when silence becomes an attachment
a long root protruding from the esophagus
we must say
something
stand before tyrant crowds who shout for the apocalypse
who jeer you down a forbidden stairwell full of obsolete doubt
watch you tumble down each turn each 180 corner
where the pissy vagrant meth yeti who slips jaundice in the
sterile tooth rot blues
clinks fractured bone on home-drone
& the warzone test signals (an emergency system test this is
an emergency system test)
a piercing metallic vibrational
infiltration
to padlock
and key
the neighbor’s party
to keep the dog safe from forced inbreed
(lobotomy of man’s best loyal companion)
how the race of man wishes really to belong to the race of dogs
of horses
(and down the stretch they come)
the up-tuned hero’s brigade
the martial law
the marital status
replete with guns & scripture ammunition
the don’t-tread-on-me abused by the progeny of the death-defiers who
sought to reveal it to unfurl its dark yellow coil at the base of the spine
entwined in the nervous system
the deep mother gorge
the backside of valley falls
(that’s god spittin’ on you)
better wake up skillet
skip
the happy parts & get
to the part where the bad guy wins
& in the morning his wife
pulls the knife from the chifferobe
cuts open his throat
ex-tracts his trachea
wrenches root from its hard-won
horizontal
hold
its careworn callous (cactus bone)
(that’s goddess singin over the bones)
better turn under buttercup
moon’s risin’
& she ain’t dead
(not yet i ain’t)
won’t die
she who birthed herself having lain with no one
elijah spoke
he is tired & angry
resentful even
as every evening
is wearied
by the weight of war
& so we must say something
if only to keep the vocal chords from burning
keep the glands from swelling
keep the verses voices hearts drumming
pendulums thrumming
on the wing bones
the blades of the shoulders
the woven wheat forest
or the dark pubic corners of triad unified
infinite arcs of light connecting the cardinal
points of the body
the hot rod springtime
the mellow drone washtub
the metal harbor
heavy humid fish stank stew
i want to eat it all
gurgle it (boil & trouble it)
& it would shoot out the ends of your toes & your fingernails & your hair
(am i talking too much?)
(why don’t you kiss—)
my fucking ass
this carnival smut fest is over
keep your harp to yourself you last mad generation
keep the inherited scabs of vietnam
(the war after our father’s father’s war)
how they fought
& cut
bramble with machete
& here we are & naked waving not genitals but beams of light
waving not manuscripts but battled plants
we are waging minds against headless horses
and sleepy hollow is not here to help us
he is drunk again
(punch)
hybrid
dirty hybrid
(you a dirty little bird you is)
this train has too many spirits of dead hobo kids on romantic opana roads
& half-assed getaways
there are not enough muscles in the human mind to contain
the magnitude of lucidity
without first breaching the layers of forgiveness between
saturday night opus & sunday morning repentance
atone-ment :: be at one
& this hypnotist spins several yarns
weaves loom & grey weather hammocks
sews sleep into the book shelves
hides ghosts in the pissy bum stairwell
how many nights have to pass before anyone notices the static in the sheets?
one silver shock & this body does not remember somatic
from psychology
will not divide nor categorize
dissect violence into grids
are shapes that try to dictate the way
in which we move the directionality
of our convergence
but this brain overflows
(the spiral implies an exit point)
the wolf bones :: sing over them
(the goddess rides)
sews together her brother’s torn wars
every night in time for him to tatter
them again
when the cavalry calls in the morning
(& god said let there be fright)
& it was so
& i too have been afraid to speak
i to have forgotten our mother’s most sacred alphabets
i too have wandered between descent & alive and it means splitting time into fractalized
doses of reality
real
entity
the one life of many lives the one body of may bloods & brains
that beats down the pavement
that splits the cracks where the green shines through
where mother earth takes back her moon
and dumps old pharaoh from the throne that is no throne
that is a mountain
he once mistook for a tower in babel
a lamb amongst cattle
a yoke & oak paddle
to torch the sanctimonious channels of our watery inner web & call it imperfect line
how he devised his own malcontent (male-ficus) & put me on the list for containment
do not box me you hound whore bond
do not mask my visage in plastic
you know nothing of our work
how we sing through the ancestors
in the name of the spirit
that is no spirit
is no void
but the origin of noise
of toil tireless wind roil
of watery bones
it is why we must say something
it is what silence means & doesn’t mean
from throat to bleeding throat
where you make the incision
to spill the cornucopia
the neck of the healthy goat
bleating
believe it suffers
as we all suffer
for the honor
to feed
to provide
(will provide)
and if we go on saying something what is the cost?
what is won of that which cannot be won nor lost?
and if we go on saying nothing what is the cost?
what is won of that which will not be bought nor told?
how can we speak of the ancient records of which we have no viable account?
how can we talk about words with words?
(meta maniac)
i will not sit silent when there are whole oceans (one whole ocean) crying
i will not contain that which ought to be released as it threatens to rip stoma & bleed from my eve’s apple
the swollen middle
of the throat
the lodge in it
the choked bark
the sputtered realization
come to a fracking caulk
a pus fueled mess in the chest
where mucus pools
& stretches
between little air sackets
the grapes of the lungs
the gap
between breaths
where the body drops something
where breathing is the same as not breathing
& if you can’t touch your toes when you bend over
then dip your knees it isn’t cheating
it’s a process
one which requires practice
& somatic discourse
to speak from the body
you don’t want to sing from the throat
it’s more of an opening
an allowance
alliance of air flow
pitch
& howl
(how big is your ginsberg?)
mine wraps around my thigh
(kidding)
(not kidding :: animus)
and how does all this chaos (goddess) keep firing dissonance at the constant insistence
of rapid machine gun fire & chemical warfare?
pray more
eat less
breathe
(then speak)
each word knowing we are all going in many directions
at the same synchronic point in time
how many times do you have to repeat a word or an idea before it loses its meaning?
how many times until it finds new significance?
there is a mountain & then there is no mountain
& then there is a mountain again
& i will sit here in silence until i am uncomfortable
until i am comfortable again
& i will utter truth until you are tired of it
until you will hear it
until you will hear it
until you will bear it with me
Caitlan Mitchell is an MFA student at Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, having earned her BA from the University of Maryland. She is a co-editor of The Love Shovel Review, an independent anarchist literary magazine based out of Nederland, Colorado. She has been published in the Naropa SWP Magazine and in The Museum of American Poetics’ Napalm Health Spa Report for their Long Poem Masterpieces of the Postbeats. She is currently working on a novel-length lyric myth.