Relievant

http://htmlgiant.com/author-news/call-heather-christle-at-413-570-3077/

"On the occasion of the release of her second book of poems, The Trees The Trees, which just came out from Octopus, and is indeed mazelike, Heather Christle has secured a phone number that you can call her at, through which she will read to you a poem. This begins today and will continue through July 14th.

The number is (413) 570-3077

Calls answered during Eastern Standard Times:

M: 10am-6pm
T: 10am-1pm
W: 10am-6pm
Th: 10am-1pm
F: 10am-6pm
S: 12pm-6pm
Su: 12pm-6pm"

[from HTMLGIANT]

7x7

He is unpeeled of his sheets and shaken,
and dreaming harder against the day,
deflecting light and movement
that would break his focus
Sleepy inflates her memory and swings it.

Bashful pretends to be sleeping too.

Murderous in the brow-bump,
yes striated with fury
and hairs knitting to hairs
in the fleshly folding--
Menaced by clouds,
upchurned by coffee,
Grumpy, not with whom to be trifled,
grieves her.

But some conventions keep.
Happy can’t hold it back.
Dopey is unaware,
and Doc frets over Sneezy as before.

While meanwhile underneath
her transparent
covering she tans beyond
apellative convention.

I am sitting on the toilet

I am sitting on the toilet with an upset stomach
because I ate pizza and drank beer this afternoon
and last night I ate at midnight because I got home
late because I was out learning that We should meet
to talk about photography really means We should
discuss our sexual histories for five hours and
by the way I may mention you to my gallery.
And then I ate at midnight because I got home late
and I decided also to drink some whiskey and smoke
as much weed as I had left because I don't know
what's happening to me anymore. Is this what it means
to be an artist? It's too haphazard. Then on the train
on the way home today my intestines just lit up
like a Christmas cactus. The bathroom is warm and stuffy
but I feel calmer. Sometimes music finds its way in
from downstairs or outside, never anything I recognize,
but this evening someone is listening to Gary Jules
singing Mad World (from the Donnie Darko sountrack)
and I would like to find out who it is.

IN CALIFORNIA I'VE PLACED SOME FAITH

One human for whom I’ve got
fandom like 2 praying mantis
palms kissing for salvation
roses, daisies, Jupiter’s beard
dahlias, xeroxed letters, folded
folded on crushed ice,
hex luck, and so much
soda that I
get sick.

Vancouver BC

i want to go back and see you. surprise you at your door. knock so hard you wake up. groggy. answer. disbelief! i want to put my head on your shoulder, sticky neck. make you late for work. go get a coffee at union market. call scott, say sorry. make out with me, watch you ride off on your bicycle. heading down National avenue, know that this evening we'll make dinner. sit in the park. go knock on their door, or, visit them at work. surprise you all. see you all. wake you up.

A Belated Gift For Saturday

Saturday's baby,

she cries.

and moans.

hasn't been fed, thick enough.

SPEAKING OF WHICH

the air! Saturday's air, heeeeeeeeeeeavy with pollen and moisture and dog hair.

Making Saturday's baby,

get fussy.

get colicky.

hasn't been fed, thick enough!

July

It's July
The days are long
stretching from one side of the sun to the other.

Moving slowly from the beginning of the month
with lights in our eyes
to the end, looking towards fall
when cool breezes will make us
wrap up.

It's July
the middle of the heat
the moment before the plunge into a pool
or an ice cold glass.

We wait for it to end.
We wait for it to start.

the idiot sounds of crying

the stupidest sounds u ever made,
losing it into the arms of someone taller than u
yr throat shrinking and yr head swelling with pressure
the gulps and breaks of some half-formed thought,
some abortion of a cliche trying to stake its claim on emotion,
but never making it past the choking gate

these are the idiot retard sounds of weeping

embodying the transitive, love for my love's partner

your girlfriend is training to be a dominatrix,

wait until I fucking tell our friends back home!

your wide eyes, you speak just as slowly

despite that same writhing silence, I marvel at your considered words.

you were like that at fourteen, my friend.

this privilege is called continuity:

She explains why domination and I explain why you

the shell-shocked new city boy, I did not have the words back then

to say that I liked you because you were not a brat like the others when you walked home.

but it is more complicated because to her

you are that city boy

This is learning called making friends.

