Some Bitter Thing

Some bitter thing, some mean lean spleen, made me make a fist tonight. I owe nothing to science. I owe everything to science. The result is a soulful expansion of possibilities of feeling. The cat on my lap licking my forearm silly. Once I form an image in my head I sprinkle it with words. The keynote expresses contingency, but the setting calls for banisters. Physical weight is an admirable thing among rocks. It’s why I like to empty the dishwasher when everything is still warm. If you tell me something nice I’ll give you a bowl of rice. But if you tell me something mean I’ll give you a soggy saltine. Emotion becomes the sound of weirdness crystalized in words. The sputter of something nameless. I’ve got a feeling cupidity is just another muzzle. The way Nicolette Larson sways at the microphone says everything you need to know about the 70s.

These days, I feel utterly incompatible with the zeitgeist. It’s a relationship we find easiest to endure by ignoring one another. I eat my yogurt with strawberry jam and blueberries, read Marcel Proust in my underwear, and listen to the croaking of frogs on YouTube. The past is the only country where you can still tell stories: buffoons, saints, and motorcycle gangs. Whenever I write I try hiding the subject in false reassurances that I’m on the verge of saying something important, which I never do. Importance sucks the energy out of everything. I like coconuts. I’m temperamental. Coconuts are not. This is important. But really it’s not. It’s just miracles & milk.

I feel disheveled inside, like chlorophyl at midnight. People think I’m a tree but I’m not I’m not a tree I’m a rose. These are my thorns, these are my petals, and this is my tongue. I’m reaching across the universe to lick your cheek. Most guidebooks are monolingual and therefore acrid. What I need is a lump of coal and an ounce of slush. I’ve come a long way to say these things to you. I studied romantic poetry in Trieste. I learned to play the electric guitar in Memphis. And now I have nothing to say. My horse is everything. I named her chlorophyl and together, at night, we fly over the trees.