Jonathan Beale

Winter song 

 

The cutting edge, you questioned the need.

We walked over untainted snow. 

The white and brown earth blended in forced union;

our breath became a concerto in the expectant air.

 

Until we reached the frosted irons gates.

That seemingly held some dark secret.

We sort some solution – looking skyward.

Looking over and into burning winter days light.

 

Reaching into the sky’s endlessness -

Blind to the seasons passion.

The blood of the previous year now gone.

Drained and dried. Lost and forgotten.

 

The winter was every howl - and – scream.

From the aged wood, to the next horizon.

Marked across this year’s and the years’ grain.

The music of the dripping ice from the trees.

 

The tip-tap-crunching of the day’s tympani,

as light beats a tattoo on the day’s skin,

against the accidental chirp of a bird.

The triad of light, sound, and place. 

 

Spring’s (ever-the-optimist) bark does not compare.

To the darkened heavy days.

The black crows dance their winter jig.

Before winters final movement.    

 

 

A sonnet

(…after Robert Lowell)

 

Hope is a poor companion

Better a cap of felt

For dry ears in. “A”.  Zukofsky

 

Per stirpes - a song that you thought you knew from an age of roses and honey.

Viewing the oil and vinegar blending – into the one less sour – less sweet.

Seeing the mother trolleying the infants; or the next line, she at just twenty,

Laying the wall of another Periodic Table – each known and equally unpredictable.

All destined to walk the false path – of the honest man;

…or the honest path of the dishonest man.

Is man at the root of everything he builds?  Look into the rain!

The firsts stumble upward into bigger and better stumbling’s.

Mirrors teach nothing, yet too many think that they can.

Flights are neither for cowards nor fools - just the birds who fly south in winter. 

The ramification of blind beliefs, and dog scented barks.

Time slashes.  There is breath on windshield after Lowell spoke.

Knowing the peak – the trough – lost is the middle way.

“‘The day.’” Man thinks he paints in his colours.  And what is the colour of day?     

 

 

Discovering the muse 

 

Here…,

In this space & this time.

The arts darkness.

Awaits…,

In anticipation.

Discovery.    

 

There they wait.

Or elect to ignore.

Teetering on the edge.

The precipice remains.

Waiting for the call.

A brooding nightmare.

From below.

Not echoing.

Screaming, ranting, delusions are harsh.

 

Then…

a delicate whisper.

Licking, rasping.

Like a dream.

The inner ear - away from the mind.

Drawing it like a pump.

It is so close.

So so close.

So close to the marrowing mother.

 

To talk to you -

To be heard -

And saying -

Whispering -

Come…

Come…

Taking the leap.

The bee that nagged Titus was me.

So his muse left his soul.

And as you have

The last muse.

To soften the harsh wind.

That is the beginning.

That is the beginning

Of your passion…  

 

 

Berryman and after

 

        I don’t like what the world has become,

            At night, the sprinklers sound like rain

            But I am neither fooled or consoled.  ~ Chase Twichell

 

… On a wet night in Charing Cross, Soho – 

A Greek tragedy: Aeschylus or O’Neill, to counter too much reality.

Finding on a ‘pilem-high’ for a £1.00 ‘Dream Songs’ – like a monument - 

His face stared out from the cover: as if some Roman Emperor or God. 

The words permeated through as a bat seeking its infant in the dark.

The way, not standard light; the dark with another kind of darkness.

The ‘confessional’; intersilient, finding both backward and backward in forward.

His glasses saw through too, too far – like looking straight into the sun.

There would a consequence – as when humankind live the live of god.

Henry had a heart – that was apparent –how could he not.

Here high lyricism married with black chaos of the unravelable.

The syntax of the strange path that picks it travellers.

There is no peace, no stillness, no sanctuary, November’s lightlessness. 

The muse picked the right one. just with a too larger dream to sing.     

 

 

Lions

 

Before the first division –

Division-of-conflict.  Creation-of-disaster  

 

They grow above over and out of their shadow

Hirsute tiaras kings –of-prepare-to-fall

 

They are, in their ending; require ‘the fall’.

