"Apparition Poems"

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Apparition Poems

Adam Fieled

[books]

Buffalo, New York


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Apparition Poems by Adam Fieled

Copyright 2010

Published by BlazeVOX [books]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced withoutthe publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

Book design by Geoffrey Gatza

First EditionISBN: 978-1-60964-019-4Library of Congress Control Number incoming

BlazeVOX [books]303 Bedford AveBuffalo, NY 14216

[email protected]

\

BlazeVOX [ books ]blazevox.org

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Acknowledgments

Many thanks to the editors of the journals who published these poems; thanks, also,to Susan Wallack, Matt Stevenson, Temple University for providing me with theFellowship that gave me the time to complete this manuscript, and to the City ofBrotherly Love for providing key inspiration.


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As/Is 534

blue & yellow dog 1249, 1261, 1339

Cricket Online Review 1558, 1571Denver Syntax 1343, 1473, 1497

Diode 1089

Great Works 1065, 1066, 1067, 1068, 1069, 1070

Jacket 1345, 1476, 1480

Listenlight 1511, 1514, 1516

moria 1519, 1520, 1524, 1529

Otoliths 1549, 1580

PennSound 1067, 1121, 1145, 1223, 1241, 1288, 1316, 1327, 1335, 1345, 1476, 1480, 1488,1509, 1511, 1512, 1514, 1520, 1529, 1536, 1546, 1552, 1562, 1576, 1584, 1602, 1603, 1607,1613, 1627, 1645, 1651, 506, 508, 521, 522, 524, 533, 545, 552, 555, 564, 562, 565, 567

PFS Post 1602, 1603, 1607, 1613

Pirenes Fountain 536

Stoning the Devil 1103, 1134, 1145, 1168, 1241, 1281, 1288, 1313, 1330, 1335, 1488, 1491,1533, 1536, 1538, 1562, 1573, 1574, 1576, 1638, 1642, 1645, 1646, 1647

Tears in the Fence 1083, 1084, 1085

The Argotist 1323, 1326, 1327, 1328

13 Myna Birds 1080

Trunk of Delirium 528

Tyger Burning 1550, 1553


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Apparition Poems


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Black-shirted,bright eyes indream-blues,

parents deadof a car crash,I kissed her solong I felt as ifI would crash,South Streetloud aroundus, lips soft


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A patch of white lightappeared on my walllate last night. It was

no shadow.I thoughtit might be a cross, Ithought it might be asign, but by the timeI turned my head, itwas gone.

I thought


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I want to lastto be the lastof the last of

the last to be

taken by time,but the thingabout time isthat it wants,

what it wantsis us, all of uswane quicklyfor all times

ways, sans I,what I wants


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There comes a timehistorys viability inimpressing us goes

out our minds eye,we are ghosts then,we join the rest of,

until someones lipships us to secrets, incase we forgot, that

nothing ever happed,nothing ever got writ.


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If I had Neko Casefor one night, Iddip her red hair in

red wine, suck itdry, batheher inhoney,diveinto whatspink and blue,roll out the red carpet.

If I had Neko Casefor one night, Idpart the Red Seato make hercome, comepangs,needles,shesstiff fromecstasy, Imfreckle-fucked.

If I had Neko CaseI would never

leave my bedagain; Id lay,awake tomusic,voices,ether,never doubtHeaven existson Earth, between

throats, notes, legs.


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Is art slightly lessstupid than every-thing else?

I am moremoved byflesh, andstupidly,

how easilysome skinpeels off

layers of textcompany of blood,Lucy on a bed

with diamonds


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Poems are train-wrecksthat move to stand

on tracks, to do so solidly, is

suicide of a high order

to die by force of wreckage


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Metaphysics of Facebookhow many pictures can onewoman upload?

She sits on ashag carpet, or, in a leotard,dances, or drinks a beer, armaround a disheveled mate

all possible selvescaptured for Netpriceless and freediscrete but not


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As a child, Ireached up,towards my

Mother; as

a man, as Ireach, I amdeep downin earth, or

I reach outto find air,nothing tomother me,

emptiness,soot & ash.


