Eileen Myles

I would like a century a tree grows slow a crack of light hits my palm while I’m reading I grab to take a picture & the crack is gone branches pouring out of my hands days has made its mark I have wind swept hair I think of my step brother who I knew more like this his face a photo graph on a beach on a book & when he died I was family watching a tree in the wind & I wanted to speak to him who was truly my brother that speck of light is gone on my hand and him. I told her I’d probably like to end here like my com puters do & my dog did. I took a chance w horrifying her. I’m shooting for this love where I live. See me dying now or running across the beach to catch the tree book cover in the end of summer’s wind. The ocean is a feast & it’s here I bring my water tree book feet, taste branches the lot that is me who wants a century.

around 530 is a beautiful peaceful time you can just hear the dog lapping David lifts his smoke to his lips forever dangling chain in the middle of everything bout the top shelf or so. The party at which I sd that’s my col- lected works and every one stared my home was so small is it I’m not particularly into the task of humility at the moment but I’m not against it it’s like that deflated beach ball on a tiny chair I think of as joking with the larger one on a painting floating in air my home is large love made it large once not to get all John Wieners & believe me love made it small once this place only had sex unlike the house I love a house I fear a house a house never gets laid frankly who doesn’t like a hotel room I live in a hotel room a personal one. A young person very much like me was brutal no personal photographs please   it was anyone’s home perfect for a party now I’m going fast. How the description of a drug enters a room & changes the room thus with going fast say thus if you want to go slow. To drink the wrong thing for a moment for you to lick my thigh & your honey face I met a dog named Izzie once, I met a dog named Alan the calm person writing her calm poems now & then she shows her sacred heart she opens her chest & a monkey god is taking a shit swinging on his thing. You didn’t know I had so much inside me buckets of malice bibles of peace I don’t want to go all library on you now like my mother the mother of god or my brother named Jack who sat in a deck of cards getting hard when she squeezes in getting cozy I know less what I want to say. I can open an entire room comes out each moment that’s what I mean not things widen & flow there’s no purpose to this.

Nothing better for people than dogs nothing better than ma king you scream here. There were two super new cars and then some pink chicken filets I guess there were berries for sale in Scandinavia a man in a plaid shirt & cookies also they are working in the ceme tery I can see their blue ladder from here. A man has written a book about many deaths or many things to do after. Read it read it they say but what comes after is a small idea. Now is large rainy. Amy I wish you luck

Please! Keep reading me Blake because you’re going to make me the greatest poet of all time Keep smoothing the stones in the driveway let me fry an egg on your ass & I’ll pick up the mail. I feel your absence in the morning & imagine your instant mouth let me move in with you— Travelling wrapping your limbs on my back I grow man woman Child I see wild wild wild Keep letting the day be massive Unlicensed Oh please have my child I’m a little controlling Prose has some Magic. Morgan had a whore in her lap. You Big fisherman I love my Friends. I want to lean my everything with you make home for your hubris I want to read the words you circld over and over again A slow skunk walking across the road Yellow, just kind of pausing picked up the warm laundry. I just saw a coyote tippy tippy tippy I didn’t tell you about the creature with hair long hair, it was hit by cars on the highway Again and again. It had long grey hair It must’ve been a dog; it could’ve been Ours. Everyone loses their friends. I couldn’t tell anyone about this sight. Each defeat Is sweet.

the car had a cover over it and it was over the wheels and it hurt my ass and I couldn’t sleep. It seems I should move, go forward now I was wandering through the jungle anywhere on earth but I was a woman in bed in New York and how many people have died in wild places dreaming you were still in bed would you know. Travel well I said to my dog when she went on her journey thinking of a cheap movie I’ve thought this was an urn turning this was on water this was flat but now I see light between the trees I see water trickling through stone this is not made of   language but energy that will stop when I die the dream dies too one bolt

Close to the door in my dream the small signs I saw a brown sign with wisdom on it I saw a brown one leaning with wisdom on it fringe of a mirror my mother leaning over a pond cupping water leaning against the moulding cardboard or wood which materials do you does your wisdom prefer which a- partment in a summer with someone I felt brave to have touched her love the screen door and the dogs and the cats always getting out. That was the fear two signs fading but recalling they had faded like words fade in stone because of the rain and the days and waking and the dream is leaving with every step leaning over the meat because I do not want you to have died in vain kissing the turkey and the neck of  my dog all animals am I. all dreams, all stone all message am I.

