arrows, parts one and two.

title tentative. give me ideas. tell me what's wrong.

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(arrows, one.)

See

Up until I came along

This family never heard the words ‘give up’ we don’t what they mean ask any Bordeleon we say ‘go head’, a cajun mantra.

Ok I said, I’ll go ‘head and go ‘head

if you give me direction

if you kindly set me on the way to Sophia who sings with her

porcelain shoulder blades

San Andreas China plates

arched Golden Gate back.

I told them ‘That. Yea. I’ll go head and give up to that.’

First things first. Show me how to stand again. It’s been awhile.

I got a bonesaw in the back shed

Go ‘head Love, take these feet

here have ‘em if you swear to bury em somewhere good

Georgia maybe, I hear it’s nice.

Show me how to stand right.

I been sittin here on my bedroom floor holdin the ends of ankles close like bleeding pens next to Ray Charles greatest hits and a hill of peach seeds and peach stems from peaches I’ve eaten and eaten just to keep georgia, georgia on my mind the whole day through and make believe I got something like that to sing the blues to.

Get me outta here. Grab a leg and drag me if you have to. These peaches are making me sick.

I swore that ‘Come mornin’ I’m good as gone.’

Well I’ve seen suns upon suns come and gone and I’m still here.

Sitting. On this godforsaken floor.

With white lies wearin a swear’s uniform and mornings past lyin’ down here bored to death, I built them into a bed.

I went ahead and went ahead and set myself on fire to relight all the wicks burnt out I keep in my matchbox (throat)

I swore I’d tie em in a string and use the dead ends to spell ‘Alleluia! I am engulfed in utter Love! It burns!’ I swore to burn like that one more time ‘No no I’m good’ I said ‘I got sledgehammers up my sleeve and I’ll fuckin’ break my way out of this if I gotta. Give me that there match. I’mma look like the 4th of July.’

Well, now everything’s on fire and I’m on fire too and so are you.

Ok.

Stay calm.

Direction.

Break glass in case of emergency.

Break glass.

I’m runnin’ around town with a bag of bricks hysterical shattering shop windows watches and reading glasses hoping to find that one fire extinguisher or fire blanket or damp towel or an answer, some small call back to these flames and all this yelling.

Back to step one.

Break glass.

Well I have and all I have is a floor full of shards from broken windows

2 barefeet to cut up and draw you a big red heart on the carpet.

Look how cute.

2 lungs to take the smoke outta yours and out these mirrors so one day maybe we’ll see ourselves clear again. In this glass, I’m not much more than the mud on my skin spillin levees on my shins and more broken bones than I’d like to count. I’ve been tracin’ arrows in the fog, connecting the dislocated limbs and fractured ends of myself, the lines spell out

GO HEAD GOD MAKE THIS HERE MESS A MAN.

I got a floor with hundreds of musketballs stuck underground all round this house. This sole? It’s a gun held to the temple of Apollo fired and shooting stars out hte other side bloodsplatter constellation against a Union uniform. Apollo knows what I’m saying. Went and burnt my heels on all the stars I wished on for a capital-H Home back home and a darlin’ there to get back to and miles upon miles of God’s Country from here in Antietam to you so I can kick up the Lord’s prayer with my boots with each dusty singing step. I’mma make a sandstorm one day. I’mma baptize you kids in a great Dust Bowl. (if only i still had my feet. This war’s been hard on us. Gettysburg ain’t been so nice either I need to get up and get.)

I’m sorry my room is a mess on account of all the blood.

Turns out sulphur stays in the land, that’s why crops won’t grow here even after forty years.

I got a floor littered with history lessons on fire, and more sulphur and saltpeter than Iwo Jima. I’mma turn this stage into a new Pacific Theatre. Brace yourself and plug your ears.

And it turns out some floods don’t wash sins away and redeem and such, they just make things all wet.

I got a floor full of soaked blueprints sketches and models from having to reinvent myself over and over. Looks like DaVinci had a heyday with this place. The clay has turned to mud caked on my hands and I can’t touch much without making it less shiny. Girls, don’t line up all at once.

This burnt-out washed-up husk of deed box here, it holds the manuscript of my birthday nineteen ninety five or at least the ash that’s left. If you squint your eyes you can still see my backyard inside the dust. My parents put on my cake candles already blown out wicks already burned and icing that spelled ‘KNOW YOUR EXIT’ my only gift: a lesson. A list. Step by step directions on how to go ahead and give up, how to dance, givin’ up down side to side two three ten point turns back outta the rough unpaved parts of life like this and I’ve been doin ‘em ever since.

I got a bedroom floor covered in tire marks from braking

so hard

and breaking

so hard

and turning

so often

and backing out

when I swore to swear to promise I wouldn’t. One of ‘em got broken en route.

if they ask about the burnt rubber, im drawing a star on this carpet

a blue print

makin a second sun here on earth.

like an infant takin its first slow spins in my room now.

go ‘head and go ‘head and have a look.