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How I wanted her!Everything pointedme into her

gossamer silkover her bellyblack pantieshead turnedtowards me

I nailed her to my wall,I nailed her

she never forgave me


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It is by dint of great laborthat lines heap up on oneanother (enjambed or not),

it is by dint of great laborthat they take on the cast,die, substance that sticks,

it is by dint of great laborthat poets must forget this,because to stick means not

to stick, it means to loosenperpetually out of grooves,let things topple into place,

let shapes manifest slowly,let life meander, be rolling


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The Tower of Verseis a Babel, no one paystheir rent, many leap

from windows to suredeath, many leave, yetthere is a strange senseof satisfaction given tothose who stay, and itis merely this

clean windowsallow us to seewisps of smoke,(grey, red, turbid)rise from ashes


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September sunlight,

elegiac as collapsed

ruins, festival ashes,

nooks where hiddenlovers laid, tasting

wine on one anothersbreath, piercing silk

layers, springing up,ruddy, fulsome, like

little flesh harvests


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September leaves hang on

loads about to be blown

into black concrete wombs

fretted by windy displacements


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The essential philosophical questionis incredibly stupid

why is it that things happen? You can

ask a thousand times,it wont matter nothing does, exceptthese things that

keep happening, around philosophy.


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I went with her ona daytrip inside herhead; there were kids

toys, storybooks, redmonsters, fire trucks,silver streaks, stairs,rooms everywhere, itwas a funhouse, butin each mirror shelooked different, andI couldnt see myself


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Poems with I and sheare older than the galaxy,have power to rivet me,

because there is no Ifor me without a she,even if I feminize thishighly vaginal computerscreen, my seminal hands


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She was seated at a desk,giving a dramatic speech(pronounced with acidic

bitterness), glaring at me,I was punching a telephone,trying to reach Dominiquewho had given me a phonynumber, while two young,androgynous sprites madelove in a chair, Leonard

joined my committee

she was seated at a desk,her voice rose to a pitch Icouldnt tolerate, but alsoit brought me to the vergeof orgasm, because she wassucking myself out of me,doing it psychically, when Iwoke up, she was updatingher Face about lost sleep


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Why does no one tell the truth?Because the truth is (more oftenthan not) absurd. No one wants

to look absurd, so no one tellsthe truth, which creates evenmore absurdity; worlds growinto self-parody, systems growdown into gutters, whole epochsare wasted in perfidy; Cassandrafinally opens her mouth, no onelistens, they want her to star ina porno, set her up with a stage-name, she learns not to rant,visions cloud her eyes, cunt


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If I were a rock star, Idtake a flight to Singapore,hoist you up to Imperial

Suite in a swank hotel,turn on a Jacuzzi, orderup some caviar (which Idont even like, but nomatter), wed take ourclothes off, conceive achild right there, whichwed raise from ImperialSuite, and my World Tourwould begin right there,would go on forever


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You can take for grantedlots of God-awful garbagein places deemed important

by fools; this goes for everything, including poetry. Why?Because the world runs (has,will always) on mediocrity, sosafe, so comforting, like a mugof hot cocoa on a winters night,or a mediocre simile, people wantothers to be mediocre, to be fools,thats just the way things go, peopleare nothing to write home about, or(if you are writing to God) nothing towrite about at all, the world is no mystery,all the mystery is in the night sky, looking up.


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Philly: I duck punches,land them from a pink-flesh moon. Fists dont

know me, hung like anExit sign. This city hellI write against, windowsshuttered up, visionarydeadness, decayed tufts,Ill ride it out in needlespoised on waves, poisonapples bitten into like somany razors in disguise,silver. Tumble into lightshafts, ratty entrances out.


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She hovers above planetEarth, making strategiesfor safe landings, but not

able to see that she is alsoon planet Earth, watchedlike a crazed cat, a maze-rat, or a tied-up mime, Icannot save someone sohigh up or far down, itslike a black thread aboutto snap, as it strains pastbreaking point she reachesfor champagne, to celebratebubbles lunge up to break.


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we cant stop trying to conceive,even though our bodies are deadto each other, and nightly deaths

I took for granted are razors in apart of my flesh thatcan never live again

certain possessions possess us.


