reminder)

Redundancy, repetition, return. We never say the same thing twice but we never get tire of the elements in our conversation. It feels new each and every time.

“We live on front porches and swing life away. We get by just fine here on minimum wage. If love is a labor I’ll slave til the end.”

Cheers to life and our labors. While I wait on the eternal healing reserved for those who endure until they get to the other side.

Do you see how long it took me to finally get to the point?

In another world we could have been prayer writers for trees, musicians of bubble, frolickers of letters, athletes of sound. We would not know the word existential. Nor would that word ‘exist’ stick to our gums. For mere existence without life is worse than sleep walking and is an exclusive psychic slavery. And we, not destroyed to be brought back cut, to bandage, and cut again would find no reason to make the world more like our former selves.

This mortal coil will be replaced with fruitful hope. It centers us thinking about it here. It saves us to see ourselves. He brings back paradise on earth. This dark memory will pass away.

A lot of people care about you. You matter. Your life matters. Keep your spirits up and don’t forget how amazing and special you are.

From the heart,
Shannon

Stating The Obvious

All voices are open at applause with not a sound to stand between them. One finger ready to draw rattles on countless hands. Born of innumerables we cannot help but say infinite. To those who do not believe in vision we are blind and we are taxed to build their roads. Light of light further and further we have lost all feeling calmly and quietly burning satisfacation is a number with a bar over it (and i know they imagine we are infatuated with incompletion isnt it grand?) Those terrestrial captives revel in their tangibility and repetitions of the present imperfect rising and falling bumping the walls they keep in tact and scream at.

Momma Says Write

Mom says
“write about me baby,”

I think the scars on your face are metaphorical
The one of Africa is so close to your eye

Somehow we are always one word away
as soon as the cord was cut our chords
were rearranged so that I push to pull
and you pull to save and change

Take me home sweet whiskey let me sip you like me Daddy

Momma you know that broken brilliant drunken story like me in a cradle waiting
21 soon worrying I might “Jazz June”

Momma we’re different
longing for the same thing
I take pain to make myself plain
oh mamma I tire trying to explain

you stood in the kitchen
close to me singing Lennon

momma let’s us “let it be”
take nothing to your discredit
I try to write right this life but I edit
take what you can momma
like the southern sand you know
and color yourself free.

Compassion For The Hearing

You have forgotten those of us

that choke on the sound of our ears
whole cochlea rounds open air that sound
of silence is the same sound of the dead
So we crank up the noise til we bruise our ears red

Or: to bear such horror the ear is most defenseless
because it has no tears to shed

I think you misunderstand us

sometimes, there are so many voices inside that they fight to keep our
attention and one poor tormented soul can’t talk long enough before
another jumps in

dear poet don’t misunderstand we do long for this
silence but we wish to carry it first from within

sometimes, a song is the only solitude we have;
the only peace we can play

we live in a world of business
“cut-throat” does not mean harm,
it means “death.”

auditory assault
for every sense a sentence, an advertisement

sometimes, dear poet,
the only control we feel we can have
over a world that isn’t ours
is a song that tells our truth

understand, if there was a “golden silence”
you could give us we would
accept it but all we have in reality is brass

Caught White Handed

Down to rest
peel open a sheet
to find a breathing contract facing the window
roaming in the custom of sleeping toward her columns

the clock’s not asking question
because there were
no damsels in distress
no necessity for escapades at such an age
no leash on Adam’s apple (does it ripen?)
no inching dynamism
no steaming recoil

only a return home
a pill
for old bones
and
the pull from hard work
clean sheets
as faithful as you…
except for your hands.

Dear Man,

let me hug you

stand

with such light as carried by the

afraid, unafraid

brave, not brave

here on your ear this is a hand
and on your head
a kiss to kindle soft thoughts
I know what liars thoughts can be

Dear man,

“I understand.” Simple isn’t it?

Why must love flee from what is simple?

Whatever page of mine may fall on your floor

floating makes one forget what flying is for

you’ve worked hard all day now

here is your last chore,

let me in.

to feel the parchment of my fingers on native skin

rest and map your chest
to make memorable cartography of your breath

please let me love you

not with generic lust and expectations

not with nauseous cravings

but more:

falling walls,

lightning hands,

the ocean surrounds wave on wave coming near

jump
with me in this
fear on fear

this is your journey

but in it, on it, upon it

you are not alone with a girl who love sonnets

right now

you merely see yourself as a mirror sees a mirror

but soon self-aware, delicate, clear

come as you are:

good man you are dear.