On the whiteboard in the house you share he wrote

plurality of affection

I watch you reckon with it

and want to say, this is what's wrong

in order to feel more ease that what I do is different

but there is no flaw there

this process that I am witnessing

this is what success looks like

this witnessing, reckoning, plurality.

But am not your plurality, on this slow time frame that we are

I am one testament to the inherent openness.

I love you, you love him, and I ache with love

for both of you, watching this life you are making

that I have not chosen and would not chose.

I call you back home to make sure you have the memorial's address.

we have not spoken in a year, old lover, but I want to make sure you know.

you do.

the dominatrix is working at the brain tumor society and I think,

all things are connected, if superficially so.

love begets love, and even amidst embedded goodbyes

I know you are not going anywhere,

and so the people you bring in to the world are a gift that you share.

daysleeping

you were in my dream last night, last afternoon, last hours
you and you and you and all of us were in little vignettes of moss and dusk
and mode and carriages with plush velvet cushions, a pumpkin pulled by
oh!
considering her eyelashes against a cheek, the curve she scooped
into a shellshape on the grassy hill above the hudson, a pile of leaves you long
promised we would hide ourselves under (but we lost you to the wolves
long before the autumn fell) and all of your pairs of lips and palms revolving
as if to catch the sun

abort[miss]ion

blocks a kid put up
stalwartly "built."
the block
on the bottom is putting up
with the block above
it is putting up the block
above it is putting the block above
it up.

but the block on top
is the block
the papa sees
below his cup because

the block on top is blocking
the block below and the block
below is blocking the block
below it but
the block on top is blocking
the block below blocking
the block below

Three Nonnegotiable Swords

She coldly washed the sword.
Sugar limped from tongue and tooth.

She cut the fruit to squeeze it.
Juice eventually ended.

But what we counted ended.
The mouth in kind has ended.
Even the sword has tapered to a point.

He takes it

He takes it in
and out
in stages.

Life is in a process
of thoughts and actions.
Damage Control and Resolution
while the inside rages in huge tidals.

Laughs and faces cover
like a make-up every scar that wounds inside.

So he takes it in
weighs those options
and cracks a joke
walking back and again.

Free of the requests
the responsibility
and the struggles
of the one-to-one.

Ink to Skin

I will steal you from the water,

Exchange your feathers for

lines and

contours

of feather-like shapes.

You are not you.

But I am me

And also you.

We are stained

into arms and legs and ankles and necks—

Forever in shades of grey.

I am an expert

excerpts
(in)cer(tions)
(cer)tain
(cer)tified
(cer)tificates

I jump in, I'm taken somewhere with a stamp on my passport

because experts spent the time
but the time must be in the bank
and we fight for time
some weapons far $uperior

Jo Peace

You're the old man still dancing every song
still jamming and making music
that holds us

I see you
and bite my tongue, I forget your 'new' name
Trench coat to the floor, you're twirling at Union Pool
This moment stands still

And if memories have lives of the own
let's draw up a new story
You turn 90
We'll go to Polka night

Your essence braces

Does Sontag know your demons?

STRONG BACK BUG BACK

Always I'm going to the doctor

Always I'm "I can't remember"

Can't remember what happened the last time

I went I

am always saying "what's WRONG with me

am I filled with

fungus or

flowers or

both?

I'm so drunk!

The doctor, a woman, always staring off

remembering

her mother's sacrifices

her old friends, long estranged

taking slower paths and

sleeping on rocks

bathing suits untied and oh!

I am always saying

"I'm a good girl"

my mother always in the room...

