Amanda Deutch – Two Poems


Amanda Deutch

Two Poems

from Letters to People I Have Known


Sephaly,

It is 2:25 pm
before long it will be night again and the screaming red birds will come back to my
dream state.
people fade with burned signatures
sugar themselves
not even associates

              me


When I Was

When I was
Young, my toes
Would ache,
My heart would be on
Fire. I took notes
In a city of glass.

Early splinters of light
Through sky scrapers,
Cubist forms.

Now it is rush hour, a roomful
Of us lying fetal and silent
Listen to your voice.

Pericardium
Lace agate                  still
Stale Como                cupcakes
Ancestor

“I don’t want to buy anything, sell anything or process anything
as a career. I don’t want to sell anything bought or processed, buy anything sold
or
processed or process anything sold or bought.”

Still
There is almost no noise. Portals

Smell of wind, face

On the edge of the blanket—       all around it is nothing

Nowhere familiar

(space w/out location)   (or objects to grasp on to )

Winter blossoms:

Lou Reed sings,
“What comes is better than what came before.”

Chan Marshall (Cat Power) sings the same song,
“Come come come to me. . .”

(Voodoo)

It is an old friend come walking
through the centuries of rain
To visit you

To locate you
On this sphere in the fog

Via portal, a long walk or
Public transportation

Busses in my dreams
Carry us through the night

Hello, it is an old friend come walking
through the centuries of rain
To visit you

II.

Press my body
against a window

Still running
Marshes

Dripping darkness forests
Races in labyrinthine underground tunnels

With your mother
Through hourless (electrical) cities

Chasing busses
And power lines

Swirling cars and angry make-up ladies
Tattoo faced street kids on a rooftop island

Make make make-up, your mind.

Motive unclear unfurled

Underneath hours
And glasses

Wine stains
Windows

Subway trains stuck in dark tunnels
Underneath our skin

Our   “I”
Is what is what.

What that you heard them they say in the pipes with hot water
The people drill 500 feet deep for

Close close close them eyes

You heard me when I accidently smiled across the room
And responded with a handshake three hours later
and one floor higher.
Your hand cold, like mine
From the rain outside
Your voice smooth, letters
shaped so articulately.
How many fantasies
Do we have of lovers
Strangers welcomed into our fields
for a brief glance and a handshake.

Naked but for water.

Windowless
Naked
Detroit river
Gushes

(Supple breasts
settlers, homesteaders, one legged pioneers.
Native Americans, healing seekers
Sucker searchers elk deer
New age tabla players, ayurvedic astrologers,
Wounded soldiers, homeless wayfarers, recovering anorexic junkies,
Juice freaks, wonky eyed stiff necked holy rollers.)

Hardworking lop-sided young men hoist and weld pipes
Into the rainy northwest night
Heading 500 feet deep into the earth’s surface

Leaks
Leach
(Suggest boats)

To run a liquid through
As ashes
To be removed
            The solutions

Conduct, direct, escort

The distance one is ready to run . . .
. . . The next time

Winged heels
Crooked mouths
(A certain hotel
sheets balled up like bodies
ballots crumbled in the trash
bodies moaning rash)
A certain look
That walk alone through night absolute
(In an ancient forest rain dripping from above)
No sight
(Albeit
That walk seems endless)

Cooked nettles
Rose hips
Ginger
Gulp
Grip
Gash

Naked but for water

(A common paradigm?)

It’s as real as any secret.

Undeniable grace, in the window
You walk miles
from 56th St and 2nd Ave
In red high heels.

Fishermen, death, the sea.
Daylight—
The last detail.
I remember correctly
it was light.

(TV antennae
            Bills
       Money to    Susie
            Calendar (2005)
      Chocolate
               Tampons
       Dental floss)

Narcotic dinner party
Scattered food and music
Smoke from potatoes and grease
Nervous limbs twitch
These people, like you, constantly

ask                     push                  join                      lock                             think

Let them in.
There are lots of people on the roof.

                                                                                    Dec. 22, 2004 1:10 pm, Portland

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