Lasky - Rome: poems

ROME POEMS DOROTHEA LASKY Adjusting type size may change line breaks. Landscape mode may help to preserve line breaks. CONTENTS CONSUME MY HEART AWAY; SICK WITH DESIRE AND FASTENED TO A DYING ANIMAL William Butler Yeats, Sailing to Byzantium ROME Their bloodlust is what made them different from me I saw the man with an albino moose Holding his antlers with pride In the photo By your bedside And all I could think of Was how scared the dead moose must have been Now when I try to eat an animal, I hear crying Not laughter Now when I try to sing, I do not Instead I walk along And everyone on the earth is an enemy I have no confidante, no squire All of it is because Of how badly you lied to me I thought it was just you and me Or at the very least a tiny epigram Madness is eating animals I am mad But I dont kill anything I sit there bloodless And my lust, too It rings Because speaking to the dead is not something you want to do When you have other things to do in your day Like take out the trash or use the vacuum In the edge between the stove and cupboard Because the rat is everywhere Crawling around Or more so walking And it doesnt even notice you It has its own intentions And is searching for that perfect bag of potato chips like you once were Because life is no more important than eating Or fucking Or talking someone into fucking Or talking someone into something Or sleeping calmly and soundly And all you can hope for are the people who put that calm in you Or let you go into it with dignity Because poetry reminds you That there is no dignity In living You just muddle through and for what Jack Jack you wrote to him You wrote to all of us I wasnt even born You wrote to me A ball of red and green shifting sparks In my parents eye You wrote to me and I just listened I listened I listened I tell you And I came back No Poetry is hard for most people Because of sound AFTER CATULLUS, #43 Hi there, dear sister, Im sad But here to tell you That you never did amount to anything Facial expressions just like your mother Nose by no means tiny Married a couple of people So now you sit in a house Cleaning or not cleaning a window Newsflash: no one cares about time But you do it like its so moral being punctual Truly an actress, but you poorly acted the part Of someone who isnt crazy No I cant say your ankles are fat But dear lady, who would have had your ass Except now I do Seemingly connected we are, in the worst way And so I must tell you You are a no-good person A criminal, really, a scoundrel No, really, a liar He said the person was cold, maybe a bit disdainful I said, welcome to my life You know some people like history Or want to make history But I am history If you would have fucked me I would have been ok being Plath But instead Im Sexton If somebody asks me what I like Its not food or sex Its looking at things and being in love Not sure what of this you did offer me Never did amount to anything So with this I go All types of porn are horrific I just watched a woman fuck a hired hand In her marble kitchen while her friends looked on The title of the movie was Divorce Party And throughout his big cock, her skinny thighs Her friends shouted, nah girl, now youre free But no shes not shes in a movie And now I am crying Because the man looks like an ex-boyfriend Or my half brother My boss A monster Someone who left me in the dark Someone who darkened me A million times over Ive only fucked seven guys in my whole life But Ive watched more porn than you ever will Hours and hours A woman and a dog Three women A hairy fruit Four bending over backwards Vomit sex The underplay Of tendril In motion I watch porn Cause Ill never be in love Except with you dear reader Who thinks I surrender But whos to say this stanza is not porn Calculated and hurtful All my friends say Im free And yes, maybe I am But are you free No, youll never be Ive got you in my grasp Ive got you right here in my room Once again Whats worsea cheap man or a cad Whats worsea man who eats the fingers or one who does not Whats worsedoggy style or up the ass No, whats worsehis face or the face of the individual I mean, whats worseknowing you or knowing later Knowing nothing Oh Alligator I just want the eyes Up to my eyes Whats worse To never have them To have them only in part Whats worse To be endlessly waiting To be endlessly waiting Whats worsenothing or nothing Whats worse Whats worse than nothing Whats worse No, whats worse There was a lonely summer Where I took the string and unraveled the magic circle from everything It was because of you, and what you did to me No it was winter When I drank cola right by his head The girl said her poem was called Winter The boy said his name was The Sea If I could have wrapped you in purple robes For the rest of my life I would have If I could have gone to the sea, I would have But oh, what it was you did to me Instead they wrap me in gold cloth Carry me into the center of everything The magic circle I had in my hand They unwrapped me until I multiplied They took the red string which bound me to you They sank it in the center of the ocean Girl, I heard that you got a place Where you tell jokes, la Eddie Murphy, 1985 But how do you do that I am Eddie Murphy I heard That you do wine tastings with Eddie Murphy In the vineyards of Italia And I am confused I am not there I am Eddie Murphy I am snorting cocaine off of tanned Italian backsides While ten young men Suck my gigantic dick For two hundred hours Do you eat a fine steak dinner with Eddie Murphy But I am still hungry And it is 4 am on the West side I am going home to my majestic marble linoleum I tell the jokes here And if you want to Come into my house Introduce yourself first Dont just go walking in And telling the people you know