Poetry
Tuesday, September 14th, 2010
When The Liver Beats Like A Heart
Matt Sven Calvert
it was only six days ago i felt you smile
heard your fingers spell the words.
saw you say,
you forced me to stay in love with your memory
like the soda machine at the fire station
"if you walk upside down on a cloud," she said.
"you could look right over the edge and talk to god."
saw you say,
move your heart to stay up there with those clouds
floating high above our sleeping bodies
our cotton candy corpses, close to him
"Your MELD score is still low. You're doing well."
outside of your house there's a floating brass frame
holding everything you claimed to be true
holding everything you built yourself
and you said,
look across from the death bed.
turn your head away
my hands are cracking open
you don't want to see, do you?
the truth is the only thing that's ever scared me was a song
your voice
inside a church
midnight choirs
"let me feel your hearts," she asked.
dual beating system incomplete
beeping, chirping like a bird
lepers in florida have aqua tinted lungs
but
in California
there's a white sun out there
i'm desperate to hold it
feel it
know it
be defeated by it.
turn me into the ashtray of a million cigarettes
smother me with poison and smoke
burn me alive for this
"You have time.”
dry and crack my blood
wait for the organs to harden
and rip them from beneath my fried flesh
snap my bones like twigs and inspect the blackened marrow
my hardened liver
covered with lacerations and scars
crush it.
but my heart.
freeze it. feed off it. break it into little pieces.
plant it.
let it replicate, regrow into red blood plants and trees
twist and curl for a million years and it will
overtake the highways
the skyscrapers
the crops
the earth
it was my death day.
so i saw you say, "it's the 27th. welcome to the club."
happy birthday, love.
*****
Tuesday, July 6th, 2010
Borehead
Matt Sven Calvert
green/pink veils were lifted and swung away as I peered and was led astray
you always have such wonderful ideas!
You say we'll build a fort with that pillow, and some couch cushions
a couple of blankets and we'll need that toy keyboard
and outside the message is spread to all the villagers a hundred miles away from Kenya
visitors have come in a large white moving tank they say it's money and food
everyone runs from the bush / they're going to show a moving picture but the chief turns them away
who knows of such things? Long hair and too many coverings
they brought a message of the american god but now they go away
and tomorrow i'll go to work breaking rocks to build a road and the government gives us rice for pay
but you're slamming glasses of orange juice and laughing and laughing and smiling and
hitler just needs someone to tell him he matters
and
“I've killed hundreds of Nazis before,” the near silent demon said.
She doesn't move but infinite teeth bear a path through bloody mountain valleys
the infinite teeth have ever living faces on each surface with little eyes and noses
they all wink and know the same secret but you want that fucking cupcake
but still he rambles and says, “I'm here, but the rest of the universe is over there.”
i'm running through the yard the grass is greener than the inside of a womb
don't worry, everything is ok. The sky isn't brown and those aren't explosions
you look worried! But I have snacks and we can make out when we get back
jump in this ditch, look, they're going to surround us.. I might have to leave you here!
But you're a fucking puppet.. no really. I just realized this so i'm pulling my hand out of your ass
you'll stay in the ditch, all you'll see is grass and this dirty water for a while
maybe someone will come by and pick you up
but I have to get the hell out of here
cookies and needles and thin blue fabric suits can't keep Parker Brooks down
a billion eyes stare from your left pinkie nail up at you and you wonder why it stings
when you breathe like barb wire in your lungs / not a cigarette in years and organic food every day
oven has dinged, the baked potato is done i should get the butter out but I seem to be drooling on the wall
*****
Rotten Avocados Covered With Toothpaste
Matt Sven Calvert
i don't live.
i don't die.
i don't march through blood soaked
fields
i don't run while the mortars
rip
the ground apart
all around me.
i snort.
i drink.
i smoke.
i laugh.
i vomit.
i bleed from the mouth
like an
infant
begging, swirling whirlpools of pavement
stained crimson on
the white lines
driving to your house with thoughts of
enjoying a smoke and maybe
playing a little grab ass
but instead
i am parked on the side of the road
i am 24 and
going to die
i'm not a
soldier
i'm a
drunk
addict
puking his life away
fueling the highway
with
blood.
the soul floats like smoke out
from the heart
all around me.
no guts for a
bullet
only a
bottle.
*****