Heir Apparent

Issue #11: May 2013

from FORT DA | Phil Cordelli

“gone (‘o-o-o’)”

There was a break in the skin

brittle and filling

sanding underneath my coat of gum

bleeding along the mouth

bleeding from the brush

Dam up the spill, the spoilage

spreading through objects moreso than air

overhead the water speaks

over all the radiator

hum of the furnace

whispers of spine in my cold

bsug t nburngin hthe bguid

said that night was a burning fluid

I wanted to leave for the burning of

one in my lung

one longs to speak of

the night, that and much of the day

in merciful oblivion

lonely Homie

given the chair

of fake leather

you ask why if he wanted to die

he didn’t make himself

that’s why I say that was not

his language he gave and was giving to death

his body slowly

the grave was made and only the date

was left blank

is still

are we kin if I want to die don’t I

blind behind the drawn

sense somewhere out there a sun

light, distracted from origin

I catch only this bare handful

the blind one caught my hand

there is a thrift in the kind sun’s sag

in this double, this repetition

this repeat performance, what is the end

was man’s night ever flying, ever flung?

I held his hand I hold it again

I hold it still his still face upturned

drawn and creased and thin those eyes

won’t see anyone here he’s elsewhere now

a breath, long and shallow

a breath

and silence

almost impossibly long

hand already stiff and cold

more and only by the moment bone and skin

I held his hand for him to feel my life

to know my life beside him and to feel his death

I told him

mom and dad were coming

and that he would be with his girls

soon

o-o-o-o

the arms which climb

hands

all the visible

almost

I asked for your mouth

I did not wait

which one of you was there?

the older, silent one on the steps

intruder or parallel

The remainder is a portrait

a soundtrack, sporadic

a window, and waiting

the length is entirely arbitrary

in the filmed version there is only wallpaper

a cutout, a framed wall

and circular stars

and sheafs of wheat

on a field of pale

but stout blue

sparkling or flat water

in the dark of darker cold

the couch which has dropped its guts

took the cover off the other older horse hair

bags and bags of turd and straw and puff

this other

I think

what is missing

from me

what you found you lost

immediately

immediadiateate eatenor

enortroutg

gdgfhgfdhhdhghswjiashhtiuuidbhjbxAhjah

lalalakindkindkidiitnidstgidnndnifgdstdsnjsmmosaoii

didtnt idwant tyou yot to fuck i=[ up I didn’t wan t to listen

to you I didn’t want to open my heart

to you I coulntd I never have openede

anything everythings locked and too early in this to do I say

there is echo

is that reverb

o-o-o-o

There is a curtain in front of adulthood

pull up the plastic

the waxed paper off the wax slab

the writing vanishes and, as I have already

maybe I have a wrong impression

are you not impressed?

perhaps I did not press down enough upon

the pen it is not the ink which fades 

but the weight of the stylus in concert with the hand

and through the hand and tendon and tissue the solidity

of the body (It is still obtainable as such in England

where however it is also known as “Printator.”)

people dream I see

they bleed out to me

years worth of damaged spit

incipit

BOOM

you fill with smoke

the house

who’s smoking?

Garlic bread

half

the old man and the toaster

like a saw instead

a tape arrived

at times the world would be there

light of a neighbor’s light

I should stop looking back I should set more fire

I can think of nothing more beautiful than to say

I almost made it

that I would be with

all the beautiful failures

all the romantic suicides

who have dashed life away

auto da fe

feigned accomplishment

THROW THAT FUCKIN BED OUT IN THE STREET oh

that bed will feel good tonight

but here I think the time has come for breaking-off

the broken body must be disposed of

and the one next

door I leave drawn

I enter it in

after a second sleep

s a y r d h h u h u d n n i i l l o o e r o o o o e r i i i u w e f f f j u w e f e r j k b f j r b h e f h y t t t a r r s h h h a t t t g b a t t r a h h n a j j s h y s j j s j j s j k j s j j s j j s h s d u g y b n n u c u i u u h h y y d g g g s h j j s j j s n n i y s w t t f f s b b s n n s j i d s g h d g h s d h d h h s d h d h s j k k s a d h s a u s o u d n n g syyaksiur djdjrool orolrloroll porut then spoollm ik cfantmn  wrote ii s s e s e e s ew s  ee s e e s e e  e e  e e  e e e  ee  e
um rmgiggggjy um,rmee ms ekemmememe

