mercredi 10 août 2011

"the mind is a terrible thing"


fun in the night with Tattoo and Walker


she is taking back her breath today
out of her cloud bank of busy work
intoxicating words, phantom music
all the things she does to distract
herself from pain and boredom:

"the mind is a terrible thing"
we laughed about that when we
first met until we cried on the floor
but it turned out to be a metaphor
for the way we live

pushing the envelope into the night
until sunlight cracks the darkness
and we have to admit defeat again
that sleep is overtaking our bodies
and turning our brains to pale jelly

you in your room, me in mine
the electronic switching of mass
media 24/7 until two days later
I twirl a spinning yarn and you
write ten haiku for a massacre

why bother, you say, when no one
will read it and you chalk it up
to another process experiment
in which the two of us light each
other up like glittering bonfires

spitting out romantic-era music
and volumes of epic poems on death
we, the sole loners on a sinking ship
holding hands as we go under
my pain singing with your tinnitus

in the past few days I have chosen
to retract, refract the sparks that
come at me in light years 'til
i'm that blazing bush talking to
moses and you know it frightens me

brother, i've got to calm down the
neurons, drink plenty of water
and stop these dangerous floes
because the mind is a terrible thing
it can take you in the wrong direction

i'm going away for a spell to
that now unfathomable hinterland
taking with me a thing resembling
clockworks, discipline and sleep
re-integrating my action with inaction

i should have done this long ago
but it's not too late to give it a go
while you sit at your new hammond
walking bass notes with the left hand
chords with the right for the fun of it

2 commentaires:

Garth a dit…

Bravery in honesty - sometimes your work is difficult to read because of that honesty - other time (like here) it rings little bells down the spine.
I kept hearing Tom Waits sing " The heart is heaven but the mind is hell"
Great stuff.

Laura Tattoo a dit…

thanks, pisces. reworked a bit after wednesday poetry workshop, got rid of some of the vagueness at the end, moved everything into the present. ze work is never done... :>>)) thanks for coming by, bro. xoxoxooxox