Jeff Bagato

Poetry

 

 

Black Pages of the Last Death

 

The mind is a vast canvas

and eyes close as a dream falls

open behind blank eyes like shapes

running, pins swirling, overlapping

like toothpicks caught in a tornado,

like chaos clouded by a shroud of mist—

I have moved through time to

speak with the body, in the writing

is the god himself—where art thou?

I am with you, coming into being,

writing my way through opaque

fog, words slamming together

with pikes, swords, mace and club,

to the rising sound of blood in the temples,

beating back god before the knights

quicken; speeding jousts rush into dancing

pins swirling in mist like teeth

aching in the back at the molars,

like pins pulsing out a Morse code

of blood on a child’s brain,

like a mortar shell pounded

into children sledding on Sarajevo snow;

in suffering lands with children under siege,

in suffering lands, I don’t know what

language my future self

will understand

 

Go My Incubi, Fly My Lovers

 

How would I accept you

blasphemers as my judges?

 

When you would kill the indigent

and rape those who now

dare not ask for help—and

the indians and the nobles

of the earth, who you would

kill—how can I accept that?

So if I entered your house

I would of course post a

watchman at your foyer,

for its odor touches my shoulder

as I pace through your

desperate world; upon start  

or fear, I sniff back to its stand

until again calm, for I know

you will not rise with your

backbone of mixed white lye and grease

as long as that brown soporific

sheds itself along my footsteps,

a silent witness to your crimes

which I must sift through for my bread;

here’s to your surveillance,

laws, guns and saws—

here’s to your health:

approaching your mattress

and your snores, touching your pillow

with my ass as conveniently you turn

a drooling gape to my wound,

and thus emboldened by my

close companion, my fart

is your next breath

 

Go my incubi, go my lovers,

take them in their sleep—

give them these memories

of war and reminders of hate

because their drugs have erased

the world’s wounds from their minds—

like hurricanes be strong,

be natural, pure, alive;

like tidal waters sing!

Leap like winds from bed

to bed, take them in your arms

and stroke them till they feel again,

until they see again, and shit

around them till they smell

again, until they live again,

and play your drums and horns,

like the jungles, like the sun,

until, hearing again and burning

again, they can fall in peace

like rain among the ruins

 

I want to write spells to change

the world because I can’t believe they

shot a homeless man in Peace

Park protesting the war, and then

tossed him into surgery; you know

they haven’t protected the President;

you know they aren’t saving

any souls or trees; and spells

to protect Glacier Park from its own

beauty, and spells to keep the tree

trimming trucks from smashing the

saplings in the vacant lot

across the street, and spells

to keep all the vacant lots vacant,

and spells to give to our libraries,

schools and arts because they

will get us into space—Because

I need spells—Because I am

powerless; the human world

is a deaf ear blocked with the wax

of its own self-importance,

infected with the snot of its own

propaganda running down the tubes

from the brain, giving the seas

indigestion, running the rain

out of time

 

Go my incubi, go my fallen

angels!—Ride for me,

ride with the riches of the soil,

of the gods—Ride with the

power of the tides, the blood

of the moon; my fury is

the tectonic plates digesting

manmade black ribbons and burning

cans, throwing up walls of rock

dust and fire—a volcano

flies over America and delivers

my good word: Die.

            Die Americans—Death the change

you need to bring us to your

senses—Death to your stomach

and intestines; death to your

hearts, blood, and eggs.

            You who embrace this end

as the cleanliness and virtue

of death: as the end of sin and

horror and filth, as the ultimate

projection of greed—

            This is not what death means

to me—

            You who would die and sweep

us all ahead, purging the world

of the vile turd in everything—

by virus or volcano die and leave

calm—you who would die—

die—and leave life—

leave filth behind, and take

your heaven with you

 

Happy Monsters, Happy Ghosts

 

Ghosts in a city marked in gray

stone with winged skulls,

these primitive eyes stare

out seeing feet and cameras

and probing curious faces

not now afraid of the dead

in daylight city—“We’ve

become an asset, a floor show,

like the plastic monolithic

sun god face shouting fortunes

in Italian for a dollar in its

chute—we collect coins, too,

each of these people a

satisfied customer”

 

A living city hears its

tombstones speak,

shrugs its politicians off

the backs of the people

 

Gray stone clinches cigar

in its skeletal teeth—

“Jack-asses defend

cops who start situations

and finish them to their liking”

 

There’s a round of applause

like crunching gravel, or the

shouts of a Greek deli counterman

disgusted by teenage cheeseburger

desire

 

Another cheeseburger, another

tombstone—grease in the air,

death following the odor of

fried beef—they secrete

piss acid in pain upon dying

and all the flavor in meat

comes from this poisoned blood

 

I feel so vicious, death speaks

from his gray stone visage—

so lovely—I am everywhere,

not just in history laid out

in rows, a model

for high living

 

These flowers, these flags

reminders

that the living exist

 

Turn off your city—

for the moment sign language

passes headstone to footstone;

these flags, these flowers,

these prying eyes—

a blur of hands

 

Lone Cloud: Spells for a Moment

 

All recycled goods, do you see,

make you happy—what

pressure you relieve

from a brain wanting to die with

an old can, a guttered scrap,

this talented metal

 

This dilemma—you see them strip

earth with a monster and kill—

in your name, living your life—

the great proem; the watch

fob of days; calendar hours

secret in the layers of a scab

back where nobody goes

 

The wastelands lying just outside

the city, too, breed insects

of the mind, mandibles extended

from a chewing face, a pop-eyed

wall staring you down into

your own denial and hunger

 

Lone Cloud paces on sacred rock,

her feet painting blood on black,

scrapes difference (time) and creosote

from the hills—“oh lungs, blow

away our tragedy brought here,

cough out our sadness, deadness,

smartness—blow back the cans

of the dead they bring to the living

desert, sneeze allergic, vehement

at the impossibility of touch—

and the victory-of-independent-sand

fears—the inconvenience, the shifting,

the hot unpleasure of body waste,

stewing in your juice”—

Lone Cloud chanting

 

Lone Cloud spitting on a feather,

touch the earth, lift this kiss

to the wind and where it lands,

that which it touches—

brings back to itself, and

the alien unlove, it

destroys

 

 

 

A multi-media artist living near Washington, DC, Jeff Bagato produces poetry and prose as well as electronic music and glitch video. Some of his poetry and visuals have recently appeared in Empty Mirror, Futures Trading, Otoliths, Gold Wake Live, H&, The New Post-Literate, and Midnight Lane Boutique. Some short fiction has appeared in Gobbet and The Colored Lens. He has published nineteen books, all available through the usual online markets, including Savage Magic (poetry) and Kill Claus! (fiction). A blog about his writing and publishing efforts can be found at http://jeffbagato.com.