Exquisite Corpse - Issue 3
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The Snow Poems
by Dave Brinks

 

august days

clamp ink-shaped morning to your forehead
roll it around on your tongue
and go for long walks
in january air
where proper hungry wolves
are pawing their noses in the snow


home is in the feet

for Daniel Finnigan

I'm in one of my dauphine street moods
sidewalk walking
thru cities
where pigeons live
rolled up like pajamas
worker hammers smack 2x4s into place
9am light tricks the mind
into a slow cigarette
it's nice to be a balcony with green eyes
explosion on the lips
trinket wonders
snipe from the gutters
elegant and rough depending on what
the occasion demands
today is the early spring
of early winter
I am addressing you to you
home is in the feet
staring out of a photo-machine forever


in the meat the snow

give me your slow blood
the color of broken doves
my faith lay in those lips
whose lies smell of heaven
you who go on being born
despite geometry
god & the cruel motion
of stars aimed
at this thin dime of earth
in the meat the snow
is father to a madness that never sleeps
a loveliness like a thousand miles
of bad road
we descend like sad butterflies
over the wet places
waiting for the perfume temperature of genius
drop by drop
in torched light
our pretty wings leave dark stains
muscled on floors of infinite sleep
there the world lives alone
in a roomful of busted music
boxes that bump into each other
shod & crowned with sick flowers
the sound signs itself into a noose
gulping tears
ancestor ratios
how the mouths we kiss
drink from our own sweet skulls
the thoughts we never told each other
placented bursts of prayer
scissor the horizon with
cutouts of thunderfold


the weather of heaven

the heart you are
wearing its little fur hat
sweeps out the odors
of love from rooms
tougher than flesh
and I am more often
never anywhere
but close to home


in winter

I love my animal heart
my blooded heart
longing has nothing to do with it
people of the world took me
for their own
when they smiled & called me friend
I offered them a silver-shaped tear
when they offered me love
that was not love
I led them to the golden dustheap
counted my litter
and ate them one by one
laugh if you can sleep if you must
I used their hands for antlers
and glued them to the weather
inside my head


the infinite disorder of prayers

under high superstitious ceilings
sleep is a frightful rock
a dungeon of paradise
where I find my old self
waiting for me
the head floats by the ankles
I feel the bare room
trembling yellow in its labors
busted souls traveling
through the world at this hour
get recycled
and a little less desperate
like the difference between god
and bad information
I wish everything slender of flower
I wish gray light turning green
on dazzling snows

 

crime & breakfast

morning is a strange city
we visit it in mirrors
room to room
banging cigarettes around
like crime & breakfast
are the two great joys in life
the head gets turned on
one staggers quickly
between moves
somehow the excitement
only seems to last
so long as there is the risk
of affection

 

the sleep of dusk

sometimes years I am circused
by delicate children
playground
sounds
the head swirls smooth dirt
laughter stills the brevity
of yellow
umbrella rain
holds the eyes in braids
measure it in your ear
hear the mood of the trees
sewn from the button
of your child heart
bounce the sound
off the highest cloudtops
all secret knowledge is built
like a fallen roof
where the birds fly in
I costume the air
by the heavens of these worlds
each telephone pole sundown
brings a quiet music
windswept silence
dreams of a crooked fence
my body is the sleep of dusk
smiling age nine


the sky grows a hand

thoreau himself reportedly decided before kindergarten
he wouldn't go to heaven, because he couldn't take along
his lemonade shed. this squared the question: the city of
sleepy angels had lemons of dreamless hands, and a finger
for each ring, but was it art? like so many fickle gods the
sun felt its face on the snow. there was no bad weather.
there was only different kinds of good weather. henry
was four yrs old that day & shook his hammer at the sky.


terra incognita

the law of chance is against prophecy
believe in your brain
laughter crackles like hell-fire
to kill a roach for example
with godlike indifference
or that loaves of sunken fishes
are both sad
& spectacular at age 20
but I'm 32 now
and love affairs are cruel
they fill the hours with inferior christs
dark aspirations
& blow the mind into a dazzling void
later remembering this
I'll go plenty mad

 

smiling over the waves

smiling over the waves
I saw god hanging up the telephone
laughing adios
in a pale fuzzy coat
his face was a flower
stuffed with snow
I decided to take a bath
but went to the movies instead
& all the bathtub
hair in the world couldn't
save us from drowning


buzzard luck

I hardly ever think of May 3, 1967
when mama's hips squeezed into a scream
and I came moaning my head out her belly
in the hallway of baylor hospital
she thought she had a tumor in her leg
her doctor said she had a tumor
but not in her leg
we spent our first winter in dallas
then sold the house
and all the snow with it
today it's new orleans and august
where rain is faster than snow


bride in cold tears

often I find myself being swizzled
by silent revolts
mad dwarves live in the pink
forest of my clothes
because of this
people look at me with great sadness
but not on their account
I think of my favorite color
all of them
like the days themselves
moments like certain flowers
bloom empty in the hand
if the instincts are right
the sweetest meat
should be around the claws


thinking in utero

"the intention of the organism is to survive"
-Ted Berrigan


I dance the seven days
live lump turquoise weather
ambrosia the snow
trick rope suicides
turn tears into a neck of grief
you have your four hands
in the melt of reach
a vast island sea filled moon
I sail through concussion sleep
pawning angelic notions
for a future cigarette
loyalty to anything or anyone
except a faithful anonymous
performance
is hard to maintain
O expert kisses I wish you
were more here
the air is singing to be born
on a stolen landscape
all my eyes see
blue possible sound
the beard of a god whose hand
strikes blue possible sound
now or even


dream hands

if you have a piece of silver rocket hose
either by means of a map
or with a needle in it
you can walk right out of the scene
into the warm blue velvet
part of your life
light up a cigarette
peel yourself into an orange
and symphony an entire
language of snow

members.aol.com/lavink99

davebrinks@aol.com

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