them Or you are the one they have been waiting for They arent waiting for anything I make royalties on my sort of thing I give them what they need We are brethren We are together This is not about you You write a punchline Go up in front of the crowd Say, I am the thing that makes you turn But honey It is a lie when you do it You are the person outside the house I am the one Gracious enough To let you in People do really bad things But I dont pay attention to most of them I knew that Alex was my real friend When he told me that one night That true love cannot be calculated or contained Despite the orb of blue fire I always hold right up to my lips It is hot and earthy And full of red and green stars But the one I love is not a plant to grow you in The one I love goes driving thru the streets My true friends have always been poets Laura, and Eric And the other people The endless need of people crushing everything too, the sublime Most of the time I am not the coral Most of the time I am ashamed of my happiness But thats because most of the time I do it in private But not when my true love comes around Then I do it everywhere There is no place I would not be willing to make my true love sing Even on the mountain where the seaweed is upturned into the heavens Even then I would take his gentle hand with me anywhere Even then I would not forsake anything hes done Even if he did really bad things Id dive into the rich waters to help him I walk alone is what came into my head when I was sleeping So I wrote you to get the water from which I was so thirsty Poems are a puzzle But animals are a beast is So life is Quiet life Am I going to die and all I will have are these fucking poems It doesnt get more real than this Said the poet Oh but you hate poems about poetry And thats fine Cause I am never going to send you my condolences when I kill it To the lions I throw you No, I must restore the broken-down altars that gave me so much sustenance Those fallen busts and statues That the idiots mention is missing a nose or a penis When the statues are stone anyway And I am living earth and bone Ten times now, you crushed me To tiny pieces then to dust I just barely escaped the last time And had to use my mind to coagulate the broken Into mud then blood then semen Formidable now, because of this evil mind Which I used so many times under a lemon tree Just dying to touch you Because my love I love you And will say it again and again to the air Only the gods know how things end Or whether the seas turn red in the end What is there left unruined after all has been said What will you make of me, ruined and soiled My dead figure in a heap with the others To distinguish, only in the dance Still, look, look, look out for me Our fathers taught us more than country My father my father taught me more than dread And your father taught you beast instead So to the lions I throw you That your arm and neck I so did covet Will find your space here Dead and dead and dead and dead What is between us Is an orange flower And it is blooming and blooming And I cant I wont stop it Still the sour flower of my vagina Ruins everything Blooming blooming It changes the room And I become almost But not quite, the hummingbird And I become almost, but not quite The green birds that are missing Depressionits a public feeling But what if I dont like anything as much as I pretend to Darling Darling Darling What if I dont even like you The blue night with trees Everything told me to feel something And yet everything you said was a lie And all my emotions were for nothing Oh all they want you to do is cry cry cry Cry they say Cry The animal takes the shape of the spirit And the I is no I Hardly on the girl But why? I had two main ideas That I brought to the forefront But the ideas never moved the audience To laughter, to pick the pockets So I tapped a little peacock With the fiery tail Until no one knew what was there Sadness Its a public feeling So I cry and cry And the silver moon goes shining Thunder and lightning Thunder and lightning I woke up in midmorning And it was all chatter Just thunder and lightning Something that I have Thought of recently Was my Diet Mountain Dew Bottle in the kitchen refrigerator I would like to be Home I would like to go Home and to the places Where people like me It is really hard to Keep the output At an input I go And no one gives A shit All they want Is the gift Without even knowing All the Diet Mountain Dew That went into it I go and people Just listlessly want Others to do it For them I aint doing Nothing anymore For no one Yeah thats right I am going to show This world Exactly what it gave me Which is strawberries Which are the lilacs Blooming round The courtyard Of the building Where I catch my car To go I wear A yellow dress I knew it I knew it But you were so blond and soft I forgot about all of the things I had to do I needed to do Like Sor Juana and Hannah Weiner Your skin was so soft and young I forgot about having a baby Or painting my nails with eggcream I went down to your place and thought about you in your thoughts Your thoughts are not plain But will anyone ever know them Could anyone be more plainspoken than you For a million emotions Oh your emotions are a million colors And it will take you a hundred years to find me again Fuck, you fuck I tried to make it easier on you this time Instead I waited and waited And never gave up You know its true what they say Poetry is a destructive force Your back in the photo That she took That is the thing I will always remember I hope I can sleep and forget your name I just hope that we drift apart I hope that you stop writing me, like before I hope that you discount the things I believe in I hope that you dont even consider them I hope that the rainbows