Scantily Clad Press, 2009

Acknowledgments

“Bear”, “Meat”, “Hammers”, “We”, “And”, and “Crossing” previously appeared in Lamination Colony

“Skin” previously appeared in Sawbuck “Lumps”, “Dollars”, “Spilling”, “Constructions”, and “Dean” previously appeared in elimae

Much thanks to the editors of these publications.

Bear-Love

When the fallout hits we will be hibernating—sleep being the only place these sentiments can take us. Paw my bear belly. Let loose the salmon. We will run on pads/claws stunting flip-like or flippant. Bear words are less than holy and more than not. Find me snoring by the west cave wall we call brown wall. There the glow will be impossible to bear. Forget Aesop’s fables and eat some silence with me. Spoon-fed and well-read we reclined.

Fallout Your skin is my skin sang the gnarled trees. The ears we took for granted. The purple air inserted rhythmically head-side. Pick the dry cleaning up with your talons. Are we birds yet? Can you birdsong at my funeral? O the syntax we lost in the transitory periods! Use two words liberally and appliqué my face onto my lower thigh. This is not a test my quiet failure. This is an exam. The yellow does not wear you well and the family screaming.

Skin A train quilt. That is, a panel with a train moving westward. Pick me up by my bootstraps and bitch-slap my tear stained face. We must protect this house from angry athletes. Rorschach my upper extremities with your evangelical hatred. Spittle forming a steady pool in your chin divot, you hand me your resignation. Don’t you hate when people read personal notes aloud? Pick up those boots. Train-scuff, the most serious kind. Quilt-less sleep.

Panel Nothing but chair-songs, she said. She, board-style. This is academic Rigor mortis. Sidestep my too-high chair. Lick my face with your rock candy tongue. Feel the burn baby. Let me remind you. I can’t eat with these sutures. Indian sunburn up and down her arm. That’s the Natural American Spirit! A committee. Render me: useless, a judgment, a drawing:: a boy, half hair, half molten, tree-tight, lite-brite, yard sale-style. We are wholesale deformities.

Style What hat fits this heat? I would like to be ocean liner for a day. Keep the tears to a minimum. We are crying softly into coarse pillows. Don’t let the dirt in, oh no. You let it in. Coat my gelatin face with dirt blush and let us have a pinecone war. We are the children of meth clinics and the math of torture tactics. We are the tolerant generation. Why no makeup today? The maquiladora factories kept me awake all night. We must protect this house. Breakdown.

Liner Sink-style left of the ocean. We must protect this pool from angry politicians. Stereotype man says line-her up and let-her rip. Write me a letter that contains:

Angry A rumbling in the holly bushes. A livening. She said he said a mighty mess was made. We are the bakers. This, our sugar. Confectioner-style. Powder me up and let’s get going. A prickle for a nickel. Don’t be cute. Emanating from the bushes: this is my demesne, leave! She said, a lisp, how cute. Don’t be. Powder songs, jingles, definite edges blurred. We are the most reliable narrators in this domain. A berry. A poison-berry. We are the bakers of the most remarkable boysenberry pies you ever seen and don’t worry ‘bout that spill or the child under the sofa trembling.

Mess A sociolinguistic fucking. Hear the cowbell ringin’. Out, our hands! A too-moist towelette. A reddening. We are herding nicely. Hear that? A toe-letting. A moist blood-letting. This pallor fits you well, cow-love. The talons that grab, programmed poorly and pinching. We are letting our reddening down. Tow-style we herd.

Reddening Our face, stubborn farce. What skin will we wear today? What porous patch, hollow-holed can we stretch over lumps. Fleshy. Paint me clown-nose red if you please. Please. A letter was found in my retina yesterday, it read. The bears are back and flipping still. Clown-love, what is real? I’d tell you government-style. Red faces. Immeasurably downcast.

Lumps We got too political on the spiral slide. Fell out top-side. Sign the suburban lawns. Let them read: Bear-rides: dollars. Blood on the grass, let them read. A bear, human-faced read in England: the licks we lost on the carousel, the jingles we abstained. From here on out we grocery-list our desires. I passion-fruit you. My cavities on display, we under-whelm the forest that fails us.

