FERRYBOAT

at night I stay awake
& my heart beats

I take the knobs
of my knees in my hands

listening to the neighbors fucking
I count ten
orgasms
this
spirit of Eden inversely
messianic this escape
into one's own pleasure
from the very same kind
enjoyed by someone else this
reminder to mind one's own business
such as
how many wives
can one have in Persia ? & who is
the Savoyard Vicar ? & who can
explain the system of Linnaeus ?
& what can be cured by a balm containing
baking soda apple cider vinegar
“yoghourt” the tannins of black tea
infused with orange rind ? today I read
that some bodies cannot be bruised & now the station
is empty the rectangular
frame of the train car window
lends my voice
a strange natural reverb
somehow at once subterranean
and arriving from a distant star
just as someone waking up
for a moment may
want to look out the window
to see where we are
& that when lit every
object be visible at all
times from every angle
necessitates that every
point of every
object be
at every moment
giving off light in every
possible direction
to any receptor
actual or
potential light then cannot
be made of beams or
particles but must constitute an absolute
substance equal to the very
concept of its impossible magnitude & I do want to eat
the locust preserves & drink
the chewy wines I do
want to smoke
from the calumet decked
in leaves Saturday, July 19, 2015
1:12am:
a useless flag licks at us
from the Blue Diamond processing plant in
a strong wind & I think so there are
better ways of being
defiled than getting
tied up with your
own belt sometimes unafraid
I ask after them
& you encourage me to dream
up my own
& there's a debris of
applause in
my imagination
even the
straightest line between
our two cities follows
the taxing sine
of the Amazon as these
are the snaking overexposed lights of every highway
I am not on I will
remeasure again
and again my body’s 16
right angles with your acute instrument
for when there is no common
problem around
which to unite
it is better then
(and only then)
to be alone I couldn't spread
my legs wide enough to
welcome everything
all the
refinery stacks
on earth these
moonglowing plants the grainer
cars
you too your metal
chains dangling from
a canopy of
holm oak so
I be the one lifted like an acrobat painted white
with braided limbs
over the sunblanched city
its stinking alleys &
when I land
on the beach nearby my
footprints looking back
are those of a bear
an overgrown wolf because
my skin is flypaper
the sand doesn't
wash off any
attempt to clean
it softens the glue
sneaks the grains underneath
as you spit a fountain of
butter into my
open mouth I think
if leaves could be called “fretted”
and if the spine were made of jute
it would explain at least
something
this weight lightening off my chest like a hand
checking off a box it makes
me so happy to eat the smile
off your face take sadness
though take a
mountain take an old
operating system
booting up take it
from
me forget it I'm never leaving
again nothing is gained
in forgetting but a space to fill
that was already
there I feel your fingernails
a millimeter away from
my back for so long
they grow into my skin
I promise to be fraught
because tense
and ribbed because
tense and barbed
because terse and
thorned because
thorough and
glued to the window the to better see the highway
out the window I close the traincar
curtain around my head & in
this theater I write:

Say goodnight, little theater.

my lungs
they're filling up again can't you see
the fires burning on
their near edges?

SPLEEN SCREEN

I'll write as if composing a song.
I'll put a happy word, followed by a sad word,
like a C major followed by an A minor.

Sunlight. Dead body.

Nope.

The effect isn't the same.

(Sometimes the sunlight makes me want to cry.)

(Sometimes a dead body is the happiest thing in the world.)

POEM

Many nights with many,
many doubts. Many, many. So
many. So, so, so many. So many.
So, so many. So, so many. How
is one supposed to so true as
true? With many, so, so many doubts,
many times every time, many
nights every night.

Kit Schluter is the author of Cartoons and has recently translated books by bruno darío and Copi.