wireless
I am a fisherman, a fissure of bones
and sometimes you do what you’re told
I am a writer, a writer of fictions
I’ve written pages upon pages…
in 1939 I went to texas, corpus christi, with a small tacklebox that I left one day on the edge of the waves. it was all white then. boondocks. longer rods, longer poles, longer steps, longer lures on longer lines.
we were waiting for two of our group to show. you could walk all the way out the end of pier and still see the floor below the water. sometimes we’d walk out in the gulf there when the sound died down until finally stepping one step over the edge of the sandbar would get you wet. one of those times I was thinking that you’d been away long enough to be thinking which usually spelled trouble.
the missing two never did show. there were rumors for years. something about him becoming a tugboat captain and her a dancer. or that maybe he killed her. or she killed him. and just out past the break the water turned on itself and turned again.
oil rigs had come, lined up one after another along the beach
spewing tourists
water fountain pigeons
all of us living on the leftovers of who knew what
the pigeons staring with those orange eyes
black unfeeling dots in the center
flying fucking rats
people who looked like people you knew
I turned my back on it for days at a time
a locomotive rattle lulls a continous sleep
and I am a writer, a writer of fictions
I’ve written pages upon pages…
like someone sipping on a hot coffee
but my back was turned
which makes it hard to say who it was at that distance
wearing a shirt that matched the ocean in you
a bird shit on my shoulder
it sounded like a squirt
the rattle of a chain being pulled
sounds mechanical
a shadow fell over my walking and I held on, grabbed at the air
slipping back to 1933, my sister slipping into the water
all of us going in after her like some silent movie comedy
the water not so cold really
her not swimming or losing the tinted glasses on her head
still buoyed now by mam’s head shake
mam’s black hair and black eyes
metal on the end of a chain calling me back
certain parts of the pier were still mexico in 1939
groups of them singing as much as the irish
in clothes more suited for the weather
their children talking faster than them or us
always then it becomes
them
or us
one night the pier was closing down but I kept going out to the end as if an end were needed. I had the feeling that things had fallen out of my pockets. that it had been a long couple of years all at once. I looked back when I reached the end and imagined the sound of sandals scraping as they walked. the different color fishing lines on each pole. that sleepy afternoon smell that the sun and the water brings on. and I’ve written pages upon pages trying to rid you from my bones. is that you, or me, just now, that opens me up so far open like that. a longing to demolish or diminish a few hours. as if you could ride my back or ride my eyes dry or ride up my shirt sleeve like a song. people ask you later where you were on certain days or certain months in less than certain years. often you can’t remember. in 1939, in april, I was often on a pier, by the gulf of mexico, texas walking with me, both of us waiting on your face in most of those hours that would not disappear.
buildings and landscapes have familiar shapes
flags even
people
yours was known a longer body
a straggler left behind
or a war two years off in places we would have never visited otherwise
I was not young then
a gathering of weight that years give you
people I had known had died on me
people I knew had children you could have conversations with
they built a golf course next to the beach. alligators would greet you at the tee boxes. I had a dog name scraps who followed me home from the beach one day. I kept him because he wasn’t stupid and he wasn’t any trouble. he was a mangy old black mutt. he liked to golf, or rather he liked to chase golfers. he liked it most when I talked about you. I’ve never seen the point of marrying anyone but scraps liked the idea. he’d run twenty yards ahead of me and I’d say what do you think of it scraps. he’d come running back barking at me or he’d stand straight still with his head up waiting on the decisions in life.
sometimes then a walk, even in places you can’t forget, is just a walk
is just a finish
is just a stretching out
over land and berm and beyond a pale conceived in a city over oceans
oceans over end
end over steps
steps taken
yes, I was taken
where were you
and sometimes you do what you’re told
I am a writer, a writer of fictions
I’ve written pages upon pages…
in 1939 I went to texas, corpus christi, with a small tacklebox that I left one day on the edge of the waves. it was all white then. boondocks. longer rods, longer poles, longer steps, longer lures on longer lines.
we were waiting for two of our group to show. you could walk all the way out the end of pier and still see the floor below the water. sometimes we’d walk out in the gulf there when the sound died down until finally stepping one step over the edge of the sandbar would get you wet. one of those times I was thinking that you’d been away long enough to be thinking which usually spelled trouble.
the missing two never did show. there were rumors for years. something about him becoming a tugboat captain and her a dancer. or that maybe he killed her. or she killed him. and just out past the break the water turned on itself and turned again.
oil rigs had come, lined up one after another along the beach
spewing tourists
water fountain pigeons
all of us living on the leftovers of who knew what
the pigeons staring with those orange eyes
black unfeeling dots in the center
flying fucking rats
people who looked like people you knew
I turned my back on it for days at a time
a locomotive rattle lulls a continous sleep
and I am a writer, a writer of fictions
I’ve written pages upon pages…
like someone sipping on a hot coffee
but my back was turned
which makes it hard to say who it was at that distance
wearing a shirt that matched the ocean in you
a bird shit on my shoulder
it sounded like a squirt
the rattle of a chain being pulled
sounds mechanical
a shadow fell over my walking and I held on, grabbed at the air
slipping back to 1933, my sister slipping into the water
all of us going in after her like some silent movie comedy
the water not so cold really
her not swimming or losing the tinted glasses on her head
still buoyed now by mam’s head shake
mam’s black hair and black eyes
metal on the end of a chain calling me back
certain parts of the pier were still mexico in 1939
groups of them singing as much as the irish
in clothes more suited for the weather
their children talking faster than them or us
always then it becomes
them
or us
one night the pier was closing down but I kept going out to the end as if an end were needed. I had the feeling that things had fallen out of my pockets. that it had been a long couple of years all at once. I looked back when I reached the end and imagined the sound of sandals scraping as they walked. the different color fishing lines on each pole. that sleepy afternoon smell that the sun and the water brings on. and I’ve written pages upon pages trying to rid you from my bones. is that you, or me, just now, that opens me up so far open like that. a longing to demolish or diminish a few hours. as if you could ride my back or ride my eyes dry or ride up my shirt sleeve like a song. people ask you later where you were on certain days or certain months in less than certain years. often you can’t remember. in 1939, in april, I was often on a pier, by the gulf of mexico, texas walking with me, both of us waiting on your face in most of those hours that would not disappear.
buildings and landscapes have familiar shapes
flags even
people
yours was known a longer body
a straggler left behind
or a war two years off in places we would have never visited otherwise
I was not young then
a gathering of weight that years give you
people I had known had died on me
people I knew had children you could have conversations with
they built a golf course next to the beach. alligators would greet you at the tee boxes. I had a dog name scraps who followed me home from the beach one day. I kept him because he wasn’t stupid and he wasn’t any trouble. he was a mangy old black mutt. he liked to golf, or rather he liked to chase golfers. he liked it most when I talked about you. I’ve never seen the point of marrying anyone but scraps liked the idea. he’d run twenty yards ahead of me and I’d say what do you think of it scraps. he’d come running back barking at me or he’d stand straight still with his head up waiting on the decisions in life.
sometimes then a walk, even in places you can’t forget, is just a walk
is just a finish
is just a stretching out
over land and berm and beyond a pale conceived in a city over oceans
oceans over end
end over steps
steps taken
yes, I was taken
where were you
posted by gradylove at 11:04 AM
1 Comments:
lyric stealer.
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