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Before the sun rises,streets in Philly havethis sheen, different

than at midnight, asthe nascent day holdsback its presence, butmakes itself felt in airlike breathable crystal

no one can tell meIm not living mylife to the full.


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She said, you want SisterLovers, you son of a bitch,pouted on a beige couch in

Plastic City, I said, I wantSister Lovers, but Im nota son of a bitch, and I canprove it (I drooled slightly),took it out and we madesuch spectacular love thatthe couch turned blue fromour intensity, but I had towear a mask because Idbeen warned that this girlwas, herself, a son of a bitch


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When the sky brightens slightlyinto navy blue, whats the usesays the empty street to parking

lots elevated four stories above.


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terse as this is, it isgiven to us in bitscarelessly shorn

from rocky slopes,of this I can onlysay nothing comeswith things built in,its always sharp edges,crevices, crags, precipice,abrupt plunges into wants,what subsists between ushappens in canyons linedin blue waters where thisslides down to a densebottom, I cant retrieveyou twice in the sameway, it must be tersebecause real is terse,tense because its sofrail, pine cones heldin a childs hand, snapped.


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house with ivywooden door,yellow kitchen,

clunky dresseron which she displayed allkinds of tricks, nights wereyoung, strong, climactic in

this place, sex,green buds, allthis here, Im akid, as a man, I

look at this, cant sensemuch who I was, why Iended this, if it is an end


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Arms folded over chest(as the man on the four ofSwords), she paints insidea box-like carven space,

(dank edges only seen onthe outside), light filters infrom small square windows,I hover over her, Im thisthat she wants, but whatshe needs is to once againfeel what avalanches cantreach this head so full ofcolor, ribbons, blueness.


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Whats in what eyes?What I see in hers ismixed greenish silence,

somewhat garish, itspast girlish (not much),but I cant touch herflesh (set to self-destruct),anymore than she canunderstand the bookher cunt is, that no onereads directly, or speaksof, theres no love otherthan could be, but Ithink of her throat cutthats her slice of smut.


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Two hedgerows with a little path

between to walk in the path like

some do, as if no other viable route

exists, to make Gods of hedgerows

that make your life tiny, is a sin of

some significance in a world where

hedgerows can be approached from

any side I said this to a man who

bore seeds to an open space, and he

nodded to someone else and whistled

an old waltz to himself in annoyance.


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liquor store, linoleumfloor, wine she chose

was always deep red,

dark, bitter aftertaste,unlike her bare torso,which has in itall that ever wasof drunkenness

to miss someone terribly,to both still be in love, asshe severs things because

she thinks she mustexquisite torture, itsa different bare torso,

(my own) thats incarnadine


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To wake up in frost,ineffectual sun up inblue sky bruised gray,

is to huddle into thesewords, burrow down inthem until you hit a spotof warmth, like memoriesstuck like bark to roots,of this or that, of she orher, if this trope is over-worn so be it, Ive hadenough of pretendingthis crux isnt one, soIll lean into it, again


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nothingness grows vast,nothingness tastes sweet

only for ten seconds of

this, depth without depth,crass substitute for realmsof total glory she effaces

(once spilled milk cries)like a chalk-stain on blue

jeans, a just-smoked joint.


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New Years Day

sky is same as its

been, perched inperfect beauty insearch of a betterplace (power linescut it off), it hurtsto know all otherplaces exist thanthis, visionary as

this deadness is.


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Myths are made of us, wewho spin myths from thishappenstance life, which is

hewn of rocks, books, lies,truths, loves, hangings ofall these things, in mythswe are heroes, braggarts,martyrs, rogues, angels,murderers and assholes,but myths go on sans us,who only wanted slightlymore than Gods gave us,& so made ourselves Gods,bugger any odds against us.


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steps up to my flat, onwhich we sat, tonguesflailed like fins, on sea

of you, not me, but wethought (or I thought)thered be reprieve inbetween yours, for usto combine, you wereterribly vicious, this isour end (here, amidstI and I), does she evenremember this, obscureisland, lost in Atlantis?


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You cantget it whenyou want it,

but when Iwant it I getit; she rolledover on herbelly, whichwas very full,and slept; its

just shadowson the wall, Ithought, dark.


