The View

i.
I had a gun it was shaped like love
except it didn’t tremble.

It gave me warmth as I walked across campus,
concealed under my eyelashes.
My looks could kill.

And peace was a white thing.
An enemy in blue jeans standing on the corner of Snelling with a raw food smoothie and a sign thing.
I couldn’t hear anyone
over the nuclear bomb in the room
so I yelled for the hell of it,
sent my words out like kamikaze bombers
or gardeners in the wrong garden,
rocking plants suckin on radiation water,
dying fatherly deaths.

I was ready for war,
even as my brass knuckled belly grew large.
The revolution was pregnant
and armed

and unarmed

and armed...
the color of Joseph’s coat in my naked embrace,
a soft sword
as he saved me,
and i split open, imagining
how we’re gonna win this
with his skin my skin and our breathless connection.


ii.
I had a lover he kissed like columbus.
A tongue like three ships
and he smelled like used cannons
but he bore gifts.

We threw so many starfish back into our bed
we skinny dipped slept with good intentions
until the waters churned with his deep dark curses
and I had to wake him before he murdered
someone in his dreams.

He has 9 scars and only 7 stories.

He went to jail he got out of jail he called me from a pay phone
said my eyes were like all four seasons
and he buckled in the parking lot talking bout
spring.


iii.
I had a son he thought I was the sun.
He woke up and looked over
and if I rose the day had begun.

Some mornings I was so angry
i burnt myself to a crisp
and my charred lips
could not even offer a
faint kiss
without breaking.

So we slept in,
letting life fake it.
Gonna be brave
just gimme a minute.
I dropped cast iron fists on my forehead,
hope somewhere in the squeezed hot middle of them

and my son,
who does not miss a bird,
a single ray through the curtain,
or a heart worth breaking,
cocked his head like a horizon
and squinted through my grip.

He’s still there,
smiling on the bedside, waking.

monsoon memories of leif

19
20
feet propped up on the dash
filling your little white car
with blue grey smoke
sunroof opened
to let the night in
"the sky is never black... its deep blue"
everyone's asleep inside
but we're outside
inside your car
drinking beer
smoking cigarettes
and feeling so full of knowing
and yet so new
to this world
thats hanging overhead

and you tell me how
youre gonna play a song
thats gonna rip my heart right outside my
arse
and you push tape deck play

and this becomes the song for then
and the years to follow there
lying on the rooftop
drinking wine
smoking cigars like we're refined
speaking poems
and everything we think we know

who spends their 20s lying on castle rooftops
up above the trees
in the middle of the night
crawling out windows
listening to ben
staring at the stars
watching satellites spin in orbit
to the point of something beyond terrestrial

here below the cars - another friday
somewhere beneath the seoul
the sky has gone from night to monsoon grey

knowing now how ive been
carried

home


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9I9M4H9n_I


kim thompson. friday. 23 july 2010. seoul. s.korea

IOU

I failed to post a poem last week because I was busy releasing this. I fail to post one this week because I don't want to post an embarrassing first draft of a poem I care about--it's a poem about getting manslaughtered on my way home through downtown.

pair

we're a pair of headphones
held together by a melody
we're a pair of handcuffs
held together by a felony

we're a pair of earrings
held together by a connection
we're a pair of headlights
held together by a direction

we're a pair of chopsticks
held together by a hand
we're a pair of crutches
held together by a stand

we're a pair of dice
held together by a chance
we're a pair of shoes
held together by a dance

we're a pair of lungs
held together by a breath
we're a pair of tombstones
held together by a death

we're a pair of contracts
held together by a decision
we're a pair of eyes
held together by a vision

love