we haven’t a room to spare but we have
a visitor, no wait, she never
showed-up
I wanted a room to spare
as a grade school child I ruled
recess, how a bell tower gets rung
but no one
comes, this is a mistake, I
cried into the phone, come
back, again
the light switch dangling
between us, I put the
cracked agate there &
instead of adopting a name for what
doesn’t arrive, poured out the human train
when I don’t have
anything to come home to
I let my finger get caught
inside the train door
was only trying to pull
my tote bag through, I have
proof, but you won’t
will you—
when I am alone it’ll be just
like you & you & you
am first off better with the sea—
suppose we were dreaming together
& after our water-weights were
removed we sprung-up
higher, the probability
of this is the opposite of false
if men came close to conditioning love,
if men lose power, men not attended
to men if no mother
go more animal, more neutral
human, akin to strength &
a willingness to survive, they
don’t care if they don’t have to
know about their feelings
if no urge to connect, no connection
can be made
semantic willingness
to survive, if ghosts were among
men, a creature isn’t even negotiable
went into the manic theater
& walked out the last 10
minutes of the movie, that’s how
much I didn’t care & didn’t
know if someone besides me
could ever be so un-invested
quickly clung to abnormalities
as a way to describe obsessions
but then when I’m lying into the
sink I know what has shown
worth—
cannot leak blood
straight through skin
been brokenhearted but it
took years to sort that out
was always too tough & had too much
anger to identify particular
emotions, as if sorting
through the cluster fuck
could become a therapeutic
party, a click on training wheels
can’t quite master the balance,
sometimes in bed
think about
how much I
want out of my situation
then can’t imagine my life
w/o__________
certainly wouldn’t be more happy
or more willing to share a future
just feel hammered around the curtain
an enclosure, a flap, a blue panel of
sadness, sometimes I worry I won’t
ever be able to forgive &
with that we do not part ways but
follow one after
the other
onto a
sinking
s h i p
in parallel
dimensions & competitive infrastructures
cross a big channel &
am parted by shame
sometimes I’m wind
to write
to redeem my flaws
to buoy up above them
s k y s i l k e n i o n
winded by the tumultuous path
acquired by chance—
I don’t believe in fate—
I’m not heroic enough
or
guided by patience of seminar—
w/o the way to z, I could have never arrived at A—
as the written word has become
all I know of communication
no room for anything different
dissonance association, new waves of thinking, parallel memory, escaped a vulgar ritual, meta-silence, infrastructure, collapse, political manners, ladies and gentleman, this reeks of humanness, small gift shop, chinaware, free public access, boats in the marsh, Lady Hawk tattoos, cheering sports fans, marriage license, cat call, pubic bone, industrial wasteland, handkerchief, grandstand, gangly arm, little racecar, mountain man, marijuana, fuck the bride, lazy security guard, pot holes, street gems, pinafore and bonnet, bottle rocket, socioeconomics, world peace, banners of pity, lion's mane, borderline schizophrenia, mail man, machine gun, metal cuff, pop a cap, insanity, special meanings, Charlie Rose, best actress, microwave popcorn, cornrows, pimp my lipstick, sweater socks, denim backpack, beach ball, Labrador, Alfred Hitchcock, moonbeams, St. Francis hologram, dusty eves, radio labs, ease into a scenario, popsicle gumball, Harry and the Henderson’s, radioactive dinosaurs, only child on the trampoline, eager to be trained, marshmallow costume, lacking proper etiquette, ham and cheese, ninja clouds, The Matterhorn, Chose Your Own Adventurer, brisket baby, the tabloids, root canal, Errol Morris, crime scene intercourse, polyamorous relationships, lunge cat, golf course, mobile pharmacies, androids, honeysuckle barber, gym clothes, cheap whiskey, Saturday night trivia, Bob Hope, Frisbee comatose, anybody listening, stressed out Santa Claus, picture of a brown bear, reluctant use of energy tablets, reading about wine, breaking into a banker's house, Robocop, friends o' mine, earthlings and their children's children, free mignons for all, some odorless suspension, can't see straight, drop-kick the wrangler, free ranching lessons, only able to achieve, blessed knees, circumcision, Gettysburg, ordering French fries, wrestling stewards, land plots, belly flops, Tennessee, eating ice cream, celebrate domestic partnership, let loose, hand-gun, staging potential arguments, sterile victims, receding hairline, brick palace, drive-thru ATM, special operations, jelly bean butthole, shit on a watercolor rainbow, organize an earthquake, laughing forever, having an episode, dancing culture, angry papa, rework a Venn Diagram, bowl cut, Wheat Germ, Henry Kissinger, listing failures, attempts at poverty, ramshackle, beaded hoop, Laundromat, epic database entry, vintage spork, butt plugs, sky blue lithograph, flannel pajamas, Thursdays with Lenny, margaritas and fish tacos, fantasy island, record collections, various categories, sold-out Top 20 Spring Jams, hotdogs and donuts, lily pads with toads on them, Chevrolets dodging moose, goose chase, shards of glass in your tonsils, slit-open to find fairies, naked Twister, beat your sister, handcuff the doctor, bring in a clock, organize a recital, drill sergeant and captain crawdad, reading Party Knife, royal crown teacup, London's affairs, chapel music, standard blood tests, finishing a sentence, caught up in contemporaneity, old metal horse, baking regime, fight-off craving for pork belly, warding off evil spirits, believing everyone's a ghost, renting a pretzel cart, pushing sauce, hang-gliding over Machu Picchu, gateway canal, fast track through high school, renting an apartment in Ithaca, the modern marginalia, frosty toes, gee willikers, no moth tins, perfect day, vagrant clay, endothermic needle, industrial timer, barely an obstetrician, salary alone, can't stand this day, walk with me, passage of time, manmade flying saucers, urban Tupperware, graffiti on the fire escape, free my beer!, stand with me eagle, judgment day, Apocalypse, graphing Porte Au Prince, little Virginia, off the coast of Mexico, motorcycle mania, foster kids, bull ring, perfect cloud, ideal vision, climate control, free the president, watch me make soup, garden this alleyway, will work for freedom, barely chlamydia, almost angry at the mayor, student loan debt, shit on the department, cry then wrestle a whale, will sit on the bus, willing to poop on planes, starts in herds, liminal support, drag racing phonetics, Gary Lutz, cancelled the bomb, Grease the Musical, start to shine, stomach of steel, passed-out runway model, slicken the road with custard, half-way house, beetle me too, fun booty call, flamboyant designer, fashion is my thing, drink all day, lifeguard away, pinprick a navy seal, hoity-toity, listen this call came from 911, oh shit it's the grits, diamond Thermopolis, John Berryman, enormous cock, rattlesnake potion, miniature garden gnome, piano lessons, wooden arrow, collector's items, moving day flagrance, fuzzy navel, suckling nursery, let us go softly down with no broom or brimstones
to break out of habit
engrained in ridiculous affectations
that carry
no meaning
a prolonged death when it is one of stoning
the pigeon-holed queen, what mutton shall we
cook tonight? I want to be
rescued by the Dali lama, or at least
tended to neck & grain—
fraudulent myths of the dynamic brigade
sleep, fuck, eat— remember
when that was
THE LIFE
Paige Taggart lives in Brooklyn and is mactaggartjewelry.com and the author of Or Replica and Want for Lion.