Rob Plath

i once had a teacher
who made us type out
word for word
our best loved works
by our favorite poets
he said it’d bring us
closer to the soul
of the writers
& i eventually did
the same thing
w/ certain organs
typing out verbatim
the mad melancholia
of the spleen
& terribly lonely cries
of the bloody fist
w/ in the ribcage
etc…

the womb is an urn
for kidnapped starlight

newborns are corpse-puppets
twitching on bloody umbilicals

pretending not to be homesick
for mother nothing

when i was 10 years old
me & chris found
a discarded door in the woods
& some cinderblocks
among a heap of garbage
& we made a makeshift ramp
in a nearby overgrown lot
& we spent sunday afternoon
jumping it w/ our second-hand bikes
we often fell when we descended
skinning our knees & elbows
on cracked pavement
bruises all over our bodies
a bloody lip and nose
slivers of busted beer bottles
stuck in our skin
beneath ripped, greasy t-shirts
but we straightened our handlebars
adjusted our crooked seats
set the chains back in their metal teeth
& began again
mounting that magic battered door
over & over
crashing thru the weeds
laughing as we each tumbled
our young shapes
flowering w/ purple welts
that at least did not come from
the heels or fists
or belts of our fathers

sat on stone steps w/ cricket
under red august moon
other crickets singing
but this one moon-quiet
unlike my foolish head

an old writer
i admired
drunk on whiskey
at the bar
told me once
when i was young
if you don’t write
every day
you’ll never be
a great writer
& if you write
every day
you might be
a great writer
& his words
slashed like
a utility knife
across my brain
& i braille scars
from that old
beautiful bastard
on those days
when i hit a wall
& then i pull out
the rickety chair
from the old desk
& jab the keys
hard lines forming
thick & raised
enough to trace
in the dark

we often had bonfires at that place
we’d ride around collecting
busted skids from factories
in the nearby industrial park
& toss them into the back
of the pick up truck
on nights like those the fire
would soon be roaring
& we’d all be smoking & drinking
i remember my friend’s ten year old son
had this obsession w/ slugs
he liked to hunt them
& then impale them w/ a stick
he explained to us they were evil beings
& his mission was to destroy them
you’d be drunk shooting the shit & laughing
& then the boy would run up
& pitch another slug into the flames
you’d hear it hissing as he ran into the dark
in search of another
i’d felt a certain peace there
at those gatherings
opening one can after another
the cherry of my cigarette always aglow
glad for the warmth & the banter
& the boy who was delivering us from evil

fuck thinking positive
you just have to be insane:
say “cheese” to the gun barrels
of pain aimed at you
give yr demons a piggyback ride
gather all the parts of yr brain
that hate you & make a necklace of them
marry suicide & adopt death
& dress it up like a lamb

things appear
dead all around
but for every dry stick
& headless stem
& bloodless root
there will be
innumerable flowers
arriving–
just you wait
& yr only desire
will be to lie
down among them