Lord Jim

I am not made of plastic
I know because when my
skin dries and cracks
it seeps, reddens, and burns.
It burns.
I don’t trust tired men in
dark suits, or
women caked in makeup
wearing nametags.
We were born in the wrong town.
We’ll die in the wrong time.
We should leave.
Now.

But the world’s so small
it’ll have to do but it’s fractured, so
it makes a static noise
too much noise
i want just a drum beat
a deep pulse
a drum that drives
waves and bare feet
through hot wet mud

they’ll say to write home
but what’s the use
they say home is where the heart is
and maybe I love no one
and that is hateful
maybe I’ll go to hell
and maybe you should stay
away and be
happy, in
air conditioned rooms
but i have no choice
i have to find my heart
even if it is bitter
or because it is bitter
like Jim who felt destiny
swell huge beneath his ship
in the twilight ocean
like the incubating H-bomb
my dreams long for
so we can all start over.

god knows i’d like
peace, but i’d settle for
raging humid wilderness
because growth is as fast as decay
so it might as well be faster
yes, i want it faster
with you, within you,
which i need
because who can be strong enough
besides Jim
to do it alone
to sleep in the train station
to stand on the threshold

of the river’s mouth
the throat of jungleland

will you follow me down
rivers into steaming
darkness and let our flesh
snake along the black
black soil
but you must keep your
black hair long so it can
flow with the streams and
stick to our shoulders when
we’re pressed up
against each other.

i write while time wastes
with hacksaw fury
we stand on the wood dock
wait to shed out splinter-boat into the drift
with out mother’s eyelid tears
with Jim, who is insane with destiny

we will chase Jim like
Lord Jim chased his destiny
into the horror
sharks after a seeping
carcass of god knows what
sinking down
in blue abysss

Lord Jim
who didn’t so much hate men’s rules
as he hated their masks
because they weren’t violent or dark enough
and a face needs to fit a mask
like skin fits a lizard
a mask of skin for the Lizard King
who sang about a land limitless and free
and sang but you’ll never follow me

i want to follow
but where is there to follow
the savage lands dwindle
like severed limbs covered
by thunderstorms of ants
and even that jim fucked up
let them prescribe him
liquid prescriptions
which i’ll only accpet
if they bleed first
or are pulled from the dirt and
eaten raw

let the yellow jacket
depress its heavy stinger
into your open palm
pain beats cold stone
like hate beats a coma
maybe i d on’t want to kill anyone
maybe i want to have to kill someone
is that so different
is that so wrong
didn’t i say i was going to hell

or at least a dank place on the river
where vague stone figures
overgrown with swarms of vines
wide-eyed and wry grins
frozen in suggestive gestures
beckon us to join
and sacrifice more than bared flesh
in orientalist incense air
as buddhas approve
calmly accepting
always accepting

but they don’t notice
when night comes on in its fever
what the drifting star is a satellite
which i hate
because i can’t escape it
i try to avoid the sky
but ceilings are no good
unless they have branches
and let warm rain through
to feed oozing dark pools
where it is steamy and sticky
and secrets slither about like
two tongues swimming in
each other’s mouths,
smearing in urgent sex.