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So much gets involved withthis that isnt this, that whatthis is gets lost, whatever it

is, which no one knows, butthat I is in it somewhere(no one knows where), theremust be a you (if its art,as it may or may not be), sotwo bases are covered, liketwo breasts of a motherweaning her young, andwhether or not we are madeyoung by this is another goodquestion: we may be, maybe.


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Facebook girls commitacts of virtual adulteryevery day, wanton acts

of exhibitionism, sucksof minor stars in tinyfirmaments, Ive gotthem (Facebook girls),in virtual corners invirtual states of undressvirtually shagging myarse off stick it in,like a screwdriver intoa keyboard, in & out,in virtual light & heat.


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Think of these in termsof vertical movementswhat goes up or doesnt.

Does this go up? It may,if it creates something Ifeel is not in the world

yet, but it must also havesolid roots in the worldto be something else, it

must acknowledge whatcan be called horizontal.The best poems are zig-

zags, lightning bolts, thatgo from side to side, upat the same time. This is

a meta-bolt, but whetherit goes is up to you alone.


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I see her head, not yours,on my pillow, dear, but Idont really see either one

of you except as you werewhen you had no interestin my pillows: isnt it sad?


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Since you are a scorpionthat stings herself to death,after so many stings, redness

never leaves my joints, I feelzilch. I call this yourpassionatetime, as I have no intent oftempting the scorpion again.Ive seen nests for you all overPhilly, from Front Street rightup to Baltimore, and you knowwhat? You might finally get thedeath you want. A sultry night,desert all around, legs akimbo.


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This is meant to belevel on level, layeron layer, like insides

of mountains, but Ionly have so many,& when somethingtakes over, I drop alittle lower, my gutsdrop too, and days Icould reach out foryou have gone. Well,I call that level hell.


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In Your Eyes, the song goes,the resolution of all my fruitlesssearches, only what I see in your

eyes isfruitless, and what Shelleymight have called luminous greenorbs look like turbid wastelands,

capable of ruining any day I mighthave you nipping at my heels. Thisis what I think about her, but dont

dare say, shes too young to knowanything about wastelands, Im anold scorpion with mud of my own.


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If poetry makes nothing happen,there is no great political poetrytradition, so I yawp no O any-

thing to anyone who is not mycaptain, and whose position is notin any way tenable; no one (that Iknow) has any excuses, we forgeahead regardless, Neros fiddle issounding in the distance, personalhabits of Romans have entered ourlives, but I have this time to writethis and if you like it, is it enough?


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To cut right to the bonethere is no bone in this,its mirrors, echoes, bits,

more than play, less than

life, but anything limitingthis needs to be chuckedlike fruit rinds into a bin,any arbitrary signifier that

knows itself to be arbitrarycan workas mirrors, echoes,bits, if you have faith thatwhats ineffable counts, is.


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This guy thinks he knowswhats really real, writes abook, I do the same thing:

but whoever says this is ina chain of unreality whichreality will quickly undo: Iknow whoever says this islost in a maze of illusions,which must be stymied: itssomething you only say ifyoure deluded; but then itmeans you know youre ina maze of delusions, whichis whats really real: a bitch.


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There you are: towel-headed,toweled, milling through largecrowds, slightly self-conscious

but convinced of your uppitysuperiority this you is me, Ipush through crowds (antiquebook stores, solicitous clerks, Icant tell if they mean me whenthey speak), stumble up stairs,nobody notices the freakishnessof my appearance, as I am youhaving lived your life, Im pastyour death cogs cut, dusted.


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To send bodies up into ether(what does this no one knows)all flesh become hands that can

clasp (ecstasy of joining things),

to be joined to a part that yoususpected evil of, but is reallyonly love, is to give thanks forraised curtains which (sadly) are

doused in your own blood, & asI join this exultant spirit, dousedin white light, Im steeped in myown darkness, death, excrement.


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I was on Pine Street outsidethe Drop, I looked, saw thisgirl (maybe nineteen, twenty)

in black (not morbid black,just normal clothes), I turnedfor a split second, then whenI looked she had disappearedthis (for once) was visionarylife, but the Drop was stillthe Drop, I walked out withthe Yeah Yeah Yeahs on myI-Pod, as I grow richer everything, everyone deteriorates:I wore black the next day.