go back and forth And you dont stop them for me And that I am in the midst of the tangled rainbow And you arent even thinking of me I hope that when the land completely lit by rainbows Is my new home you forget to ask me for my address I hope that when the light shines on me I dont look like anything or anyone You think that you know I hope that when you spot me in a field of honey You keep on walking, walking past the honey And drown yourself in a body of water No I hope that there is a body of water Which makes sense to you An ocean of your own making The Roman poets brought me to this day To see this thru They marked me when I was little They put the words in me To be here All the poems Ive lost as papers I threw in the street If I did it all to be here with you If I took it all in To sing it to you Then yes love it was worth it Just to live this life with you as my friend And not a lover But who cares anyway The light was dim and drab When I woke up and left it In the light of the dawn When I left this glorious animal body To be the weather That empties on the purple lawns The end of things Even the sound of French is open And the children find me very interesting to look at It is as if I am a TV show or supper All my pretty babies who paint the winter chests With red and gold and green It was on the afternoon In the small wooden town That I was so mired in my act of jealousy I did not pay attention To the beauty of the dark church in front of me And now you ask me To meet you in a park after dark Well it is too late too late I am already flying All my life It was a lie To try to go towards bliss But death is the ultimate blissfulness To be a candy or a corpse The world holds you on its tongue And no one can save you Not even your own children or your friends So have a seat with the home of the dead They will eat your colors Until you are blank The best thing to happen to you The greatest happiness To be an animal who is smoke And beyond the mouth That tears your bones from one another To be a mound of meat At the table of the living In the deepest part I still loved him Had gone with him To the blazing star lodge The place where He had worn his brown suit And blue tie And had called his sister to tell her so To match him, I wore my brown dress And blue eyes And painted a room inside the lodge His favorite shade of green The meal was simple A bowl of lettuce I cut the beets to his liking I put the snails upon the plates We talked and looked At the things We could submerge In the immobile water I did not commit this so as to tell you so I did it because I was angry And could not pick up the shells Like I had wanted to for all those years And he had promised A place to stay For at least a weekend And said he would be there And he was there He always was What a man in brown suit The neatest purple script In letters and notes Coming all the way from the coastline Even on my birthday Had packed tiny jackalopes into an orange box and sent it When I said for many weeks That I was swamped with work I meant I could not Stop thinking about him And in the night Had put Faces over other faces To make me forget Even through living He taunted me with his arms I saw them in pictures Hold a thousand girls And even I Went to the edge To see What I could find But nothing Nothing Ever else could quench This desire for him Nothing ever was close To his face So placid By the ocean I remember the morning when you left me I remember it was midday when we left I remember only the driving All along in the half-dark and your face In the orange shadows your grandfather made And me in the mirror in the front room of the hospital With the faded houndstooth on the chair where I sat Where I called my friend Who said to me that I was a wreath And who to know what it was I did I never believed him but I should have You were so brutal You were never wet Now you come to my street in the sunrise and hold me There are things you want to say but dont There are things I want to say but I already said them A year ago or two or five, when we first met There were times I thought you knew I loved you You never knew We never were I died You died Thats it In July, I put my face to the window In June it had been a white line edged in blue, Now it was a grid of squares lined in tan A voice said to me, in summer language: Dottie, you are blessed And I felt the yellow light of the sun eating my face Then coming upon, a tiny yellow light So that my face was cored out In layers of orange-red, then red You know, it was then, that I had finished something That the people would like And faceless, I went in the car, pronounced: The book will be called Rome Men in the seats Thinking I was odd or silly But I could still break them in half Now its winter, so I do If theyre lucky These men I marry Creaming upon the edge of the nightstand Little jewels what have you These are the things I had been waiting for, I answered haughtily, that July To the sky To no one It is quiet when we go And no no Nothing is anything if you say that it is It is quiet and not a sound But before that: the music And the hats with their off colors Marching down the road in a line In a line of things Away from us It is February 21, 2013 My friend has just sent me a poem about traveling It will never be 2/21/2010 again I will go back and forth and never be As if it werent my task to notice but it is The blue trees As if it werent my task to be here but it is Out the window there is a man who stares at me From the trees Is it true that all trees are the same All houses are the same Is it true that all people are the same We eat from the same china And the sound is similar A very similar sound I would never for example Leave someone waiting In the cold for hours Again As