~~On the Run
Restating (let the lover be, alone) life is a joke—
When there’s war in the streets there’s peace in the alleys:
Batons and Rifles and somewhere secret animal teeth.
II. An Immigrant Text
-wat it do?
-lost and alone, u?
-doin mathematics, 2+ 2
Screens, ghosts of steam,
I find
Solace in the sighing warmth
Of my sole morning scream.
Tracing ten days blind—
Dried out shells of snails white
Like little infinities on forest floors,
All worlds curled in tight,
Furls of time crusted together among
Calcified and cracking seams of detrite—
A labyrinth that stretched out reads:
~~This jaguar’s holy heart below
Throbs a bitter but loyal symphony:
A time for art to thaw ice in the cold,
A time to fight
And make love among the dark forest’s gold leaves.
Well, love was a lonely joke
Before I met you, grey,
Doling out sentences to the victims,
Never using an ¡ or an !
Then the day after the last day
Smoldering you breathed smoke
Grey rivers from my mouth,
Wading through hallucinating groves,
Exhaling coke into dense air.
I met you standing under stars
|You were unalone on Ellis Island|
- words by Michaël Veremans, image by Joey Magnum