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I was talking to a dudeI knew from school, Isaid, I see the levels

from sleeping withpsychopaths, thatshow I get them, levelswere (I meant) placesbetween souls wherespaces open for metaphor,but when I carry themover to my bed, everypsychopath levels me.


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Be careful what you handle,I told her, you can get to meeven if you touch another, it

happened in an office shapedlike the foyer of a huge hovel,built of mud, etchings of bugson the wall, perfect perversekids scampering among clods.

You know what I want, andhow I can get it, she replied,as she took another out, putme in, but only inside a brainused amiss to find a level that,shaped like a foyer, was pastoffice, into brick, sans mud.


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Philosophy says that poets want to lose.What are conditions of losing: to whom?The conditions (to whom they concern, to

unrepresented phantoms, mostly) are colors,which, to transcribe, require a solid core ofnebulous necromancy which philosophy calls

(for its own poetic reasons) loss. I took thisfrom one strictly (which necessitated loosenesstowards me) for himself, took several median

blended colors and painted a razor on the roofof a red building. Then I fell off. But I lived.


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Im lookingat the sky, writinglike a man writes

when the sisterlives in an apartmentwith a husbandthree blocks away,casts her body overhere to do whatcannot be donead infinitum;and that the evilI saw in this familywas hers, the scourgewho ruined my life.That night I had herin summers sweat,what it shouldvebeen, what it was,the sting of it lingers,all in the sister, & foronce I dont darebifurcate myself,they do it for me,naturally.


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Poor Schopenhauers axioms:all in the will is a fight to beatother wills. I see him in his

meager room, his will bentnot to do much, save himselfthe trouble of fighting theseineluctable battles, but notable to refrain from eating,breathing, shitting, fucking,all those simple acts that arewill-to-survival, but Arthurcasts himself into a future ofpower, not knowing when itarrived it was to be a crass joke,ended with face in turtle soup.


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Look, its not like I couldve raised youany other way. The rules are the rules andyou know the way this town is, I dont

want to see you there sitting there sulkinglike you dont enjoy these things. My dealis over, Im an old bitch whose worn outmy welcome on every conceivable avenue,my tits sag, my breath stinks, the guys Ihave left cant get it up half the time. Youhave to use it, kiddo, you have to use whatyouve got, and if I push, its just becausethe reputation you make now is going tofollow you around forever, and yeah, youdont have to use eyeliner just to cross thefucking street, you dont have to wear furto buy cigarettes, but Ive given you allthis shit specifically to use, and I dontnecessarily mind (though Im tempted tobarge in and steal some of that cock formyself) hearing your bed-springs creakingat five in the morning cause it means youredoing good business and thats the wholepoint of living here, you do good businessor you dont, and youll see what its likewhen youre doing this, you go straight tohell and have to live through the little

cunts like yourself, but youre mylittlecunt and Im not going to see you wasteyourlittle cunt while you still have all that

juice running between your legs like Iuse to have, and this needs to becomea family tradition because family is all Ihave left. So just keep going where youneed to go, but dont complain to meabout love, there is no love, theres onlyskin, blood, cum, spit, phlegm, & lots of it.


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The fathers gaze (depending which gazeyou happen to be referring to) is panoptic.It goes in without leaving traces. So if you

have several fathers that leave no traces, &

merely invisible gazes, there is or maybe asense in which you have no fathers. I sawall this happening to me, along with everything else, many years ago, before I could

visualize the cell I was in, before I knewhow the walls stank of fresh paint, or sawthat I was getting smeared at any juncture.But, as I saw this, my father who was my

father turned, spoke down to me in sucha way that I listened. I took what he said,gazed at my cell, and watched the paint drydeep into the night before I busted out to

watch the dawn break over the Delaware.