(arrows, two.)

ya know them, ah, matroshka dolls.

with one in the other in the other.

well i am the last the smallest riiiight

in there

in a belly of paper shields torn

in a hard cover text closed

in a glass bottle drunk

in the concrete arms of Helen fallen

in love

in the back of an ambulance hurt real bad.

Hit the lights.

You dolls you,

I been knocking on this wooden wall for awhile askin God to open up all this Dark.

Open it.

Ok directions, etch this in your heart of hearts.

Walk upstairs.

Check my closet.

Clear the ghosts.

Please excuse the mess and all the cobwebs.

See that case? The one shaped like a fiddle your Mother kissed onto your forehead that plays notes in morse code that spell ‘open it’.

Now, open wide.

Inside’s a guitar.

I got it from Mister Herbert Hurt, a bonafide ghost drifting off the ground down I-10. Got a good deal. Swapped it for fifteen bucks, an old skin I shed way back when, and a ride one hundred ten miles ...that way.

Herb said ‘I’m headed for God’s country. I’d use mud and words and sing a Kingdom up from the dirt with this here guitar but my hands

they aren’t as strong as they used to be and these songs are still so heavy.

Here, see what you can do with it.’

I named this fine instrument Polly like the bird cause it’s easy on the eyes shrill sometimes and for a little bread it’ll talk to ya.

Go ‘head and hold her just take care not slice your hands open, the poems might fall out. There are mouthfuls of arrows and arrowheads tacked on the headstock all of ‘em rusty pointed and going different ways but they are the same

like this family like this house

Each, a paper star strung up in a café named Bethlehem on Christmas. These notes taste like red wine and bread.

Herb said, ‘Kid, you look like you need redeemin’. Let’s make Polly talk. Sling her on your back and walk. Bring a pen and the blanks in your skin and some blankets cause we got a long way to the Promised Land. Nine months or so.’

Where was I?

Right. Back to directions. Like arrows like commandments prescriptions prayers little stars tattooed on my limbs to remind me not to sin whenever i get around to it

one. Thou shalt not lie

two. Thou shalt not lie with her.

three. thou shalt not say I’m sorry, when thou ain’t sorry (see limb one.)

four. thou shalt not swear

five. ah shit. I’m sorry. Ummm…I won’t fuck this up next time I swear. Ah.. I love you (think). Umm …

God i believe in you and I have for awhile.

It’s near eleven, high time you believe in me back or show me you do.

Give me a sign, make it flashy on account of all the dark.

Go tell your angels.

Where I’m goin’ you’ll need armies of ‘em to do all my guarding. I’mma walk on top of fire and floods, hell or high water, going arms out barefoot looking like huck finn on a fence like Christ on a cross. We three want the Mississippi inside us like last night I wanted not to want something bad to happen to me and real bad, so I took some notes. I wrote my own 10 commandments of my own. Like direction like give me stone tablets and I’ll chisel each one down if I have to.

one. clear the ghosts Lord.

two see that case? inside’s a bow.

three open wide.

four make me into an arrow. my head is lead and heavy already make me sharp. wind my throat at one end and use it like a quiver

five nock my body into the string and aim south.

six hold me there.

seven hold and hold hard. till your whole arm shakes scared to death with lullabies your momma hummed with the ocean.

eight, let me slip by accident then miss me sorry you couldn’t goodbye i’ll see you in Zion in the sky.

nine. watch me sing home lord shade your eyes I’m going far this time. Just, way way out there.

and ten…

When I hit my mark at last the rosary by my bed will shed its skin and curl up to sleep on my hand. Chances are, I’ll be barefoot jeans rolled up holdin Herb’s guitar somewhere near and praying, God use my throat use my hands, and right on cue I’ll cough. Cough out a mouthful of arrows. Paper stars tacked on my palms.

God, I know how to make things too and make them good like you.

It’s like thunder.

I learned it.

Awhile ago I asked Herb

‘Hey, ah, which way to God’s Country’

Herb smiled and said,

‘Ya know them ah Matryoshka dolls? With the one in the other in the other.

Son, it’s in our belly. It’s all around.’

He plucked another bible page from his shoulder and like that, crushed it into light.

granddaughter Halloween.

(subject to change)

Ok, Halloween has a granddaughter. I want you to meet

Mariam, forty-four, female, unconscious and unresponsive OD’D on alcohol and anti-depressants, who last night learned that 1) cement curbs make lousy pillows, 2) bars are not beds, 3) dreams run red when they leak out, 4) you will not find blankets in bottles or bedframes in rain run-off. She was draped in the street, a bedsheet with holes for eyes to see outta. Mariam’s dressed up like a ghost again. She’s in us. She’s humming in all our backalleys.