(my favorite book of poems

was written in the winter:

she goes to the herbal doctor;

new england is awful)

I am always

wondering about phantom bugs

and my mother and

what would happen if you

ignored them and

what if bugs gave up and

I am always

going to the doctor and

shielding myself from bugs

joking with my mother

asleep on rocks with

bathing suit untied I'm

slower and slower like a cave

inside I'm

filled with flowers and fungus I'm

going nowhere, going to the doctor

looking at her diploma her

faraway gaze she's so drunk!

her long nights, her mother

my long nights, my mother

the herbal doctor

the stalagmites inside me

the sudden flash of bugs

the absence of bugs

I am always

forgetting where my body is

in time always

draped over rocks, aging

inside alone

all the stalactites inside

centuries and

centuries and

centuries

---

loli,
rick,

pined unrequited pain like a dagger, felt into the loosed still tight lone place, sat mining in the trees.

now, absence of trees. just a vast tilting plane, easy or simple,
the unmade thoughts, simple enough (like love was supposed to be)

loli parsed her thoughts: he eats away nicely into passages.

long, tense rick
this is how it is going to be,
him not exactly just him.

relaxed

Zeus, relaxed, eats mounds of stars

like chocolates

and reflects on wives

the way a hand

reflects on beach sand.

hit me

yo dawg, hit me in tha fuckin' face
hehe
no! like say it to a girl not a dude
okay i will say it to a girl at the end of this poem hehe
well, this friend of mine got me
hehehehe
i got drunk at a bar
i got a date
i dated at a bar and then on the way to the bathroom
well, i had this dream hehe
where you just said hehe
hehe what if you just heehe
what if you just hehe said hehe
what if you just said what you wanted
i am drinking budweiser because it's cheap
even though it's not cheap, since we're at a bar (hehe)
and you are drinking me under
dreadful thunder, thunder thighs, furry, for real
well i WAS JUST THINKING bout saying i feel this is funny
and you like gender roles in such a way it essentializes my condition and frailty
hehe
into the point of being a pure arrow, einen schlangenfraßbereiter
he whose occupation is devouring snakes? no one knows hehe
i'm actually fragile and weird inside
and then i'm just like fuck u bitch i don't wanna be yr power man
O THOSE RED LIPZ
WHYY I OUGHTA
but u wanted some1 2 punch u n shit?
n hit u?
n call u names?
n steal yur money?
n make u feel bad?
y do u want that?
do u have daddy issues
no way grl
violence?
i don't hehe
O NO not me
actually hehe secret fantasy

and then o my god, she said, daniel,
when okcupid asks u do you have a rape fantasy, what is your answer
hey baby, hit me in the face

same old story

How could I ever write anything worth reading?

“you know, you really talk to much”- I was just telling him about school, sitting on the edge of the couch

and now if I sit long enough I start to feel a growing balloon in my esophagus- threatening to burst

uhhhhhhhh- im not really sure- I don’t know- I forgot- I don’t know- I forgot-

brain surgery while you're wide awake

seeing with the brain not the eyes, feeling with layers
beneath the skin like playdoh, acid options
for losing fingerprints to scar tissue, to breaking and
entering, to leaving no trace

remembering amnesia, forgetting the brain itself
is without receptors for pain, remembering you can go
blind from a brain trauma even if your eyes are fine

too many rememberings for scrapbooking organs
too much for buying a human rib or a clavicle bone
to form around the outside of your own

MY BABY

The story I tell is running away
(into the yard) with babies,
animal-dolls, wet world
wedding dress, bedroom tent.

He has fish eyes, small sticks
truck teeth, famous gums
pine needle sweetness,
and a geometric cape.

My sun knuckle shines.