I said cake I said top hat I said microphone four little golden baby heads wait I said pirate ghost wait wait I said closed eye smiling cat he scrawled back oh my god I thought fuck yeah I can read this at the marathon he said Eileen smiles ehhh I can use it the bell of my computer rang same message wait the cat is crying with relief the cat is a devil now the cat is not mad the cat making racialized jazz uh or not my white hands I’m talking to everyone now. and I’m using a filter. No I’m not I acknowledge that there is an image of me twice. I only recently learned the term jazz hands if we fucked Pennsylvania up what is our hope to live in a stolen country that was always stolen and worked largely by stolen people. Out of a conservative diaspora came I mongrel poet from Massachusetts to make my mark love& these things and opportunities to speak. We can’t fall down we teem in the new opportunity we discover what resistance means our time & blowing up the inside of my computer buck studies the phone says delivered what is. Adam says did you see my beard. We talk about money awhile I ride my bike. Get off the phone goes ding. It’s his beard calling. I go oh. you have what I want. he says lol then skull then rocket then turkey green pistol and a flame. I don’t know what to say back to that I say bike and go.

I was born in Boston in 1949. I never wanted this fact to be known, in fact I’ve spent the better half of my adult life trying to sweep my early years under the carpet and have a life that was clearly just mine and independent of the historic fate of my family. Can you imagine what it was like to be one of them, to be built like them, to talk like them to have the benefits of being born into such a wealthy and powerful American family. I went to the best schools, had all kinds of tutors and trainers, traveled widely, met the famous, the controversial, and the not-so-admirable and I knew from a very early age that if there were ever any possibility of escaping the collective fate of this famous Boston family I would take that route and I have. I hopped on an Amtrak to New York in the early ‘70s and I guess you could say my hidden years began. I thought Well I’ll be a poet. What could be more foolish and obscure. I became a lesbian. Every woman in my family looks like a dyke but it’s really stepping off the flag when you become one. While holding this ignominious pose I have seen and I have learned and I am beginning to think there is no escaping history. A woman I am currently having an affair with said you know  you look like a Kennedy. I felt the blood rising in my cheeks. People have always laughed at my Boston accent confusing “large” for “lodge,” “party” for “potty.” But when this unsuspecting woman invoked for the first time my family name I knew the jig was up. Yes, I am, I am a Kennedy. My attempts to remain obscure have not served me well. Starting as a humble poet I quickly climbed to the top of my profession assuming a position of leadership and honor. It is right that a woman should call me out now. Yes, I am a Kennedy. And I await your orders. You are the New Americans. The homeless are wandering the streets of our nation’s greatest city. Homeless men with AIDS are among them. Is that right? That there are no homes for the homeless, that there is no free medical help for these men.And women. That they get the message —as they are dying— that this is not their home? And how are your teeth today? Can you afford to fix them? How high is your rent? If art is the highest and most honest form of communication of our times and the young artist is no longer able to move here to speak to her time…Yes, I could, but that was 15 years ago and remember—as I must I am a Kennedy. Shouldn’t we all be Kennedys? This nation’s greatest city is home of the business- man and home of the rich artist. People with beautiful teeth who are not on the streets. What shall we do about this dilemma? Listen, I have been educated. I have learned about Western Civilization. Do you know what the message of Western Civilization is? I am alone. Am I alone tonight? I don’t think so. Am I the only one with bleeding gums tonight. Am I the only homosexual in this room tonight. Am I the only one whose friends have died, are dying now. And my art can’t be supported until it is gigantic, bigger than everyone else’s, confirming the audience’s feeling that they are alone. That they alone are good, deserved to buy the tickets to see this Art. Are working, are healthy, should survive, and are normal. Are you normal tonight? Everyone here, are we all normal. It is not normal for me to be a Kennedy. But I am no longer ashamed, no longer alone. I am not alone tonight because we are all Kennedys. And I am your President.