Dear Mariam,

I’m gonna breathe for you. I’m gonna write you a song and sing it straight into your mouth so I know you’ll get this, if it helps you can call it a kiss. I’m gonna bring you back and call you granddaughter, cause I think you need a grandpa’s help.

With love, still,

good ghost Bill.

(here kids, deliver this, a letter a nursery rhyme a lullaby

first, hold it under your tongue and show me like you shake like I shake like a kid with fever burning afraid. Hold it like a star like a son like a newborn. I been working hard on these words. I know my granddaughter will read this. Mariam. Now on, I’m writing to her. y’all are messengers. Deliver this. Wait wait, I got one more.)

Dear Ghost Love, I wrote this poem for you. I wrote you a EKG strip with a good strong heartbeat fold this here into paper plane wings hold ‘em out sail and sink slow. When you get six feet down in here and down there then say these words aloud:

‘I’mma get up again. I’mma get up again.’

Grandpa wrote you a white bedsheet.

I gave my hands up inside a rain puddle broke the shell and tore it out.

go ‘head tie it round your head and blindfold yourself. Tell ‘em it’s a crown, yes, oversized and slipped down over your eyes but you are still a queen. You are still a queen. You are Lady Justice. Lady Liberty Kali Sophia Mary Mother of God and most of all Mariam of Bryan, Texas. Here I wrote a hundred statues in your image. The others, they got some kneeling to do.

And have this: purple nightgown. Grandpa wrote that too.

You feel the rivers in between the folds?

good, step inside granddaughter.

grandpa wrote a theatre in there.

It’s on the coast.

I’m there now. Aisles and hallways dark and overgrown with grass, it’s scary I know but it don’t have to be. I’ll walk you through it you hold my arm and I’ll read the words I scratched on my elbow from way back when, it goes

‘mar i am i am alleluia

lay your burden down.’

Grandpa wrote you a shotgun in a shotgun shack to break apart and bury. Lay down your arms, you young’uns and young guns split your double barrels, kids, bend ‘em into legs and get to steppin’.

Grandpa wrote you a shovel. You can dig up the stage under your front lawn and graduate in the soil. Walk across this. Get in the earth. Ma chere, you wear that dirt proud like a homemade dress when you bloom so bloom upside down. It’ll feel good.

Grandpa wrote you these dancin’ shoes. See how I step with my hands? We’ll dance around death a round life like in a circle.

Grandpa wrote you a good man, he’s somewhere under all these pages I know he is, even made his bed in it. When you find him, kiss like this. Kiss out graffiti murals announcing revolution between your lips, like you’re gonna overthrow an empire with this.

Grandpa wrote you two hands to make, so make sure to make like a letter fold over and get enveloped in this. This art thing, it’s an ocean laying supine chest rising and falling coughing on waves of its own blood.

Grandpa wrote you this night, it’s curled up with us stranded skin soaked in sea shivering, scared of it’s own dark. Granddaughter, hug this night say it’s alright and lose a little more light. Granddaughter, we will all sink singing into this darkness. That’s what the blindfold’s for. Go ask a dimming lightbulb, a dying star, fires in Alaska, the graveyard ER shift, rifles standing outta sand, say it with me,

‘Yea it’s scary but it don’t have to be.’

We’ll pick these waves out our eyes here soon. And call ‘em songs.

Grandpa wrote you two arms to slap the earth with your words. Something’s gonna hit us back. God maybe, cracking a two-by-four soaked in holy water across our heads, making our halos ring like wedding bells. Look, the splinters in our skin are bible verses. It’ll come again and again one of these Sundays.

Grandpa wrote you a second helping of heat. Here: a mother’s arms. A husband’s chest. Nine months in warm black hide and seek. A map drawn on your blankey look see? You can wrap up in this and get warm.

You can roll over in bed and sleep-in-wake-up from this rain to an ocean, this curb to a coast. I’ll try and scare the baddreams away with my pen and write better ones for ya.

Right about now, I’m writing lines of brick. I’m workin’ on a hospital wing out back. The one up there yawning wide with its arms. It’ll grow feathers here soon. When it does, I’ll meet you there.

I’ll be outside your hospital room with your niece and nephew, they got ghost stories and I got poems, under this light, they look about the same. We wanna get the chills and get good and scared. So we trade what we got, and try on the other’s spines like dress-up, ghost waltzing to the EKG beep inside. We’re gonna scare our hearts back into beating. I mean, it’s Halloween. And we are there now. All of us.

(Kids, I got a floor full of floorboards that needed changing let’s pull ‘em up like weeds and breathe and step down into this and sink. Waters nice and warm. Bring a pen and the blanks in your skin ‘cause we got a long way down. Nine months or so.

Kids, deliver this. And while you’re out, could ya get Mariam here another blanket or two. She’s been shiverin’ in her sleep I think. I appreciate it.)

I wrote you Love yea I wrote you Love,

good ghost bill.