MOM

Do you want an egg, Max?

i still want her

i hold out hope that
i can change the past

the future is mine for the taking
and nothing can stop me
from reaching my goal

all is true
but nothing is proven

sweat

d
r
i
p

d
o
w
n

and hit the floor

If Life Was A Boat, And/Or If We Lived On One

there is no stopping

MOVEMENT and

MOVEMENT won't feel so bad

because

it's just what happens. Floating along

out of our control

waves pushing you

and me

to destinations unknown,

but where we're meant to be.

anniversary

pale red bangs plastered to her forehead
freed from flip flops
she drags her feet on the C train floor

and eight summers ago
wet grass did cling to ours
as we sat at the dining room table swearing silently

and these days at the beach
gum between your toes
how did your arms get so long?
we all swear, piled on beach blankets
mouths big and guffawing
oh yes we'll have friends in 10 years

and here in front of me
sullen kids sink deeper in their chairs
the flour hangs in the air

no hetero

Y U u y Y U u y Y U u y
I HATE ALL MY FRIENDS
in the forest
pick your body
match it with other
searches
poor little gumpy
foil of dum
in yo if her
ill don tiinn deem her fin
fin was ketten kittle
for fur her fun f
i am
within my lungs
touche douche
broke darwin-win

let me tel yo somthng abt x
one time
he told me
he like
----------
that never happened

Morning

Today is Just Another Day.

Underneath the covers, my body sweats

I burrow, pulling my blanket tight around my body, wrapping myself like a

caterpillar in its cocoon.

There, I am safe.

With eyes sealed shut, crusty from sleep,

I ask my clock for more time.

Darkness is what I need.

I’m begging.

Please, just five more minutes.

When I finally open my eyes

(One Two Three

…and she’s up!)

I Do Not See It.

My heavy wool blanket (yellow),

And my sheets (green)--

Like my eyes--

Are colorful memories of

The Day I Woke Up Blind.

The color in my face has gone,

I am white as a ghost.

Sometimes We Awaken

Arts outstretched against pillows and sheets

We yawwwwwnnn slowly in and slowly out.

Pushing out the night before and bringing in the day to come.

We embrace it
in the stasis of the moment.

Minutes tick on
as we lay and think out what today
and the rest those todays will bring.

Then we rise up, arms over our heads and heads towards the sky
and start.

Service

Put your hand out:
Here’s a little something
to make you big & happy
and you’ll choose to not to notice
that you don’t recognize
(for a good while
but have grown familiar with
(for a good time
the person who casts
your shadow now,
smoothing out the handwritten note taped to
the gift shop counter:
“Yes there is a young woman
inside

now

i can sit

with the light on

i can listen

again

to fleetwood mac

tea and sleep begin

to suggest themselves

the fleas will wait

a while to bite

7/4 on 7/7

It’s holiday, the
pause between
anthems, the
dust behind
colors,
anonymous clan,
piled lush stars,
surviving.

in a big pile, unbelievable, not unbelievably big, the things all stacked and knotty in the way that works.

i get so jumpy, i forgot how specific you are, how reasonable i am to like what i like.


gold gold river, rush rush, not like a body. slow heart, slow legs, not like a body, like warmth.

poem assassin

b careful what u say 2 me
it might turn into a poem

Patient

When my hip broke into pieces,

bits of family drew to San Francisco

where the patient lay, her pacing body shushed.

I ate by rote. Calm nurses wielded needles.

I dreamt of castles encrusted with fish.

The pain insisted like a wife. I ate by rote.

---

clashing powers
top dogs

loli and nan
nan and bette
bette and lee

bette

nan

lee


teeny (and her)

ability to love

Small Talk is Whatever

Strangers are

ok

they're willing to discuss God

i.e. weather

the heavens, primitive selves

they don’t mind that you’re no longer a citizen activist

they only care about cloudy infinities

things felt by skin, by nerves

together, you talk about your bodies contacting air

changing your hearts; your brains; your moods;

your bodies are whole, and new, and everything is connected to everything else

you talk about what “it’s” going to do as though you’ve already established a code together

you smile at strangers because of your mutual understanding of “it.”

It’s “doing” something and it will be “doing” something else, later, hopefully.

You don’t want to look at a stranger and think

“everything will always be the way it is at this moment.”

Everything will always be the way it is at this moment.

oh, no.

