A HYBRID NOTEBOOK OF POETICS AND PORNOGRAPHIES

Pornography Disclaimer

This is a an imaginary diary of facts, confessions, or messages. This is a notebook of working but broken ideas, lines, images, notes on books I'm reading, writers I admire, and brief fantasies of language. Here unfiltered  all mannerings pseudo-private, publicized, ur-. Here I am art and unrevealed: poetic, political and pop. These are my moonlit rough beginnings and should not be taken literally, directly, truthfully, reliably, and none of it is legally binding. These lies are all choreographed, but only haphazardly. Beware.

29.6.08

RETURN OF THE DARK AND SCARLETHEARTED DAWN

Tosca. Before it's too late. 

Before dawn. Before the blue burn and guillotined shadow walks.

Before the fall of June. High summer.

How much we wanted our Soprano to suffer for her Art, to really break her fucking leg when the dress she wore leapt toward hell to fight forever

to slit his throat again
to be taken in his arms against her will
to be told it is the only way 
to save her only love, her life
to flee into exile like a dove into morning
to slit his throat instead
to weep dark song to fly
to bury her face into her own warm breast and weep
to hear his cries in the wine-dark room
to look into the face of the police detective to refuse
to see into his jealous heated sneer the sparks of lust and power
to know it won't be enough to die
to hear a choir in the darkness
to become a bit of light, jealous as a candle spending itself to death
to find out in the middle of your goodness your heart is dark and loud
to love until you become this music
to murder

And at dawn when you think your lives are saved 
they are in sweet jeopardy.

And at the moment you are free 
the gunshots blackening are real

And the song you sang with him
in the blue heat before dawn comes 
back to you now because memory 
it is both forever and never too

And you perish over his dead body 
And the mob comes
And you promise not to return but to descend
And you climb the wall 
And the firing squad lends you its permanence
And your last breath is this curse 

Enemies are love.

. . . . . . .

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ahh what I have been missing by not surfing the web. Just back from Canada and visiting Jen and Christine, and feeling very poetry-ey. Hope you are well, and thanks for being online where I could find you...

a guy named dave. said...

hey. get in touch... dvalk@ucla.edu

dave

My photo
I've got one foot in the grave and the other's in my mouth.

Poetry Disclaimer

My work has been awarded the Katherine C. Turner Prize from the Academy of American Poets, a Swarthout Award, and has twice been nominated and shortlisted for the Pushcart Prize. My first book, A Book Called Rats, was selected for the Blue Lynx Prize for Poetry (Eastern Washington University Press 2007). I'm curating editor for the online journal of poetry: PISTOLA and my poems and reviews most recently appear in Massachusetts Review, Beloit, Ploughshares and RAIN TAXI. I currently teach writing and literature at Santa Monica College in southern California.
bookcalledrats