Aiming across the red evening sunset

 

Indentations down among the ivy’s and headstones

Stalking the distracted eyes

 

The chests bears the mark of ’P’ –the self and selfishness

The golden crest glows in its allure

 

They amass in gatherings, they collect

Knowing the sun will set: And not before 

 

 

 

Peter Marra

A Trick Of A Slow Scream

 

haloes burnt. synchronized carnage got her. she lied.

she was hiding from the newscast murders.

she was hiding from the television splatter.

in a fuck thrash-out she spilled her cum against any car.

overtime in stimulation & words revolt

 

her hand betrayed the consciousness of herself

she ran her soft words into the ground

old women smiled over her shoulder.  behind her, one hand on her.

the screens were deep, an involuntary moan escaped

a situation in a small town burning. the view up her skirt was one two-way.

 

her hands were working to affect a change,

an opening, the sympathy for mouths. 

she kissed deep & fought the feeling. she was close.

her body went slack. (the moron cops missed the body-bags)

she took a subject from a  life that would never be hers.

 

we used to be able to say what we desired without shame

as the animal knelt on the floor & stared.

i died like a wet dog singing,

panting at her feet in the tidal pool with

brackish water under my tongue.

 

we lived & slept in the tenement of moss

rooming with the punk girl with one leg

we would trip over her false leg at night

clutching at her motorcycle jacket & her faded faces

she stayed in this to distill an essence of a tragedy

 

she tasted my lips as she extracted my spirit

soft & squishy. tongued it, then re-inserted it. transmutation.

she stared blankly as a string quartet played electric violas

that were plugged into fender twin reverbs.

(their fingers melted as the amps short circuited)

 

thrashing hard on the idea as

a sadist became a surgeon for a sexual sublimation.

they were turgid as the microcosm – an eye of humiliation.

a brief touch of my face as she stole & fled,

leaving me amongst seaweed & souls.

 

remembering her odor & her fake smile:

a mouth was a mouth as her skirt burned.

she knew that the blood & the body when

taken internally caused a mutation.

& she slowly emitted noise

 

she parted her dress, she reached around her waist

overtime in stimulating everyone was kneeling in front of a bang

she gulped it down, zipped up & began sliding money

approximate words lighted into her quickly so all could hear.

yet again as flesh, she became a simplicity.

 

she nodded, found the other way

getting what she wanted: sign of corpses left in a moment or two

purified & tumultuous & love cascaded over her breasts

she read the bible to discover the harlots, to take notes;

then she sterilized their thoughts & burned the pages

 

 

Faith Crawls At The End Of The Highway

 

“Let’s dance,” she said

her mouth now welcomed the priestess-wife

with the last drop of the assassin

 

Afternoon of a gamine

a taste of gasoline

the smell of her leather jacket

 

An evil interlude

leads to nothing

and a song of sexual freedom leads to tears

 

The illustrated guidebook that described the haunts of the devils

lay yellowing on the roadside

its pages caked with dirt and a little blood

 

A recipe for disgrace

cooking in the white pale moonlight

kissed by the corona discharge of her eyes

 

As she hummed the long last tone of the Farfisa organ

clenched teeth a creation feeling

cringing demeanor her petals in each roadside attraction

 

Fear grows slowly as pleasure dissipates

as the diabolical burn during prayer

she went to bed with a murderer

 

And awoke anointed as a saint

saliva clothing her teeth she tasted bitter smiles

as she sang to the stranger that now occupied her grave

 

A tenant in a complex of cubicles

born heaving in the sun

wishing for eternal moonlight on the shore of black sand

 

The actual text of herself:

at the base of his spine the fall of man

so regretful as she escaped the uncomfortable situation

 

In tears we dream

moving down instead of moving

remembers her heart of sex for money

 

As the faces burn in the furnaces

created out of a void

a song for the degenerative acts

 

A sound of decomposition

a whisper of her love nailed

to a cross constantly spinning

 

She seemed scared

she created human bodies on earth

she was liking someone else better

 

We were cast off into an orbit

We were in a tailspin at the highway’s finish

We were clinging to a crumbling wall

 

Tasting the blood that was dripping from our fingernails

flesh stretched fetish wanderings

nerves burning

 

“I swallow your tears,” she said

“I’ll forgive you,” she said

“Let’s dance,” she said

 

“Let’s dance,” she said

the anger inside the mystery

these killings were loaded into a new costume

 

“Let’s dance,” she said

a gentle sway

threads of sky taste black look up

 

 

Morphia In The Blud Sextet

 

1.(a sex decoy on the church lawn)

 

leaning against the sofa, as the music box slowly decayed,

her legs offered relief when available. gentle tunes.

she shuddered as she had the nighttime before,

leaving the goddess of the narcotics to burn

in red pain.

