Kyle Muntz - Voices

the poem in her ear, gently,

as she curled

to me, gently.

Unfortunately,

it wasn’t as though I could just feel her dreams, but I felt her, and we felt

together, something

powerful, something

potent

that might have been love, if we felt

like calling it names, meditating on connection, purely to amuse ourselves. We were children together, the way we made each other laugh, gently.

As if we were

children, and someday we would be young again, renewed, gently,

and we could float in clouds, swim in rainbows, if we did it together, metaphorically, together. It wasn’t a good poem, but I sometimes

I wonder

if I’ve ever

done a good poem, possibly

it’s just I’ve been thinking in volumes, made, past, plated, lines and lines and

voices.

I repeated

myself a bit too often, and I got bound

a bit

by the constraints

of the medium, but did she notice, I hope she didn’t notice, because

if she noticed

I think I might have started

to cry, though she didn’t,

and neither

did I.

::::::::::::::::::::

That’s not quite true.

I need to work on my improvisation.

Technically, I’ve been getting a bit sloppy, and there’s nothing poetic about that.

::::::::::::::::::::

"Did you like it?" I asked.

She said she did. I knew she cared because she was willing to lie.

"Come away with me," I said. "We could run away to the desert.

Did you understand?

She was willing

to lie.

::::::::::::::::::::

"You were right," Jacob said.

Of course. (he didn't add)

Jacob teetered back. He had dirt between his fingers, a foul stench in him. He fell.

I thought of catching him, but he fell.

"So what happened?" I asked.

"She didn’t like the ring."

"Did you show it to her?"

"No. But she didn’t like it. And," (he made strange sounds, like breaking sobs,

from somewhere in his bowels, or glutei) "I think she was getting tired of me. Either that or I got tired of her. I don’t know. Bitch. I hate her. Bitch." Biting his tongue once, not cringing. "I hate her."

"Did you take my advice?"

"Yeah," he said. "I found a corner. Maybe someday you could visit me there." "Maybe."

::::::::::::::::::::

The bridge sprung over sea like a great concrete mouth, linking land and land, a spurning tongue of rock, bearing (well oiled) metal, its stoniness, its silt and foundation. Bits of dust occasionally fell to the drink below, swishing, undrinkable. Sparrows, pigeons, gulls, seagulls, whatever they were, shat, so the bridge was covered gloriously in shit. I climbed underneath. There was a platform there. Restrooms. The walls were a cage of brass tubing and titanium wires. Outside, wave lapped wave, spuming oceanward.

This was a forbidden place. I thought of robbing a vending machine. Someone else had gotten to it already. The restrooms (already mentioned) were sumptuously, unbelievably dirty. Cracks wound in the tiles. Layers of grease on the walls. Turning on the sink, no water came. Quite expectedly, this place was not conductive to the flow.

"I would expect," said a stranger, "that you aren’t looking to meet strangers here."

"No," I said. "Not really."

"If you met me somewhere else," said the stranger, "would you still not want to meet me?" He had white stains in his hair, and he wore a yellow jumpsuit (ragged), and tall latex boots (seamless). Tinted glasses kept the sun away, but there was no sun here. He carried an acoustic guitar, strung, in one hand, without a case. Big hair gave him balance, a poofy element of the bereaved. At any moment it seemed he might break into song. I wondered if he could dance.

"I don’t know," I said. "You don’t look like you belong anywhere, so I guess you couldn’t belong anywhere but here." Above, pale yellow flickered twice in sequence. This place wasn’t clean enough for me. Most probably my standards were too high. I’d lived too long in a better world.

"What if I was wearing a suit?"

"You’d still have your hair," I said. "It takes up lots of space."

"Absolutely!" he exclaimed. "It does! It takes up lots of space!"

"And you look like you’ve never brushed your teeth before," I said. "Ever."

"Right again!" (again). "I’ve never brushed my teeth either!"

"Does that make you abnormal?"

" In correct," he said. "It makes me an individual ." He clapped his hands once, dirtily. "I just have to give you the details."

And he gave me the details.

"Fascinating," I said.

Even his speech was unique.

"Think you could sing a song?" I asked. "And dance? You look like you sing songs, and dance."

"Yes I do!" he exclaimed (proudly). "I do sing, and I do dance!" So he sang, and he danced, twisting one foot, playing guitar upside down. He sang horribly, and danced horribly, but I think that was what he went for, a novelty among novelties. In all things he was painfully, irrevocably unique.

::::::::::::::::::::

Markus

and I stared together at the sea, night-buoys aloft, the coastal patrol patrolling. Waves lapped the land like hungry tongues, to go along for all time, in defiance of the times, according to the times, a wearisome singing. Beneath, sand sifted in coolness. For being dirt, for being dusty spume, it felt surprisingly clean.

"Think there’s anything out there?" I asked.

Markus picked up a handful of sand, dropped it, picked it up again. The ocean, you mean?

Yeah, the ocean.

"Then Europe, I suppose, though we already know that."

Though maybe I should have been asking if there was anything in the ocean,

some great, hulking secret, a bloated originality of Mother Nature, in hiding. It was ignorant of me to personify the planet as a woman. In all likelihood, if the planet were a person, it would be a hermaphrodite, both mother and father, impregnating itself, to feed the trees. In all likelihood (barring the hermaphroditic), there were very few who wanted to hear that.

"Maybe I should have said "in" the ocean," I said.

"Then I would have to say water," Markus answered.

"Yeah," I said, "I bet you’re right."

::::::::::::::::::::

I’d come to climb a mountain, which would make me a mountain climber, if I relied on statements of position. Cold streams gurgled in the breeze, frothing against the sides, to carry me home. Were there trout in there? Did they feed off wholesome current, fishlike, their scaly frames, their aquiline contribution? All streams lead to the center- all streams lead to the ocean- deep and blue, deep, infinite as unending, to land, to land. Jet-steams, sea-currents, the mountain was the intersection of mediums, crustial. The horizon split like a wire.

So here, I was here and I was really here, to feed the breeze. Winter gusts tore me. God abandoned me in cold wilderness. The desert began here, the mechanical desert: apple cores, paper wads, blots of ink, a wasteland of dimension. Hot, tumbling mounds of sand, I climbed them, holding a knife between my teeth; made ascendance up spiraling stairways, grit and pebbles, destructive.

The mountain fed me the remains of old bones. Somewhere near the top I might find an altar, the zenith point. Where you left the earth, making shots to moon, the firmament embrace. A-contextual, an exit to cancel place, to exit bleeding wounds, all in a single burst of energy. Somewhere near the top the world began. The mountain fed me the remains of old bones.

::::::::::::::::::::

Markus held his skull, shaking. Sickly sweat berated him; whole vortexes of names coerced him. Despite living in a patriotic world, he was still unhappy. (Laughing.) As if (selfless) the world still had room for patriots anymore, not here in the un-person, the neighborhood brigade. The days of kin are over, the days of sign language and slaughter.