i've been designing tattoos for myself since the
onset of summer. not sure if i'll ever
put them on my skin, but it's an escape
from schoolwork, and
it's all the poetry i have left in me for now.
what do i see?
two swallows.
what do they mean? it was a tradition
for sailors to get one swallow tattooed
when they set out to sea, the second
only when they returned home.
sun and moon.
what do they mean? yin and yang.
balance, and power. sharpness
and softness.
道可道非常道
what do they mean? the first lines of
the dao de jing. a paradox.
"the path that can be named as such
is not the enduring true path."
I remember
when the flashlight
turned the palm into a canvas --
the close light baring
an x-ray of the earliest sketch of us -
bones smoothed of their joints -
like the osteal lines
of a neighborhood beneath the moon
relegated to the idea of itself
as we turn into dreams.
They were false
the way the sound of the ocean
inside the conch
was really behind my ear,
rushing through my veins
with the same eagerness
to hear
itself
as it is kept
lighter in its blue
than the deep shades it holds of itself,
an inkwell spitting forth
bits
that always come back
in search
of themselves.
there, beast-brassed ruin, wide roaming
from north on a train, from sunset wild
deep summer reds
eyes large lakes, tinted with steel
rising like steam into night-high neon
body in glow
day of roses,
so much good leaving
left to go; good children
in cobblestone
street full of swallowed souls,
good children disappeared, good leaving
left to go; in cobblestones
another day without roses
left to go.
airplane. ocean. midnight. and home.
cause you know the truth hurts, but secrets kill—
can't help thinking that i love it still
I saw my own city glittering black and rose gold,
the dark sunset pastel, a color stolen for a moment.
The people who keep their lights on while they sleep
they keep them on for me, where I watch from the sky,
looking from below like a slowed-down shooting star.
back here, here, do you know what i mean by here?
you all feel it, too. like an apartment that used to be filled with
immortals who disappeared in the doorway and
the carpet begs them back, to hear footsteps through the wall,
to smell their perfume,
ghost-riding in a cabrio by LancelotPrice, literature
Literature
ghost-riding in a cabrio
the streets of a darkened city
businesses closed windows black reflective
images of ourselves in cars passing slowly
or locked in a late night grid
out looking for clubs and parties
streetlights and headlights hit our faces
we look back at ourselves in windowglass
my hair stands up
just exactly so
the way I want it to
the style so current in this our day
how long how long o gods of fashion
will this be our lives
me and my pals
my buddies
my lovers
how long will we be the current thing?
are we even real?
ghost-riding in a cabrio by Lancelot Price 2017 July 29/30
my resistance breathes
an emissive and
relatively constant warm
against the voltage
of your supply
a kind current, soft enough
to resemble alive
to welcome home
the sway of your hertz
in waves and spaces i frequent
and your exhaust
is quiet, like mine
homelights low
like away on vacation
but not
we're electric in blankets bunched
in pillows fallen,
in the scent of summer dust
burnt invisibly aloft
from the orange of autumn's coil
she starves herself for the aesthetic of it.
they say,
wintergirl, it's spring now,
but she is buried in regrets or snowflakes or ashes
they all burn
and her skin isn't ready to forgive her.
these rivers will not thaw,
crawling up the bones pushing through her skin
waiting for the hot spring(s),
but they're all asleep.
her breathing is getting slower
and her body is growing colder
please eat something
but she keeps counting calories
when she should be counting stars.