Charles Borkhuis
Bulletproof
go scream your face off
go egg-blind suck the light off a bulb
won’t do you any good
me neither
we’re both looking for a grace note
a thought before it settles into a thing
or the lump of a person
that instant when the stones in a stream murmur
never born never die
and we both jump off a bridge into another body
the you inside me the pre-thought
bouncing off the rock face
no translation necessary
is this love
or are my feet pointed in the wrong direction
brains splatter paint
intimates grow teeth branching fingers small flames
years of twining and whining separately or together
hands on the table
so no one gets away with murder
so drink me milky moonlight backflip
I’m calling your bluff she said
you’re nothing but an ape in space
holding a tiny couch in the palm of your hand
already my eyelids are getting heavy
count backwards he said
slowly from ten to one
one being unconditional love
then tell me you mean it for the thousandth time
who escapes the word’s headlights
billboard prophecies playing across my shoe
what separates brings you together
they’ll make a movie of us yet
robbing banks in our eighties
you’ll be an overnight sensation
still wet between the syllables
so meaning may stick to a moment’s passing
before our teeth begin to rattle
a baby’s bullethead comes in all sizes
squeezing through a scream canal
too much to remember how we got here
empty as one so we may later lean
into each other’s closed eyes
and dangle our legs over the great abyss
a perilous two-step
keeps the body in situation
breathless as it were
the dance of newspaper in the wind
before words settle into things
the me inside you
holding on by a thread
Disjecta
small fist of a heart
not worth pissing out of
not worth the words that come back on you
like boney ghosts lurking in general tsu’s chicken
one regurgitates the world on demand
and inspects clusters of colorful disjecta
one surfs information clouds for a clue to suffering
that doesn’t lead back to you
the traumatized guy in the 42 regular
I see you squirming in the back row
trying to take into account the swirl and gravitas
of supernovas and baby black holes that go on
without us unless they’re buried inside us
like everything else or am I projecting
***
no need to travel far to get lost in the middle
the scales stretch effortlessly beyond our grasp
which guarantees there’s always something to do
no need to introduce transcendence
and run away with the moon
there’s plenty of indifference to go around
my old friend mr lucky appears caught up
in a whirlpool of enigmas orbiting his widow’s peak
where did he last bury his favorite bone
refusing the food offered
our hunger is encouraged to eat itself word by word
why not remove that delirious shoe
from your mouth and put it on the other foot
you are by no means the only one starving
***
this is your body
caught up in the gears and grimy teeth
of some sinister apparatus
this is your heart floating in a rowboat of blood
another day hammered between the eyes
a coral snake crawls through the fault lines
there’s no danger that the cracks in being you
will always escape me
where are you now
struggling through the muscle and nerve
of a certain syntax how to say it
in no uncertain terms
maybe you’re just another private dick
lost in the laundry bin of soiled dreams
***
I was following the money trail
when her serious décolleté and tough
newscaster questions kept us panting
on the end of a leash so much for desire
but where’s the truth buttered if not in ambiguity
dogs of course don’t know they’re going to die
and are happier for it
nevertheless all dogs must die one day
spiraling into a pit of hair
suddenly the world disappears
for one as if for all and metaphor
miraculous in its monstrous pointer
singles you out
I know my love made you like this
dependent on scraps from the table
where has mr lucky buried his telepathic bone
truth will make you unhappy in the end
but the dog in you can’t help digging it
go scream your face off
go egg-blind suck the light off a bulb
won’t do you any good
me neither
we’re both looking for a grace note
a thought before it settles into a thing
or the lump of a person
that instant when the stones in a stream murmur
never born never die
and we both jump off a bridge into another body
the you inside me the pre-thought
bouncing off the rock face
no translation necessary
is this love
or are my feet pointed in the wrong direction
brains splatter paint
intimates grow teeth branching fingers small flames
years of twining and whining separately or together
hands on the table
so no one gets away with murder
so drink me milky moonlight backflip
I’m calling your bluff she said
you’re nothing but an ape in space
holding a tiny couch in the palm of your hand
already my eyelids are getting heavy
count backwards he said
slowly from ten to one
one being unconditional love
then tell me you mean it for the thousandth time
who escapes the word’s headlights
billboard prophecies playing across my shoe
what separates brings you together
they’ll make a movie of us yet
robbing banks in our eighties
you’ll be an overnight sensation
still wet between the syllables
so meaning may stick to a moment’s passing
before our teeth begin to rattle
a baby’s bullethead comes in all sizes
squeezing through a scream canal
too much to remember how we got here
empty as one so we may later lean
into each other’s closed eyes
and dangle our legs over the great abyss
a perilous two-step
keeps the body in situation
breathless as it were
the dance of newspaper in the wind
before words settle into things
the me inside you
holding on by a thread
Disjecta
small fist of a heart
not worth pissing out of
not worth the words that come back on you
like boney ghosts lurking in general tsu’s chicken
one regurgitates the world on demand
and inspects clusters of colorful disjecta
one surfs information clouds for a clue to suffering
that doesn’t lead back to you
the traumatized guy in the 42 regular
I see you squirming in the back row
trying to take into account the swirl and gravitas
of supernovas and baby black holes that go on
without us unless they’re buried inside us
like everything else or am I projecting
***
no need to travel far to get lost in the middle
the scales stretch effortlessly beyond our grasp
which guarantees there’s always something to do
no need to introduce transcendence
and run away with the moon
there’s plenty of indifference to go around
my old friend mr lucky appears caught up
in a whirlpool of enigmas orbiting his widow’s peak
where did he last bury his favorite bone
refusing the food offered
our hunger is encouraged to eat itself word by word
why not remove that delirious shoe
from your mouth and put it on the other foot
you are by no means the only one starving
***
this is your body
caught up in the gears and grimy teeth
of some sinister apparatus
this is your heart floating in a rowboat of blood
another day hammered between the eyes
a coral snake crawls through the fault lines
there’s no danger that the cracks in being you
will always escape me
where are you now
struggling through the muscle and nerve
of a certain syntax how to say it
in no uncertain terms
maybe you’re just another private dick
lost in the laundry bin of soiled dreams
***
I was following the money trail
when her serious décolleté and tough
newscaster questions kept us panting
on the end of a leash so much for desire
but where’s the truth buttered if not in ambiguity
dogs of course don’t know they’re going to die
and are happier for it
nevertheless all dogs must die one day
spiraling into a pit of hair
suddenly the world disappears
for one as if for all and metaphor
miraculous in its monstrous pointer
singles you out
I know my love made you like this
dependent on scraps from the table
where has mr lucky buried his telepathic bone
truth will make you unhappy in the end
but the dog in you can’t help digging it