Dollars A radiant smile. A beaming. We are cell morphing, splitting, and swerving. How much you ask. We rupture the bank. West-style and spilling. Over our daily limits. Can we meat our minimum payment? A bear, gymnastical, circus-style and violining. A momentary diversion, deafening. Hold that phone, cellular! Again, bush-style, right-side, we must protect this house. Wear! The bear gesturing. We break the bank. Down.

Spilling If it is a question of sleeping, then we do. We complex the complex with shy effects. Skin-shades drawn taut over grandiloquence. Phrasal constructions. That we fell out of and into. That which we fell out. Bear says to bear the topsy-turviness of –isms. We read into the dream-states. We inter them. We rupture the rapture, plastic-harmonica-soliloquy-style. Of all the days to interrupt this was the

Constructions The tipsy turbines of republicanism. We chartered a biplane. Ratcheted up the altitude. It is a question of melting. We deem this animal kingdom fit. We dean the halls of academia. For you love, we scrap all the metals. The statue coppers (statute permitting) especially. What we wouldn’t give (a hand, a break, a flying fuck) to make this. Hole again, and falling. Flat-footing and edging. We surface tension the plate. The heat we are devout to mete.

Dean He topes the scotch with tardiness and shambles. Gives lectures to a bear. Says we will remember to manifest ourselves. We will clean our teeth with our teeth. Bear says to bear we must protect this house from manifesto selves. A solemn chain gang, a licorice snap. President Dean on the prowl and we must keep a low profile. A note: rally for something and two honey pots in the amphitheater. I haven’t been lately, myself. You bear-smile, rows upon rows. Teeth-style. There is nothing left to growl at, a bear, apoplectic, growls. We are roughly transliterating this narrative. Barely.

Bear A tearful training. An emphatic iridescence. Bear says that which we flipped. The turbulent tops, our hats. Picket-style, sign upon fence, we drop that which we bear. Bring the meat sheet says bear, Dean-side. Let us exploriate the rivers, cartilage style. We bend. We limber. It is a question of elasticity

Meat It is a hot plate, that which we surface tension. When the simmering begins we will whisper silent revolutions. We will construct many fine lassos, bear-coat-style. We give our hands to the hammers. We say to Bear, when the fighting hits we will be boiling. We scrap all the statues (metal permitting). We mete the scraps with sidelong glances and scarlet work gloves.

Hammers If it is a question of elasticity, it is a question of dream-states. We will meet our fallout. Gently stroke its mangy mane. The tapes of tambourines looped in the foreground. We will move like shadows. Like –isms. Bear will say to bear will say to we, the sentence ends here. The interment, the torment of dangling. Bear will have spoken complex-style. There is nothing left to growl at. It is not a question of prepositions. The bears will gymnasticate this animal kingdom.

We Are the inheritors of a shit-stained-shoe. Alliterate sans illiterate tendencies. Consummate this foretold order with less consonance than ignorance. Embrace the bank, the payment West-style. Protect this house we are less and less fond of. Bear that which is not of this animal kingdom. Smile at the lights, the shells of beetles crunching underfoot. Are cell morphing biometrical-style. Are where we will be when the hibernation realizes itself.

And Too political is a means to silence the disenchanted. Either side we choose we will fallout in the same singed skin puddle. The suburban lawns say nothing to us. They say: Go Team! /Cat Crossing! /Support our Troops! /Home is where the heart is! Bear-rides will never be free because that which fucks like fascism might be. Blood might be useful when the drought self-actualizes. Anthropomorphism is useful in-so-far as utility exists. Loss is what it is. That is, actual. Jingles cannot be abstained grammatically or in reality, but the language will take care of its own and so on and so on. We might grocery list our desires in such a way that they can be bought and sold and we already have and we are actual and contrarian. My cavities can only underwhelm on Tuesdays and select Sundays. I apologize for this inconvenience.