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She told me I love boy/girl poems, lovescenes in them based on a deep degeneracyinherited from too much heat around my

genitals, as manifest in tangents I could onlysee if I was getting laid. She told me this asI was getting laid in such a way that any notion

of telling was subsumed in an ass as stately asa mansion, which I filled with the liquidcobwebs of my imagination. There was grassoutside being smoked in a car in which anotherboy/girl scenario played out in a brunette givinga fine performance of Bolero in her movements,

and I immediately flashed back to the deepgenitals of my first girlfriend and the way sheused to implore Gods help at certain moments,who was certainly watching this. Thats it, thatsthe whole spiel I have on boy/girl poems andwhy they are hated by the dry dunces who love them.


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Whats this about making moves, saidthe apprentice? Ive got irons in the firewith all these pieces, isnt that enough?

To have mastered how the fire works,so that each piece burns right down: itsnot the only move that matters, but asI just made a line of rooks rather thanpawns, what else could possibly get mygoat? The master heard this, appearing

limber, but quite chained to the voicesthat were taking away the tools he usedto put his apprentices in their places. Ihave nothing to say about this, he said,as he wiped beads of sweat from a browthat furrowed so intensely that all hisenemies insisted he had dark ties. Justmake rows of rooks instead of pawns,and you will find yourselves kings and

queens. They all left him that night, afterdumping the ashes in a river that ran inback of the workshop, into a black sea.


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The traces of this woman, who isa woman, go all over the world, asI dont objectify what I have no

need to objectify. Can you guesswho she is? Can you guess why Iwould need to write in code sothat all the little poets dont placeme in brine vats? I heard him sayall this, and let me tell you, it wassickening. Havent we heard howbodies in text are obsolescent? Thisis where I jumped in, and I am thefinal eye, that sees all. Black andwhite impulse, red veins. Pleasures.


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O life, O time, dark dark dark& all that, that bit, where youconfront all that wont submit,

its nobodys favorite bit, itsa bloody miracle we ever getanything else, yet you neverhear talk of it except in art, &its gone out of fashion, rightfrom Miltons front page intothe dark dark dark, but its stilldark as a mudslide, & as dense


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There are gusty showersin Philadelphia, showers

that beat up empty lots,

down in sooty Kensington,you could almost believe

what the books say about

being-in-the-world, I meanbeing in a damned world, it

really does seem that way

on greasy days in Philadelphia.


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Whaddya know, she said,youve coined a phrase wecan all use, just by keeping

your mouth shut, just bywhistling past the dust-bins,hat in hand, hand in glove,gloved from tyranny by aleft-handed smoke shifter,a bloody miracle, she said


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Its all soanxious,this living,

pantingrealizationsof whatisnt, couldnever be,sky doesntcare, earthdoesnt care,mud-soakedleaves


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What will the poem,a wary protuberance,say to admixtures of

green grassy gardenssprung sans respite, &hood winked dudes?Not to implicate you,but someone mustchoose, truly, whenthis linzer tart standseating my plate, inspite of all spite with-held, beyond all dreamsyou can measure, neara fracas which seemsrisible. Not that I care.


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Spirit melts, leavingbutter particles strewnalong leaf-veined avenues

how absurd, that it shouldbe in poetry, hiding therelike a cat in a dry bath-tub,like water in a drain, likeso much dark moon.


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Guns are connected to power; youwant to shoot because you are shot,you want to kill because you are killed,

you like nature because it happensto be easy. Your mouth, as you kill,is a waft of rodent-dirt, you rats. Isee myself as a kind of tree behindall this, not that Im solid or stolid,

just that I can absorb the pricklytwitch of your whiskered faces.I have no problem with ferretingout small animals. What if it turnsout they want to be elected; hope?


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Wood-floored bar on Rue St. Catharineyou danced, I sat, soused as Herod,sipped vodka tonic, endless bland

medley belting out of the jukeboxyou smiling, I occupied keeping you happy,un-frazzled suddenly sounds behind us,the bar wasnt crowded & a patron(rakish, whisker-flecked big mouth)lifted a forefinger at beer-belliedbartender bitching back, soon a realfight, violence in quiet midnight,I, scared, got you out of there

but you had to dance, you said,had to dance so we paved Plateau, tense steps,found nothing, you started crying & stampingyour feet like a child, I grabbed you & draggedyou back to our room you stripped, curledinto fetal position, beat your fists againstthe mattress, in this way you dancedthrough the night, dozed & woke ready for more


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Documents

"Apparition Poems"