 

2.(women of the blood stained bible)

 

the horrible part of act 2  (the religious healer) was concluding,

as her tight silhouette was seen as an addiction. act 1 was an exposé

of the Hollywood suicide cult.

 

it was first recognized as only outlines. a perpetuation of the

ritual skills is required to die quietly. when my thoughts were steady,

she took the dried poppy latex obtained from, but not understood

by, either image on the bed. It was mixed in a suspension of the ashes of

cremated call girls – past desires from a long time gone.

 

3.(private life of  a Hollywood model)

 

i rolled her onto the rubies after the Persian drummers

had ceased  transmitting the burnt messages of the worshippers.

she reposted the Reuters story. the needle barbs became a

quartet of burning violins moving under the flesh.

she never spoke about withdrawal symptoms or the

blue pain pleasure pinned, because, she said, it was now time to play.

 

the summer promise is never fulfilled you know, she breathed it out

fitfully as she repeated the actions previously stated. the rains

had stopped now and her grass was wet and fragrant. the lamps

had been crushed. outside on the porch, the figure in the rocking chair

slept fitfully as the missing timepiece ticked.

 

4. (burning trees) 

 

drums. dope burns his favorite vein. flutes pierce eardrums.

please sign the white sheet. he spit cold razors

at her face as she wiggled her ass, then they sat down.

the fingernails ripped through paint as they were slowly

dragged down the wall  slowly plaster under each

nail mixed with dirt and blood. betadine solution on the

floor encapsulating tiny nude figures. dangling ballerinas

in a red cascade. signals crossed yet again.

 

5. (revenge of the last daughters)

 

Police report: offered her a lift, wanted to see the location.

no one showed up, so no one knew that she had off’ed him.

a priest laughed nervously as she spoke an awkward

confession: just a tale of condoms and knives. she had hooked

them and proudly showed it off. they lingered there for a

little while in Eastman color; as the meteors spoke we made

love in a staccato testimony. it wasn’t long before the next

time, we just couldn’t stop. then the family realized how

excited she really was.  after leather.

 

6. (the soul snatch revue)

 

morphine became her genitals.

her labia became a lyric.

codeine lip service, or a political erasure.

just a statement. this could be relative obscurity.

like the traditional bleeding,

this position offers a sex act, it’s

a thing, a semi-synthetic and

an occurrence of a narcotic dance

or a case of bleeding. undecided. 

 

i had a blackness down in my chest that

couldn’t be illuminated by love 

they couldn’t be eradicated

 

just a synthesis from mundane infections

a central nervous system of her tastes controls me. 

unrealistic. laughable even. stopped in my tracks.

they crouched down low and held the shapeless

mass that they had excised from me at arms length.

 

behind that mirror on the other side her slight figure

crouched, slowly rocking back and forth.

they were smirking as she gazed at faded

polaroids of pleading mouths,

back for the ride,

 

hurry home,

hurry home.

 

 

the opening crawl

 

maybe it was intended to be comic or

maybe she looked to her right,  but the

women stopped combing her hair,

recognizing the type of pain that terrified.

 

this could be appealing.

hiding in the gas station with a sin hound

about to be admitted into a mental institution.

 

it kept her safe until her death

take it! take it!

despite his reputation,

she sliced him to ribbons and hung his skin

on the clothesline

to flap /flap /flap with the pain and

with the song and with the odors in the tainted breeze.

 

it was 75 degrees out but the light suggested autumn

but it was only august 7.

it would be time for the new school year soon

smelled like October or late September.

 

students would be heard on the street

and hanging out at night in the concrete yard.

sodium lamps baptizing lies. frail passions.

 

but for now, he and the rest of the day, were hers,

in a detailed vulva masquerade,

a void shining,

overhead jelly leering.