Crossing No one laughs at these phrases. I am holier than you. Pore upon pore. These lumps remind us where the name goes. Clown-love, you came red-nosed to get at it. This letter. We were detained, we were detached. Our pores grew large, they grew minds, expanded. We were dirt poor and wise. We released downcasts on the airwaves, cancer-style. I cell-split you! You hair rootless! This, said the man in the box, is real. We hop the scotch, Dean-style. Our eyes on hiatus, we see the punch-line approaching.

Detained The cells that contain, that fail to fissure. The cell-walls buzzing, An alarm In utero. A reddening. We are without words. Either way we will find ourselves puddle-side, peddling our fleshy. The talons that grab. Always programmed poorly and pinching.

Programmed In the wax plant with the violent quickness. He said she said a mighty was made. We are the makers, that. Coin in the eye-hole, we say, thirty seconds, thirty seconds. Echoing off of the machinery, (well waxed), this is my, leave! Abstinence and musical chairs swim in our nasal cavities. A program, a deprogram. We are the makers of the most remarkable deprogram you ever seen and don’t worry ‘bout that slick or the mechanized worker screaming alarm into a faceless void.

Waxed We must protect this spreading slick from angry politicians. When the ancients come we will be posing and beaming. Let it split sideways. Let it laser-style. We unidirection the beam that fails us. Again I say to you, (we implicit), the letter, I have the letter! We unpack the words, phrases, allegories of our time. An allegory hacking. A fluid spill. Zeitgeist-style.

Implicit The tears that cool, craving and craven. The ducts that fail to warm, stove-style. We say to we, (in memoriam of Bear), the sandpaper-pillows, the dirt-cakes inserted war-side. The arbitrariness of makeup. We are syntaxing our adulthood and reverting to the realm of the possible. The actual never living waged anyone. Never pillow-topped the beds of billions. We will be there, childlike, beaming, and verbing, when the nouns hit.

Reverting It never was a question of musical chairs (all elasticity aside). From this board we can see the chutes and ladders. The colors a reenactment of betrayal. The piles of flesh swarming at the base. The actuality of chutes. The finality of systems. Academia wasn’t the answer. We say if it tastes of sugar it must be sugar. We say if it tastes of sugar it must be rot. My ear sutured to your cheek, you hear what I say, and I mouth-less, say much. We eye the horizon, our wounds festering. The entry point changes but the crater remains the same. That is, removed. Render me: a solution:: a revolution::: a man, half man, half woman, half molten, tree-tight, lite-brite.

Answer A train comforter. That is, a security, a firm bond. We west this house from angry angrys. We false flag down a passing vehicle, say is it about the letter, is it a question of notes shifting, a shoe stain, a bedding disaster? Vehicle says to we, accelerate! We literal the meaning, speed-style. Flat footing the pavement that cracks and chutes. We eschew our boots, the strappy monsters. We must protect this house, squatter-style.

Literal We communal our skin. Grant our ears that which we lack. The purple patches that mutate, the stern resistance. A system-sponsored-mutilation-camp. We birdsong through a pinhole, a forgotten flesh flute. The sutures were never enough. This is not a test. This is a self exam. Succeed me love.

Love When the fallout hits, we will be alert. Alertness being the only place these revelations can take us. We will make our dénouement. We must protect this house from this house. We must become limber, malleable. We will forget the ways we knew each other. Forget the hair we loved to adorn. Forget the ears we never used. Forget the mouths we ate the others with. We, meaty things, will forget that we knew what forgetfulness was. We will grow many pieces. Burn the ladders, the chutes. The words that ensnare, clever and seditious. We will not be anti-, we will be. We will hold bear words dear. That is, we will abandon them. The glow will be ubiquitous. It will be we, love.

 

Ryan Downey lives in the middle-of-nowhere, Amuricah, where he participates in the Notre Dame M.F.A. program. He misses Georgia and the sun. He has published poems and other text-trap objects in elimae, Lamination Colony, Sawbuck, Word Riot and elsewhere. He can often be found online via email at rdowney1@nd.edu.