“doing” something now doesn’t stop “it” from “doing” something else completely different in the near future

knowing "it" and not each other is

ok.

bodi is comparble to rhikki check google image for ref
imaghes
SO LIKE YOU NO YOU NO YOU NO YOU NO YOU NO YOU NOYOU
yes i do i do iii
not you
for for for
the tim tuin tine tine
FUCK YOU PICS
FUCK YOU PICS
lute fget MY $$NI MINE
touch him he i

LOOK AT THIS SKIN
SKIN
IS FOR YOUR TTENTIN

in this list
i wanna eat money
til i become a bldng
onnnnnnnn
onnnnnnnn
onnnnnnnn
onnnnnnnn


IM NOT GONNA TEACH HIM HOW TO
HE DONT SUSPECT A THING
YOU ARE A FAKE KING
YOU ARE LIKE A SEA-URCHIN
YOU DONT TOUCH ANYONE "
""""" " " " " """"" " " " """"" " " " """""" " " "juuss " """""""" " " " """"" " " " " """ill nevere"" " " """ "" """ "" """""" "" " "" "my french """"""""" " " """
"""""" " "" " """ "" " "" " """ "
luhv tah juus
uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu STILL
mast

barter tender forever
barter
tender
forever
barter tender forever
is he too perfect
li is he to
he too per feckyt
put
prt
eper
pert
pert


DONT DIE DONT DIRE
DI


K


OK
FU


FGGGGGGGGGGGGGGDJJDJDJDJDJDJDJDJDJDJDJDJDJDJDJDJDJDJDJDJDJD

xo
JAMES PEEL

Noknown words

When the spoken word is Princess,
each syllable is Precious.

Then a bespoken Cyst:
nonetheless.

But when the babble comes up Nickle:
woeful we, we who might someday want a bicycle!



(mistranslation of Trzy Slowa Najdziwniejse by Wislawa Szymboska)

βίον

power out one long hour
bare-back lying, fat heat rising /
escape plans
two steel buckets of ice I’ve
plunged my wrists into deep
quarter-of-a-day deep and sweltering, the doctor thumbing
her lip, murmuring bout blistering on the
inside

/ with both braces fastened,
I’m a bionic woman
I am sweeping out entire grocery shelves
I am swimming though this rainstorm
forearms first
I am dreaming forward fast flush
of the night, of carefully arranging myself,
all the pieces, around
you

And May Will Always Turn Into June

There are crumbled petals,

and Tina's at the door

tongue sucking on teeth, walking the

neighborhood

with her accordion. Hatching plans.

There are these animals, she says

steal other animal's eggs.

when they hatch

it's always a surprise.

tina used to take her shirt off at parties.

go "wooooooooo!"

the night before i left I helped her rearrange her living room.

we shared a coke. Listened to Korean pop music.

I'll miss bringing you flowers, I murmur

curled up on the stiff couch

on the East wall-

Tina placed between two windows,

on the West.

she walked me home. "There's so much room in the world for

us".

Her slight hands make quick work

of the accordion keys.

Dirt Foot

Phone gray,
Street gray,
Dust on a lot of things, not all,
A light ahead, aflicker.
A new street. Have I been here?
Shuttered library, liquor store,
Is it 9:00 already?
I've never heard of Tycek.
Light red, green, doesn't matter.
A child, a church, another.
Do you think it's owned by Mexicans?
I should go.

A Lachrymose Hour in the Community Garden on Nostrand Avenue

When I woke up, the walls and floor were missing.
I didn't know where to look for them anymore.
And you. You've taken yourself off. I don't know where.
It's frustrating. This keeps happening to me.

Out in the world, I'd better see the great things you promised
I would. I believe everything you said to me in the garden.
It's humbling, but I don't know what to do with it anymore. Where
are my shoes, damn it, and which is the way out?

Beginnings

At this point.

We sprout
with words unending
taking them out of pocket books and wallets

saying, 'here listen'
'speak them out.'

As the flood come
with description, hyphens, exclamations
we overwhelm the rooms we are in
the cities
the landscapes
with what we have to say.

screaming, 'hear us'
'remember that we are here, alive'