Hermit Kingdom (last section of Wonderland)

I have been revising like crazy for the past two weeks. Finally today I also have additions. I have to subtract before I can add. But the danger is substracting too much. But it isn't really a danger. What's dangerous is not writing and thinking at all.

I wish I could get blogger to format all the spacial concerns. Ah well. Here it is all left justified.


6. DANCING ON EGGSHELLS

Rancho High School

looking in mirror
for the first time
and seeing
a white face

suit of iron
head down

just keep
keep on
surviving

walking
to school
and a rock out
the window
from a passing
car grazes
my head

Running the track—
wanting to go
all the way
and get a letter-
man jacket

spasms &
new designs

mantras scribbed
on bedroom walls

future text by in-
direct
design

climb inside
with monkey apathy
and look for the moon key

small fists beat
out a rhythm
on the glass table

diaphanous memories
monstrous memories

first kiss and the brush
of skin

mother rocking
against the bed
and popping
out
another child
father
crawling
around on the
roofs of casinos

repeat
1,2,3,4

left
right

pre-
sumptious
distress
of the future

the pattern has not yet emerged
in a key repetition of phases


7. HERMIT KINGDOM

Two names on a bag and the weight
was too great, and, unloading
was needed to fly

leaving out
& leaving
in
&
living out of two bags

motion
sickness
gripped
me

boat-sore, throat-sore, whip-sore, heat-sore, dread-sore,
crowd-sore, uppidity-sore

what was the
score
on
the sidestreets
&
back
alleys

of Itaewon with
desperation
looking
for Russians &
foreign
food: nan
bread, all-u-
can-eat
nan
bread

and in Hong-
dae a little
night music
and puddles
of puke
in cracked
cement

bonfire in the park
with Korean punks
and mosh pits
and meat-on-a-stick
to absorb the heat

you do not eat our bread or salt
our veggies and paste sticks
to ribs and air hangs
with weariness
in the indigo mouth
gone pre-historic and what young
shoot grows behind closed
doors with friends knocking
over the furniture and what
light dispersed
in the bosom
of a frozen future

8. In the Shell

blogged
it, bogged it, blotted
it, bonged it

let a small proportion of the lords
become members of the house

enter into the Christ-stare
in my 9th year
of bottled
passion

house of common
lords and common
madness and sexual
suicide

walking tingle-toed through
the streets of Greensboro with Will
and Ezra and mushrooms in
a post-avant haze

what I’d like to do said Will is flesh
out quality and extract the protein
without causing regulatory hurdles

the yolk in the egg whipped
out in the mixing bowl
of memory

and, yeah, full page apologies
for the, for the, for the
lost buttons and creamy yellow
discharge of duties
shelled-out waddled
walk toward the future

9. Hermit Kingdom

The load was too great and so I unpacked and unpacked
and still it was too heavy

near Seoul, 3 am, a teenager and his bodyguard with dragon tatoo on back invite me
for san gyup sal broken English Gangsta Rap speech and a big knife in the bag

hello, hello, what’s your name?

cross-legged with wobbly chopsticks picking at crunchy kimchee and knocking
back the soju

drip . . . drip . . . drip . . .

Goshiwon

packed bus full of giggling schoolgirls to Gyeongin National University stomach twisted and rotting . . .

returning at night to the smell of damp rice in the communal kitchen and a boy wants
to learn English and helps me work the washer clothes hang above my bed on a metal bar can’t escape the confusion the lofty side turns into stale buildings cracks in the ceiling moving towards me don’t know what’s waiting in the wings when to switch off the light and what new dreams will pull my strings . . .

Christine from Liverpool and coffee at the end of the street in small cups and snow fal-ling on our shoulders for a romantic kiss and fucking it up cause I can’t choose
between two girls one from Liverpool and one from Dublin the old England and Ireland divide made flesh and whether to go native or sink into the comforts of familiar
accents and whether the right to know precludes the knower and just keep cutting
the worm of time wanting to lose it all and pack it up and start all over again

on my bed
with music
from laptop
& every song
shuffles
a pack
of
memories

flipside: other-
side: five
minutes
to midnight

and always working on crisis mode, can’t shake
the heartdrop, the beeping car
backing up, loading up, unloading
and stretching my neck to the unreadable
signs searching for a bite

can’t get full: always
too full: it’s trying
to light a log
damp with
menstrual blood

abstractions
in the curry
at the Korean Indian
restaurant

peeling off
your empty dress
at your empty
doorstep
in a worn-out
suit jacket

walking
back
to my goshiwon
dreaming
of Liverpool
locating
by traces
mouth
sounds spilling
from foreign
faces
to the
humble
traffic
beating
out a new
name