I have done this man Outside my window In the trees They say he waits for me But I am confused As to what that might mean They say he waits But I wait too They say he goes But I go too Endless suffering and circle Long stem palm tree In the centerpiece February 21st is a hard day for me It is also Eric Baus birthday Eric Baus is my best friend There I said it again He very rarely sends me new poems But when he does I smile and nod And am as tiny as a sail What Eric Baus is to me Is white snow Is forest tree before the beginning No one wants to compare life to a tumor Because to think about a tumor is to go out To think about disease is to go out No one wants to go out They want to fly as a burning bird through the sky They want to forget about it The state of engaging with this With a tumor With that thing that is leaving me The state of engaging with the leaving Is to be shy And I dont know I dont want to be shy anymore No I want to sing And never stop And never stop listening To my friends Who easily could seem as a group That is everchanging But is never changing Are the same people I know And not the people in the world But in the next And when I thought about My friend the traveler No, I have known him I was right And when a new person said He knew me in another life and I thought no I was right Because what is knowing No Because I dont know anyone And I dont owe anything To anyone Anymore Except my self Which they asked for When they gave me this life To go and circle The endless trees They gave me the soft brush to contend with The camera spinning to shoot with They gave that yellow Purse to carry With dead bugs in it And I had to carry it All the way through The trees And back up to the house again And when I said I couldnt believe that you came back I really meant to say This again Or we know what this is for I meant to say Here we go again Go through this thing I meant to say Thank you for before When you did all that for me And I just silently knew And took your coat off And anyway I guess I wont go to sleep I guess I will wear a ring upon my finger And wont take it off And it will be lapis And I will wear it and wear it And then have no fingers at all And if you think I am not hungry If you think I am not hungry anymore You are wrong I am very much so I very much want to eat the thing If you think I am not hungry anymore Then you are very wrong And I will eat and eat And consume you If you think I wont consume you friend You are wrong It is 2/21 And so I must go I must be With this time Which is yours and mine Which is not I must be in the time That is all of us And what is not Well Ill never know I will quench the thirst of my stomach And eat the bitter doughnuts Under the blank sky Which we have paid for And what it was And what it is It is again In the center of it all, there is an empty circle Where thousands of years ago the people the animals fought No it is only the hay where before They brought the sheep in No before the sheep they made the hay And forgot about it I am no more a warrior on the sun I make words And I made them for a very long time with acquaintances I hated most of all when they talked about feelings It was a long time if they felt me, if ever So I took the I as bloody as it came And put it on the platter for them to eat Now I am greying In the middle of my own and personal library What to do, was it all a menagerie Even when I can speak no longer I will make in full the anonymous I Or I will make you in full in the anonymous I I will fill the poems with great pain And then suck out the meat so that they are only Shells with only the memory of meat So that they are only the memory of blood So I will spill my own so as to make a fresh memory They said the clouds remember nothing But in the open arena There are only real clouds Not the memory of people Who are looking I felt empty As I always had Because in my past life I had burned to death Because in this one You told me I was a bad poet As if I cared about poetry At all As if I didnt only care About the little dog In her bed Sleeping for all eternity next to me Lilacs bloom From the edge of the wood I walk the grass-lined streets To come to a lemon tree What a blank and edible flower The lilac is It is as if your face Were there inside of me Or on that tree White-lined And inside your heart A glowing purple, a glowing green It is as if I had made you believe In me once again It is as if you knew I was your true love It was as if I didnt have to know In this life All you were to me Was that flower I know there is another world And the people with their round heads I know there is a sunset made of sand I know they count in fours just to listen to me They like the click click click, click I know the people listen to me On the other side Thats why I get the root from the left side of the dresser And put it in the inky water I drink the tea with the elephants under a taboo shelter To sip with our trunks Not really space To say I was not really space at all Going and going I always said I was the poem thing I always knew the people in the other world I always knew my spirit husband Waited for me Under the palm trees I know he still waits for me His blue-green arms outstretched I know he sings for me a lullaby That only we know I know I have had other children And they sit in blocks of ice On another planet Waiting for me to leave this world And take the rainbow flame to them To give them my hand and voice To give them my head again To give them my lips and eyes To give them my beak All done here for all the taking To give them my body I know my children and husband wait for me In the other world To give myself over once again I am in the hills of Europe No the banks of the Tiber Everything is beautiful But it