IIIIIIII throw it all away I am empty

anyway and not so radically emoty

I am a pose I don’t know I don’t see

anymore anything more than this could ever be

what honor have I left

to do only lightly

do I dishonor

like a milkshake

for a poor diner

after a meatball sub

and fries

like a milker with a broken hand

I laughed and cried

at once at the sight

of your pine box

only you and her

high school picture

inside

o-o-o-o

At one time death was met with food

warmly, and with gifts

now there is no end to death

there is only a small tribe that celebrates

this impulse to subservience

EPISODE

everybody’s made of dough

EPISODE

I ask you to marry me

I cede to you the frayed edges

of my wages, and the rest, my rest

the black shit on the skin of my first

when all my baby is born

beautiful gems of whiskey

rimmed with crust and touched

only upon one corner excessively

by heat

the bread takes on the markings of contact

with heat, in the toaster another skin forms

whiskey takes on the cast of the cask

we acquire a shield in this manner –

the outermost surface ceases to be living matter

depressions constitute the “writing”

through the medium of the covering-sheet

think of her always covered

in still a way has my life not changed

and out ow throw or remove it

our atrophied limb

which lost the will to move

where did we divorce?

I wonder who will certify my thoughts

the potentate? the unemployed in a chokehold

so too is employment and so too for me

you are my repository

and more, my appetite

my wide-eyed monkey hanging from a curtainrod

he is gauzy and he is my hesitation

the curtainrod, the only branch is empty and doubly scarred

As I Lay Dying, brittle pages of

my copy of

which has been marked by a previous self

who is a stranger to me now the weight of this

without my being able to understand

his thoughts or see through his or their eyes

see copy there are any

number of

child without a head

or body

beingone begone

by begging one gone

only a body gone on lying

the mirror shows no self you can make it not

an insistent delight in this lack of sight

at the slightest angle

anglasadwiuchsand said back out outtta the giriiirirgrill

hguthdadgdgifllwoooellerflowrlwoowloewerlowleroorllwooer

reveel another reel of the flocik flick

“go to the fwont!”

yo

yo

there’s yogurt, granola

coffee in the freezer

help yourself to anything

when you leave for the day

or eve

just lock the bottom lock

it isn’t ever locked there

are eyes everywhere

Open the door there are more

there are no more could we open

the door couldn’t the door open there are

because there are no more the door had been sealed

hoping the gods of the god of gods

 had the door

you notice first that you can see all the way through

you see the blue of the far kitchen wall

and the backs of the row of the easy loungers

backs broken

mouth gape

pocked cherry

stuffed woodbird

without a binding

agent

urge inherent to return

urgent inheritance

‘Baby (o-o-o)’

M\a gramma aba aby

reaching deep in bile

  burst lump of organ

fe fed, forced fe

fortified by excess

fattening child

by same

this is the mirror you piss into

or to the side of

if you catch sight

 This one’s for you big baby

you can’t U CANT C ME

o-o-o-o

you play mister mister on the radio

I am not trying to go backward I am pulled there

I drift and the way ahead always was muddy

brackish and mixed I could scent the sea

a channel somewhere out there that would play me

it’s a long spool you play out

insects join you daddy longlegs

pod and arches inchworm crawling

little titthirsty baby little unformed but hairy baby

without any hide or any way to hide

or anyway to wait you are whats inside

you should brush your teeth

or tooth

my last little pal

last of my own among the gum

eat it eat it don’t eatitbeatit nastynsatyfuckinlittlemonkey

dotnnifijfm fjfoi dfslkcicxztyncijnjcdhysdysadmsad ghiti tiighhtiigh you siplfuckketrre

thefe fucjke cffuckegecjfuckkerellckufukf,

d h j s d g u f u f c k k c u f k f u c k f u j c k f u k f u u f , k c u k f u c i k l k f u i u k f k f u i k c j u f k k f u f i k c k f u f k k f u f f k j f u f j f j f u f j f g j f u j f m d f d d g g s d d s s d i j o i u y i u o i d dodiuy osyy ypoiuskj sotothe void foodgashdsui u ahberry t oti ate to cut it or

outouom outcome I hate to cut it ou8t right

emptiness

emptiness

empty nest

anima ani

mal

anamalouse

Aimo, you jackass

what failings could he have imagined in you?

