April 27, 2004

• THE FOLLOWING POEM WAS WRITTEN BY

  
  

  TRAVIS CHANEY 

  
  

   

  
  

  super

  
  

  cilium

  
  

  that is where it all begins

  
  

  eyebrows: coronae

  
  

  (the most interesting writing occurs within parentheses)

  
  

  the progression of passion

  
  

  ( [ {

  
  

  eyebrows breasts thehappyplace*

  
  

  but it all begins with eyebrows

  
  

  those hieroglyphs

  
  

  after which follow universal secrets

  
  

  keys to sacrosanct realms

  
  

  when one caresses an eyebrow, the wells of earth begin to lubricate

  
  

  know the hierarchies of parenthisization

  
  

  frydiology

  
  

  “ornithology”

  
  

  charlie parker, call me on your saxophone

  
  

  palaver with me about the wonders at sea

  
  

  you were always floating;i am always floating

  
  

  you got somewhere

  
  

  too fast

  
  

  it is wednesday and there are no eyebrows around

  
  

  except hints at the top of my peripheral vision, except images in a mirror

  
  

  i feel like grooving high, dizzy

  
  

  spin me like that

  
  

  inside cavernous cheeks maybe there are cavescrawlings

  
  

  ancient illuminations that can be trumpeted forth

  
  

  sometimes i feel like i’m toofar away from brows

  
  

  in the world of browse, the world of merehellos and how-are-you-doing-you-don’t-have-to-answer passings

  
  

  *sometimes the happyplace is a vagina, sometimes it is sharing bill frisell, playing scrabble between sloshes of wine,

  
  

  or superverbal pulses of GOD in a glance something like a campfire, perhaps even a coffeehouse on Sunday

  
  

  “it is OK to be alone” “i am never alone”

  
  

  inextricably juxtaposed mantras

  
  

  the wild cherry pepsi is fizzing on ice and suddenly i get it again

  
  

  hepcats with lingos

  
  

  whirl a phrase with suave lenguas

  
  

  idiolect songs

  
  

  far from the moon is arkansas

  
  

  in whirlwinds in the beds of old fords coors cans fly or budweiser

  
  

  then out onto the roadside

  
  

  within the stink of a rotting possum

  
  

  rust its myriad fields of forgotten cars

  
  

  naked on the interstate unclothed by fences

  
  

  complacent rednecks are watching nascar on saturday afternoons

  
  

  far from the rings of saturn

  
  

  everything is pluralized with apostrophe-ess

  
  

  the uneducated trumpet their ignorance on roadside signs paintbrushed with childlike letters

  
  

  the churches spill forth biophobic nescients

  
  

  the pejorative utterance of “nigger” still assagais a spring day

  
  

  and when the sun redsupergiants some day maybe this place will be closest

  
  

  susie ibarra

  
  

  massage me with your drumsticks

  
  

  feed me with your eyes

  
  

  shiny red shoes platformed shiny red shoes

  
  

  yellow plaid red plaid blue

  
  

  i’m ready to feed myself into the machine

  
  

  and be excreted back into my quiet rainbows

  
  

  perhaps pink suede then

  
  

  machinegunning my shortblasts into the big night

  
  

  i hope i catch you with a stray bullet or ten

  
  

  “sapphire bullets of pure love”

  
  

  mostlikely you will not let me love you because quitelikely you are part of the

  
  

  hugest sphincter

  
  

  the one that jettisons me into the largest nowhere called quiet rainbows

  
  

  far from the planet you are the moon the cometdust

  
  

  sniping i am sniping now

  
  

  my projectiles into the darkness in which you roam

  
  

  the myriads of rusting cars

  
  

  one projectile at a time trying to bring you down

  
  

  into the quitelikely the mostlikely

  
  

  love

  
  

  shiny red shoes and maybe tony oxley instead

  
  

  click thrice and i’m back in the kansas* of my head

  
  

  you are still alive, cummings, you spoke to me through the sun today

  
  

  i could barely keep my eyes upon the page

  
  

  all white with ????ht

  
  

  why can’t all love me like you love me

  
  

  they should all love me and therefore love you illimitably

  
  

  straining their eyes if they must

  
  

  like i just

  
  

  did

  
  

  ,Cummings, and why are all the suns dipping

  
  

  i am going to nap now steal back the child

  
  

  i am in a stuart davis painting

  
  

  bustling buildings red and blue

  
  

  squiggles of neon life

  
  

  jazzy empty streets

  
  

  the metaphors are dying now

  
  

  what happens when the metaphors are gone

  
  

  tumbleweed instead of duels

  
  

  singularity instead of duals

  
  

  i begin to speak in abstracts of color

  
  

  blue blue red orange red orange yellow blue green

  
  

  a mere language from the spectrum

  
  

  maybe i should see yellow as orange because i have no word to differentiate the two

  
  

  or whittle my lexicon to blackandwhite squares

  
  

  repeating myself now

  
  

  regurgitating

  
  

  i will start again with a thumbnail

  
  

  an eyebrow perhaps

  
  

  *i’ve driven across you

  
  

  the way you display your nothingness shamelessly

  
  

  wheat fields brushing the sky blue in a quiet state of omnipotence

  
  

  far away from the flying monkeys and cachinnations of greenfaced witches

  
  

  zenlike rearranging clouds

  
  

  i want that and the shinyoiledhearted ironmen

  
  

  (the cake and the ingestion)

  
  

  ((the kansas and the colorado))

  
  

  jazzy empty streets

  
  

  squiggles of neon life

  
  

  bustling buildings red and blue

  
  

  now i am painting, stuart davis

  
  

   