is not you Women wear so much person Red and white and yellow and white But to think I will never smell your hair in the rain Is something I cannot bear All the facts and figures All the mathematics of an entire generation All the mathematics in ten layers of being Will never equal my love for you Will never equal what it means to have lost you Dear She-wolf, my She-wolf, to not have you here with me To perform death is something only humans would do No animal would sit there With a blank look on its face Just because the camera is there No no an animal would look directly in it Or cover its face, like the overweight Woman in the picture in the magazine By the room where I keep my bed What people dont understand about beauty Is that after all it is not fleeting After all it is so gross to be that way That someone sees among you After all, to call into question I painted my lips, my eyes Only our scholars know that To perform is to be malleable To perform in language Or was it The large purple insect I let in the room Or was it the furred facethe hippo or the gorge That I was the devil in the wood In my own bones that I knew the face That I took that face Was it midnight blue sky No, were my wings iridescent Even in these lines The voice moves you What sense of exquisite cause Thought Moves you past these lines Into conversation With the undead I dont know That is something You will have to answer for yourself I came back to this place to help you And that I did Shoot sparks of green and grey Through time What skin sack I put myself in I mean for what, why, Or who Did I manage to do this for if not you Lilaced thing The soft rustle of beetle wings In air that is warm and grey And is not strong But there is there to carry us past it You want me to abject myself And tell you how grateful I am that you talked to me I am grateful I am grateful Thank you for talking to me I am at your feet Ready to do the walking for you Your words move through my mouth I am ready to speak for you And I will do so You were Something or someone I loved But I am a traveler And I love no one But the empty road That guides me to the next person That shows me only to my maker That says eat eat when it finds the lonely hunter I dont know I had an axe but I did not cut you down Got you a hundred presents And fed you and brought you a violet wrap And wrapped you in tinfoil Sweet sweet little candied fish I would have liked to taste the sugar off your skin Instead now I realize the rotting from within The sugar the ice on planets and stars The romance of the evening Coated in ice from your dead flesh Already rotting from within Yes, I am moving but I am not I will never see my body dead In the way I have seen yours The soul never sleeps I told you After you were gone What was your name I kept moving on Until I did not need you anymore I kept entering the same day Until it was not the same day Anymore, I left it I thought of one universal thought The idea that we all feel The same way But it was a new kind of water I was swimming in It was a new place I was going to I dont even sleep in my bed anymore I just go and sleep in the room With the old woman who understands me She waited on this earth for me She didnt die for me We sleep and sleep And we are in love I dont sleep with men anymore In any way There I said it, in this poem I say it all of the time to the people around I tell the people around No I dont belong to anyone Because I dont and I never did and thats the truth If I belong to anything it is to the Prince of Wands On a chariot of burning ash I see him coming towards me Or waiting there Should I go to him His skin is clear and young But his eyes are old old Or they are not, but they are deepening so fast Deepening so fast that they blacken and twist He has four virgins to his side He has a lion with which he travels He has a box of things that are separate and strange I think when he looks this way and that That he is making a play for me I think in so many ways he does it all for me What would it be like To leave and go To leave and go Most do nothing What would it be like: I touch the sun And it doesnt even care It expects me I have lived this life with some relationship to the moon But the sun has glowed and burst Seeing me on a stack of shirts Sleeping, then not sleeping Dreaming of burning princes Waiting for it really My ferocious, feline suitor Glistening with yellow charge Why it has known I would not even be Part of this And it didnt wait But turned in a vortex of time Until I met up with my friends And sang a song that it could hear Blooming sun, it sets a yellow table With marigolds and ivory shanks And sits the prince upon it, who has golden threads In his beard and eyes And who is not wise, but is a visionary So that he sees me and you He can see everything The Sunday tablecloth Large and suspect Yellowing colors, but with orange slices The princes eyes Now yellow too And on the plates a yellow egg And lemon And was it he Who sang to me When I was a girl In the fields of violets Was it he Who lifted The curtain of dawn To set upon the stage A clearing of blue And in the distance the forest of wonder The stag, silver and sure of himself Who had waited For this moment Throughout a lifetime Who is to know I sleep and sleep And the old woman wakes me She knows it is another day And we whistle while we go about Feeding the children and opening the house To the other people In the midst of this I take her up Just breeze her up Into my arms And when we kiss I know it was worth everything And when I kiss my one true love It is true, I know I know I know I will never truly be a person I am a devil No, a demon A red-heather belly The red-lace of eyes Or a shoot of green Always coming from something I was never