November 13, 2006

Ray Sweatman, Tearin it Up.

Consistently, year after year. Ray.

REPRINTED without the express, written permission of Sir Ray, but with immeasurable respect:


Monty please, Door Number Three


November 5th, 2006 ·



I am nothing more than the dreams that dream me.


Inventing games under the cover of innocent trees,


cashing a paycheck, working the latest gadget,


walking down the aisle, smiling for the cameras,


comparing the different boxes of instant rice


falling from the ceiling of the supermarket,


getting stung by bees, trying to cover my


naked bumps down an empty corridor


of footsteps and bells banging from


the inside of a locker Let me out. 


There are three dreams that dream me. 


Minus the one where we are holding hands,


our circle the sun in a foreign land our differences


a celebration at the apex of the union the rails


of the balcony come loose we say goodbye


to each other and spend the rest of our time ducking. 


But this is not the one.  The first is (and of course


these have no order; they come when they do


like Variations on a Broadway tune


played by a drunken Master after the bars


are closed from Chicago to Paris


in the space between the needle


and the rush in the breath of an open cork)


the one where the mushrooms turn sinister


and we’re chest deep in red liquid, the cheese


is wrapping tightly as we grow smaller and


smaller, our arms flapping and flailing.


We wake to the usual alarms but there is no escape.


And there’s the one where you’re hanging


by your feet from the top of a lamp pole


inventing Bungee jumping with your own


shoestrings with all that you’d believed in


at the bottom in a heap.  The neighborhood cats


are rolling their eyes and the dogs are salivating


though they don’t know whether to bark,


lick or fuck you. It’s the one then


where it’s just you and the horses


following the sound of the creek


reminiscing about how insecure


she was in the mirror.  Just you


and the horses navigating the darkness.


An empty flask broken off from the narrative. 


A place where home has no map.  A place


where you don’t feel here.  And even that glimpse


of where you thought your senses knew it.  


The one how light looks through black iron bars


and the shadows she left after she was long gone.


The one where leaves are hand-me-downs


from generations hibernating. You mark


it down as just another delusion of an


estranged mind.  And now then the third one


(how we like to impose order, how we like


to simplify the world into something we


can understand like the mozzarella inside


our heads) is the one where I’m trying to


get home (yes the way she gives herself


after all the years of gorging on poppies


we thought were the other. The way


her voice sounds the first, the last, every time)


and I’m trying to get home (one here on earth)


but I can’t find the way and though she’s


left the crumbs I’m still a wolf


trespassing through gates and


covering my fingerprints, when


they (the keepers of the Neighborhood


the ones that insure that their property


values remain their highest, the


keepers of the civilized world)


round me up and put me in the Van.


There they proceed to shave me from head to toe. 


Tickle my Feet.  And laugh and laugh.


And go.  And there alone in the cul de sac


where the signs say No Outlet,


I realize I shall interpret light no more.


I will no more interpret silence.


I cannot interpret them


any more than I can interpret you.


Rather we shall lose ourselves in it.


And when they come that’s how


they’ll find us.  They will come


with their notepads and measuring


sticks and they will make what they


will of us depending on their mood.


A brooch, a hat.  A religion.  A crime.


They may even call it love.




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