they were all immediately preemptively forgotten any way

they were expected and loved

there were no failings for us

there is little candy on the hill

Homie in the blackberry

bucket on his belt

oooif I fi fi fit kn it oo if I find it

gin ive been dir and seive been hur

tan I don’t care because im burning tpo hy

I am prepared for silence

but for the overwhelming silence

I forgot I was going to give it tonight

for you

would you like me to rearrange

when we aren’t young anymore

I can almost touch

the soft fur of the mountaintop

for a moment I smell vomit on myself

the taste appears and disappears, sunk in the wad of awful

taste the taste of the hurt of another on your tongue

how can you kiss one who is heartbroken

by the body of the other on the bed

of another

she was right and I was dead

was meat and out of my mind

or never in my mind had a

deed not a grant

or you coud not for any moment

look up the flumes

that’s not for now

here now

you want me into nothing

I want to punch myself into you

all at a loss for disgrace

you have a loss all set for you

who wouldn’t want is mine

I have no more items of statuary

I no more gained than gave any

there was a time I could have had something

had I taken it

I think

that time repeats for me

all the times I repeated it

I could write this for the rest of time

why slice it here?

you would ask why

once again I must mortify the flesh

I thro w==w  

w w w  wit asinis a dsmdm sdsdsad 

I throw it agai a-n ai cant control I want to leave you cant type

it all fast enough thew music isn’t loud enough want to go

louder and maybe feel the pain a feeling may arise

yes underline line the red wrong words Word

the wanted woatstrife fuckhm hrikj it ai cant writ ie againm

dangit dogonit I daren’t use any more language

the one who makes the books

gives me a look like fuck

you don’t have the right

you ought to know yourself

by now

ought you pay what you owe

I owe you all and I don’t feel a thing

I escape caped clapped around in

all this crap which clogs life

o-o-o-o

on the offchance you escape

a route arises after all

one can root anywhere and here

willow will o will has left me to anything but

roots stick until severed and then again

I admit to my own impasse

amsit am track

want destruction of self, of other, of everything

which is of the self

the fourth track will break your heart I know

this is the second this is the

rise in volume rise in pitch

to the fadeout defy it

I want to a loud sound

a million entreating retreats of sound

remastered, denatured, remonstrated

your heart broke min-=broke the minimum

the small mother the second I have to amdit

my own culpability

could I find your heart and face my own

I don’t know how or why I did with it

I am did it in morning am

bma for now I can hope I’m drawing near

I give to you to that which holds me here waiting

as I lost you I lost

losslslsolspolsolsolsolso0lsolksoslosososloslsolsoslsolsoslsoslsost o lolotoootootootootootootootootootot tlootlktotltototop

ddnifn dhhhsbig disdjjfgjdmdaflkjkjewqokkkmremfkjwfkmfrkfjkrfm3rfnmnfnrf

did you happen to be a hole and I get into you?

Ive dug myself and new hole

olejeffmickrumnjonjokerwninjonjokrejkeff deennthis is to say that ive

all maters kissdicksadjsfdjdfjjdfightfghgfhfgdhfdnmsdm df fmfi fewer

in the sewer the repartition repair twining binding back together

we two are thus (each of us) like half a shell

the shell is not seen a real beard

finally whose hands has been on you

turn toward me and back not seen

felt a distant shell finally you turn

play out the string

run out the spool and the string

gather in the st

ring of the s

pool

I don’t float and so

can’t swim no one I am can’t swim

even the pen runs out its mine why wouldn’t it?

you are a poet you are a liar

and not novel

you posepoessiksiksikkissksksksksksksksjkdidndidsikdogkmaqgduy na dot

frollyurtndbxcuisachuds kdshsajksajksanmsadhjdsshjsdsdjkkjnds

falsx, lSAMXKJEWNCU

I was as well and that was why I did not stay with you

clearly you are better than me

anyone to whom you may be

everyone has been so nice

enough to like me

a little but I can’t live on that

I can’t keep it in me enough

to live

theammmm the women say

I am a nice man I am a good man you will call to tell me

after I leave you saw me off

after so much cutting I

find myself a bit more open

a bit rearranged, a bit less mass

entrails again in a maze half-

trapped half-completed

with a toothless kiss

we hid half in the bath

soap foaming atop

I left you and the water left

there is a deathly tightness and a swelling around my heart

seems filled with tears that haven’t made it to my eyes

I can’t seem to cry I can’t even appear to

be just tremble but nothing ever comes I wonder if

fear can be muted

like ants on the wasp

body

meat on a flower

and on a stone

in a vampyric revelry which takes

place, in which space I stake

no claim to another heart

only more beatings

behgsughghtjmwmenbgf.,d