here I was never there You thought I was You thought Youd seen the last of me But I will never die And you will And you will die No you will die And when you ask for my mercy It wont be I But she Who will give it to you And merciful she is Or so it seems But the sad truth is On this earth And the next There is some such thing As patience But no such thing As mercy No no No such thing As mercy Once climax is in the picture The desire is over But baby I desire you over and over And it never stops And when I really get going I really get going You animal lover Your face has stripes and eyes Just like the devil But you are even worse than that You dont even move Just a tiny lump of flesh I animate over and over A doll with bright blond hair I rock back and forth In my chair with my babies With my little fowl and kin With green flowers That flowers And flowers And flowers and flowers It took a year without you To make me write about you Strange California city on the peninsula I could have sworn Had I been there before My lover who said I connected him to his forgotten things What is the dull river Lethe I dont know, but I think its evil And when I drink of it I dont see stars Instead I see the lime groves I see a dull aching fall With limes and peaches I see a woman I could have sworn That Id seen her before Grass green fence It is there So we hop along it Until the place of fawns and simple things The pink azaleas blooming in the shaded wood A child Id seen there before Who could havewas she mine No no but she was my sister My sister with her mouth so heavy So full of things shed wished shed said There were things I wished Id said And done But it is too late now So I go Heavy with my offering This book, this book More than anything I want to be alive I want to jiggle I want to jiggle on you And gurgle And urinate on your backspan I want you to eat my menstrual blood And soft juices I want to eat your shit until I dream I want you to come shit all over me I want to bury my vomit in your shit I want you to kiss me hard hard In the nighttime And not give up I dont want to be a thing I want to be becoming The nighttime I want to be the nighttime with you You know, I loved you I loved you I was wrong The dogs run away And around the streets I see their bodies and want them immensely To be with me until the end I can imagine a hundred of them All by my bedclothes Waiting to be fed I think I like the animal Because it doesnt give up much of a fuss I hate the people who depend on me to live But an animal who does it is of the other place You are the kind of thing who takes from me And never gives anything away And when you call to me with your synchronicity I cant help but run to you You my horrible star I cant help but run to you when you call for me I write you From above an ocean Wilted and stale flower I used to think you were odd Until you burst in my mouth Like the most obvious thing All in all I was glad I had had Another moment in the rain with you What is all this beauty If you cant cast a thing beside it It was me, I astounded everything Even the animals almost gone in the basin You walking towards me In the ghostly smoke When you took off your raincoat It was not to keep you hungry It was not to keep you simple It was to keep you wet Wet and violent flower That I shook at the people When I described you as an ocean It was because I was still close to it When I looked on you dead center It was to remember the thing with the soft outlines It was to remember the thing I had grown used to forgetting Some people dont want to die Because you cant complain when youre dead I hope heaven is just a bunch of men lying around Ready to do what I say Ready with dicks and some such When Im dead I wont be looking for a partner As much as a heavenly creature After all I was promised virgins But I dont care about that as much As the eyes looking into me in abandon Like porn but better Because there will be no screen There will be no holy divider then Between me and my brethren And the smell of sunshine Will emit from every brow Thats the kind of thing I expect from death Thats the kind of thing Im waiting for I feel Actually beside myself Like beside my self Like be side my self Like really Recall the sense of self The lemon air in deep summer Recall the look The look that meant nothing Recall the nothing That you meant to me You with your brown hair Nothing worse Than a head full of brown hair What could be worse Than a head Full of brown hair Id rather be hairless Than to see your hair All loose and dark and shiny Why are mice so sad, with their crying faces And why do they perform a shard of sadness in me To see them To create a mood of their scurrying I dont know I dont know I feel safe without them With them, it is all horrible Like anything could happen Did you know that the universe Unfolds a million times below and beneath The scale that we exist in? More than a million This knowledge is astounding It makes me realize Just how dumb I am And how silly we are to be afraid Here are mice on our scale And the universe below and beneath And above And airplanes And places that scale the sky Are just animals within the animals And being a human is nothing It is a construct we have created Disregarding constructs, I want to murder all mice I want to murder them and snuff out their sadness And I want to flip their bodies in the air And prevent them from enduring An eternal sadness of being laid out As human corpses And the eternal sadness Of body becoming word What word might I transfer to a mouse To let them know how I feel Nothing. What words can I say to the nanoscale To make it hear me? Nothing. It will be silence What words can I say to the dark macrocosm That is circling above me? Nothing. I am dizzy.