 

where memory grabs back what it finally let out.

a tender conscience bites. flesh burning.

 

an idea of influencing or controlling nature

a smile and then an opening of her legs.

 

we rented a porno, then

spoke opposite of each other.

each side channel twisting once

to liberate from negative conditioning

always said yes. evolving.

 

the aspect of consciousness,

trapped in a spinal cord as well as glands.

at private parties the women spoke,

the event was recorded in your cells...

do we have to wear her resurrection?

white drops exist in the crown,

in being in her

she could be endearing,

it was humiliating for both of us.

 

she walked imprisoned, holding close

the souls received as a punishment

this purified her perception of god.

 

some model of the human body to

focus the concentration during prayer

i  want to lose her, but remain cloistered in her psyche.

 

she disrobed,

revealing her cunt

stopped thinking

just stopped thinking.

 

a junkie shrinks

(with razors through the eyes)

with the function of the orgasm.

 

 

The Dixie Butcher Kills At Midnight

 

With sunglasses and a gun,

she was lying in the front seat of her car;

She was pulled inside herself.

A twisted skin violation in a ’67 Mustang.

 

Opened the door, exited and sat down on the road

to contemplate the thoughts of unrealistic leashes

on iridescent snails, begging these ideas to stop.

 

One drop of water in a glass.

Many drops to fill up time.

One drop of crimson in a cup, many drops of dew.

 

She watched from behind the curtain as

the morning was born from a caesarian eruption.

A twist of her pleasure in the twist of her stories.

 

An audience watched a woman on the stage.

Tilted head, she looked down.

Shadows followed close behind her -

watching her twisting as her arms stretched wide.

 

She never could comprehend emotional displays in a person.

 

Warm and fleshy,

she heard the slight moans of satisfaction,

burning in the background under the dirty skylight,

as the naked door expands.

Warm fleshy.

In the back of her throat the taste of smoke and iron.

In transit.

A nauseating epiphany as she touched the arms hanging off the wall.

 

In the swamp

south of the Mason-Dixon,

polaroid snapshots drown in gasoline;

steam and transistor radios provide evidence of viscous

dark puddles exhibiting a slow taste of vibration.

A finger causes ripples, she was fascinated by the effect;

Her spouse was murdered, she counted to ten.

 

Mariticide and extreme sublimation made themselves known.

She lit a votive candle and traveled down the Mississippi,

looking for transcendent violence, a point of contact.

 

Her hand levels had become just silhouettes that

were laboriously spelling out how

we think and how we ignite.

 

There are parallel women that use her identity

(white eyeliner and black eye shadow).

 

A truer transcript was never laid down:

she arrived clad in

a black leather wedding dress,

moist from the August humidity, exuding the motions of

bridal depravity.

 

Her commands were whispered,

 

“That was some really tacky shit motherfucker.

Your goo and blood were all over the place.

Bride of evil, please ignite and sparkle.

Illuminate the cityscape with a bright climax,

and burn down the landscape.”

 

She set forth her philosophy of living:

 

“I want to climax as much as possible

while causing as much hurt

and tears

as possible.”

 

They exhaled, then faded, while transient victims sang,

mewing in a soundless fashion behind her.

Tales of love,

missing a meaning in a

split-screen, a false-start crescendo.

 

She was milky and tracking lost remnants,

recounting dreams of violet colored velvet

outlining pale skin.

 

Caught in another frequency.

 

 

Originally from Gravesend Brooklyn, Peter Marra has had approximately 100 poems published in print or online in journals such as Caper Literary Journal, DM, Maintenant 4 and 5, Yes, Poetry, Literary Orphans, The Carnage Conservatory, Carcinogenic, Calliope Nerve, Unlikely Stories and Why Vandalism? His chapbook Sins of the Go-Go Girls was published in April 2013 by Why Vandalism? -->

http://journal.whyvandalism.com/sins-of-the-go-go-girls.html. Two of his short stories are in the anthologies Have a NYC and Have a NYC2 and 1 short story is due to appear in The Evergreen Review. Peter is currently compiling his first collection of poetry. His published work may be viewed at www.angelferox.com.

 

 

 

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