  
  

  her bow is tempting the ceiling fan

  
  

  blades travelling predictably

  
  

  down her back t(r)ickles braid

  
  

  i am climbing up her braid

  
  

  toward the ceiling fan

  
  

  her bow is tempting the ceiling

  
  

  fan i am

  
  

  traveling predictably

  
  

  into the electric blue walls in the blue house with the blue frontporchlight

  
  

  wonder woman, the swords are spinning

  
  

  you cannot go back into eden

  
  

  think thank goodness

  
  

  we are out here where the animals are feral, binomial

  
  

  and violin bows approach ceiling fans

  
  

  crescendo baby crescendo

  
  

  open up into an allout climb

  
  

  spin into a whirl

  
  

  calculably round

  
  

  never going anywhere

  
  

  but feeling the ubiquity of the breeze

  
  

  ruby red slippers

  
  

  why don’t they come in my size

  
  

  i want undreams, too

  
  

  the magic lady has sputtered her wand is sputtering dust instead of pixie dust the magic lady once

  
  

  grabbed me by the kidneyspleens and i felt handsforthefirsttime she whipped up a batch of that

  
  

  a bigold cauldron of that primordial soup the magic lady ladled into my eyes and i was an everyone

  
  

  a door-to-door testifier a brokenbone rectifier a peopleocean pacifier magic lady sang songs

  
  

  for me angelmusic messages from the gods magic lady peered at me with sapphire bullets of pure

  
  

  love magic lady’s wand was fulgurant with elsewheres righthere then i went to see the magic lady

  
  

  and the magic lady was barely there a distant smile and then i called the magic lady and the magic

  
  

  lady had other things to do the magic lady began to crumble and i began to crumble i went to listen

  
  

  to her musics and the needles scratched the sounds into statics i sent for the magic lady i sent for

  
  

  the magic lady and the magic lady wouldn’t respond until finally the magic lady told me not to send

  
  

  for her again the magic lady poofed into the nowhere lost outside the everywhere i began to utter

  
  

  dust disintegrate almost poofed and then THE MAGIC LADY (THE BIGGER MAGIC LADY) with

  
  

  kettlerims circumscribing horizons waved a wand bigger than dawn grabbed me by the

  
  

  mitochondria by the gluons and muons and reequipped with hands i shook with THE MAGIC

  
  

  LADY uncrumbling now vaster everyday

  
  

  (until a magic lady comes along with her pyrite pixie dust

  
  

  until i’m gulping down the soup that only seems supernal

  
  

  (until THE MAGIC LADY outdoes the magic lady magic))

  
  

  sailed

  
  

  docked

  
  

  wonderingly, gwendolyn, i r

  
  

  each

  
  

  each

  
  

  eacheacheacheacheacheacheacheacheacheacheacheacheacheacheacheacheacheacheacheacheacheacheacheache

  
  

  acheacheacheacheacheacheacheacheacheacheacheacheacheacheacheachehehehehehehehehehehehehehehhehheh

  
  

  hahahahahahaahaahaahaahahahahahahaahaahaahaahaahaahchechechechechechechechechechechechechecheche

  
  

  cacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacaca each each each each each

  
  

  you’re away.your away

  
  

  is the afar that i distance

  
  

  myself from

  
  

  i am so close to you that our teeth are chatting

  
  

  your eyelids glide on my eyes

  
  

  down my gullet goes your last bite

  
  

  candier than death, candiest

  
  

  there are children all around like leaves or clouds

  
  

  but we are both the blue both the dirt

  
  

  over which roll into which rustle

  
  

  cloudleaves

  
  

  wanderingly

  
  

  gwen(do

  
  

  lyn) we hang around waiting for the expanse to open up a huge white curtain to drop down open up

  
  

  revealing that GOD is a greatbig yawn

  
  

  a waiting-for and right-now

  
  

  brillo boxes make the day long

  
  

  campbell’s soup cans

  
  

  soupcons

  
  

  which ponderingly live wanderingly meander wonderingly (pro)longingly huff

  
  

  living ones

  
  

  unbeknownst (,g

  
  

  wend

  
  

  o

  
  

  lyn!) only!!!

  
  

  then darken skies

  
  

  reality is

  
  

  the colour of clouds when they have lightened their load

  
  

  when it hails there is a slowness quietness

  
  

  THUD (thunder) CLUNK

  
  

  a whatthehell THACK

  
  

  eyes widen around the PHPHLOOKK

  
  

  bounces white rolls ice

  
  

  CLINK (the metal stairway)

  
  

  T T T T T TTT TTT T T TTT T T T T T T T T T T T

  
  

  the ground is alive

  
  

  when the wind lets go

  
  

  the sound of falling icechunks on wood and the heart speeds up to catch that T T T T TTT TT TT T T

  
  

  between CLUNK and CLINK the cleanest silence fills

  
  

  THUD after THACK the soundlessness of betweenness crescendos

  
  

  then it rains

  
  

  ice gives way to streams

  
  

  pulses adagio

  
  

  heavenbowels free

  
  

  on earth swirls of water

  
  

  wash what was to the Newer

  
  

   

  
  

  thank you sacred EVERYTHING

  
  

  i will take this little ruby

  
  

  and make it RING

  
  

  this little flower

  
  

  and make it F L O W

  
  

  this little breath

  
  

  and make it SING

  
  

  this little nothing

  
  

  and loft it HUGEST

  
  

  happyplace (,peach-apply,):

  
  

  cheeks which churn up bop

  
  

  happyplace (clap!yep!pah!):

  
  

  magician, violinist

  
  

  happyplaces (a peppy clash):

  
  

  hail, drumsticks

  
  

  happiesplace (pip,acalephes!):

  
  

  eyebrows

  
  

  wednesday again

  
  

  quite (and) quiet

  
  

  magic and MAGIC

  • 8:37 am
  • 2 Comments