1. |
Cope Alaska
05:00
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Cope Alaska
We were worn with salt
down in the flat of our
city closing doors
against the wreck of our smooth winter shiver
like
we would go insane if we couldn't dance
I think I might be close to death
when I watch the night waver green
or pink
my vision a crumpled paper cup
hits the waste bucket
I don't know the name of you
but you taste like melancholy
If I could just know the name of you
I would thank you for this satisfaction in dark
this dry sweat of an evening
the chilled burn that is my throat
I would spin your sleep in season
like some bold frostbitten lover
peeled back bare
stripped like birch bark
Take this night in
carve your name
drink this down
[First published in "The Paper Street Journal"}
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2. |
When We Are Unseen
05:04
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When We Are Unseen
"You may forget but let me tell you this
someone in some future time
will think of us"
Beat those swaddled blues gluing
your lips from spilling
your birthright
from your mouth spilling
her island tongue
I was born kneeling at the station of the goddess
hungry begging and so tired
I was born pagan craving moonlight craving woman
born weeping garden soil of taste unseen
stammering blind stupid sweet
this utterance of gulp of blush
bruising your cheek bone
pink apple blend
curling curves against your breath
against the forgotten grip
I was born kneeling at the station of the goddess
hungry begging and so tired
I was born pagan craving moonlight craving woman
born weeping garden soil of taste unseen
Lipsticks burst the Nightwood to its knees
like a half crazed man like a man
So we kneel
in the cold dirt
[quotation credit: Sappho]
[co-written with Rebecca Menzia]
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3. |
Insatiable
03:55
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Insatiable
I am bound
I am shadow coiled beneath the splash of glass
hear
the bulge of my whisper act more like roar
an outstretched droll hear the tremble my tumble
my spit soaked tongue recall the precision of collapse
The battered grave of my body
folds into a minute in a minute
I will leave behind a frantic mouth
a bland resurrection of ritual
some kind of horizon bleeding out hope
I am swallowed
I am gnarled
I am the silent on skin
the breathless of flame
that wavers in the wreck
of our visit
So how should I presume?
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4. |
||||
Between A Rock and A Rock is the Distance Spent Searching for Fertile Soil
When she smiles
I try to catch her teeth
with my eyes closed
What animates
my skin
so flushed?
What crumbles
my bones
into weakness?
Where does desire find home
if that same desire
runs away?
There are men like shadows
passing through our chests
pressing spears against our skulls
carving DYKE
into our skins
[First published in "Narrative Northeast"]
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5. |
River Babies [1]
01:34
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River Babies
Troubled Mothers / Darkness does not leave / this place
there are babies drowning / in rivers / with only few /
swimmers / with only few arms to wrap around few babies /
there are babies / that will drown
"It is a hot hot thing"
there are babies that will drown / with only few swimmers /
the river is an overflow of lost children / with no mothers and no fathers / and if these children have mothers and fathers then they are abandoned / to fend / for themselves
there are fathers who beat mothers and those mothers beat themselves / and each father who thinks he owns a beaten mother is / a baby in the river / and each mother who cannot leave a beater father whether she wants to or doesn't want to is / a baby in the river
there is a current in the mind that the swimmer must follow / there is a current in the body that the swimmer must follow / there is a current in sex that the swimmer must follow / before the swimmer can swim and help a baby rescue their own selves
there is only so far that a swimmer can swim
"it is a hot hot thing"
[Quotation credit: Toni Morrison]
[First published in "Iris Brown"]
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6. |
River Babies [2]
04:15
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7. |
Love Poem
03:52
|
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8. |
Mother Carries
01:45
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I will read a book
I will drink my coffee
I will take a walk
I will force a meal down
into my empty gut
I will learn to sew a patch
over the holes of my skin
I will listen to my silence
I will drink more water
I will learn to bake bread
I will brush my teeth
so that I can taste clean
I will only speak with intention
I will sleep for only a dream
I will try to love a stranger
I will save a dog from its dying howl
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9. |
Slap Adrenaline
01:46
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Slap Adrenaline
Turn the light off
let your eyes burn
a kaleidoscope of color
for a moment
is her face
for a moment
there is chaos and
shortcuts past the nerves
that twitch the moment into shape
Where would you be without this
this temporary
this dark
this cold
topples you to the floor
and her face
does not return
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10. |
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We Have More in Common than You Think
When I think about the living
I think about the way
I look like my own ghost
or
I think about those ghosts never leaving me alone
or
I think about what is not and that is
the blind spot of my tongue
When I think about a scar the same way I think about a home
When I think about the ribs as my own bent shape of color
I think my mouth becomes a grave that brings spring bloom to ash
erupting toothless vapor so thick it clogs the airways of what I can’t
remember
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11. |
A Child A Separate Mouth
05:17
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A Child A Separate Mouth
My hands will make a tower of dead grass
and crush the ants that climb the hill before
I spit the chipped ends of my coral teeth
out for you a keepsake remember me
I will split your lips apart and sign our
palms with the blood of your tongue with my tongue
a prayer rotten bruised like apple skin
I will think about the way a fist can
bruise the bone like wine stains carpet red like
vibrations from my mouth when I’m at home
with no one else at home to hear the dog
howl moon howl hard whispers in the darkness
You ghost How I howl as you approach me
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Harm Fairbanks, Alaska
Harm is an Alaskan ensemble that defies the bounds of typical genre standards. Blending psych-folk and beatbox with classical themes the experimental chamber group defies your notions of musical normativity.
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