I said,
“we’re all so small”
jack-in-the-boxes, walking
in the shape of a human.
those kernels at our core,
“pop goes the weasel.”
those more-than-reflex
real visceral places -
I’m sure I’m composed of many,
I just don’t know what
or where they are.
we all contain the infants we once were,
those snot-filled
precarious soft-bodies.
the tale we’re told is
that we grow larger
through acts of alchemy
that biology and chemistry describe.
but I’d like to suggest instead
that we’re stuffed
blood-filled by experience
until we must stretch
and expand our skin,
lest we explode.
because the mass of our multitude,
the variety of selves we must become
to acommodate
the flesh remainders of
expectation, chaos, and shoulds
demand us to grow large.
to swallow car accidents filled
with best friends turned feral screams,
and other best friends turned cancer patients...
prone, tube filled, distended-headed fathers,
and red, nightmarish, lighten-up-your stomach bad
interpersonal embarrassment,
you are required to mutilate,
make more space -
call it a type of house cleaning, if you’d like.
to continue on living, is to attempt at infinity.
we all lose,
eventually overrun
or overcome.
no longer able to split, fracture, or multiply,
we collapse.
I said, “we’re all so small.”
Poet Douglas Kearney and composer/producer/drummer Val Jeanty link up for a a compelling LP that feels like the written word come to life. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 30, 2021