Lonely Entanglements

Here is a lyric/poem collage, it contains parts of lyrics by Deftones, Lhasa, and Cage; excerpts from the film, Gilda, and a poem by Pablo Neruda. The two photos are by Grace-Kim's series of pictures entitled, Love Hotel.

I'm Her New Cool Meat

Stop I'm drunk

Got you where I want you

Got you where I want you

Luminous mind, bright Devil

of absolute clusterings, of the upright noon--:

here we are at last, alone...

Stop I'm drunk

without loneliness,

far from the savage city's delirium.

But hate can be a very exciting emotion. Very exciting. Haven't you ever noticed that?...There is heat in it, that one can feel. Didn't you feel it tonight?...I did. It warmed me. Hate is the only thing that has ever warmed me.

Just as a pure line describes a dove's curve,

as the fire honors and nourishes peace,

so you and I made this heavenly outcome.

The mind and love live naked in this house.

Now my jaw and my teeth hurt. I'm choking from gnawing on the ball. And just before I come to move to the back of the car she makes me touch the machine. New murderer.

Lovely Lady Spider loves you best

Begs you to come live in her own nest

Feed you clothes you gives her heart to you

Just as pure...fire...nourishes peace...

Hate is the only thing that has ever warmed me.

Stop I'm drunk

Got you where I want you

Its like the sky opened and God handed you directly to me!

Furious dreams, rivers of bitter certainty,

decisions harder than the dreams of a hammer

flowed into the lovers' double cup,

Lonely Spider waiting in her web

Hoping she can catch some happiness

Then who should stumble into here but you

First untie me (Stop! I'm drunk) untie me for now. You said you would, right? And you were right (stop I'm drunk!)

Got you where I want you

Soon I'll let you go

Got you where I want you

Soon I'll let you go

until those twins were lifted into balance

on a scale: the mind and love, like two wings.

--So this transparency was built

Feeling like your heart is beating, its only for me!

Stop I'm drunk

November Heart Beats for Lhasa De Sela

I Didn't Call and You Didn't See

Me for a While

by AE Paulino

Lhasa Lhasa O dear,

Dearest Lhasa, from where, where

If not only from the lobby of your heart

Does that voice carry four chambers

On its back and up through the slight

Aperture of throat, does it compress

All that blood into song, into vibrations of air?

Lhasa Lhasa O dear,

Dearest Lhasa, from where there,

If only there does that pain swell and clenched

Like eyes, does a tear damp those fists?

Lhasa, for it is November

Dearly November and your airs make love,

Sheets of fallen temperatures that wrap the streets--

O dear, you make again, the heart with which I move

Its not enough, no longer to know--

Its not honest, no longer never less, to hold most still,

And from a tongue like a stage, truth will act

When the play, O dear, bloats with necessity

Lhasa Lhasa O dear,

Dearly Dearest, when should I,

If ever I should with this There There Heart,

That trickles and drafts, that needs a pin,

A button and perhaps an Icy Late Fall's Palm;

When should I sing from that palm,

The necessity that could make a Lhasa song

out of the absence thereafter?

Because,

Its not enough, no longer to think--

Its misfortune, no longer the more, to press most still,

and from a tongue like a hot tin roof, truth will jump

When the building, story by story, bloats with desperation

Observe

Stranger, When We Meet

by AE Paulino

I rode the train back home

and couldn't keep my eyes off my reflection,

this always happens--

obsessed, I have to know how I look

moment to moment, stop to stop,

the subtle changes in who I am,

glass acrossly framed, tells me

in transparent summary;

There's no time to meet

the attractive eyes of a stranger,

the jealous, the nervous, or the curious--

No, no, there's no room on that glass

where I'm strange enough for me,

jealous enough, nervous, and by every mean--

curious.

I know some can see my amazement,

my fascination, my subject;

I worry they think me two dimensionally vain

but, only for a slight second's fraction--

before I notice how such a thought

shapes my face, gives it character,

establishes a reserved countenance

of satisfied disappointment, paranoid trust,

of discorded agreement with the fellow

in the glass who, for a second's fraction

did not mirror my vision--

and like a director to an unprepared actor,

I function it my privilege

to extract that performance;

for myself and the strangers

Today You Get To Say 'I Told You So'

by A.E. Paulino

I've been in the dead end of cave
caved in, I've been there with nothing of more
than a dull flame, asthmatic light almost out of lung
dullest makes gray separate from black
and to that extends its reach
thinking my gray a brilliant white
because its all available with nothing
of true light to compare against

all at once a scalpel dissects cave walls
and pure sunlight burns eyes to the back
of my dark vibrating mind
I sit and can't find that dull little flame
where has it gone and I remember
how clear it shone out in that absolute of cave

now I walk forward wishing to not squint
through eyelids like a veil over whispered-open eyes
I can't see anything but I know its clear and true
bright warmth on my face
embracing me back into a world
a world long from a detention
where I've been kept and made to miss
all the beams and rays that intensified
in between the days I've been caved
now in extreme fires of sunlight
am I made to adjust.

its also a question.

The Drowning Man

by A.E. Paulino

I heard the last roar of the storm
before an obsidian wave,
streaked by silver reflections of moon,
swallowed me under.
A crash cymbal in reverse
as ocean sucked me down.

Dark sea, the siren's song,
a panic of sudden loneliness
in a cold abysmal, I'm taken.
Life reaches upwards,
struggle drags me fathoms further,
I see nothing.

Still, my breath is held
and water does not fill my lungs

Though I cannot collect a visable assembly,
I know my ship is still in tact.
I must reach her.

On the surface, shoved every which way
by dark waves and pounding winds;
she won't break, certainty of such
becomes air for me.
Above she holds together by all
that gathered the strength of her framework.
Under, I push and pull
as harrowing tempests of desperation grip me.

To control less, to let go and abandon,
this lifts the body back to her;
yet, death consults without logic
inspires anxiety and weight as I sink.

Unless I float I'm not worth
a return to shore with her.

Happy Belated Valentines Day

Stupid Kiss
by A.E. Paulino


I texted her.
a n g r i l y.
i wanted to
see her/
its been long
since last
we've done
any seeing of
one another.
t h u r s d a y,
she wrote.
excited i wait/
and she doesn't
show at all,
t h u r s d a y.
friday, she's gone
no reply no text.
i thought she died.
she has lung
p r o b l e m s,
she could die.
I wouldn't know.
s a t u r d a y
she texts,
i'm not dead,
but she is.
she is and
she can't
c o n v i n c e
me other,
to that wise...

One of the Last Nights

Yesterday myself and other fallen stars
approached a cold night with golden throats.
So many heartbeats
that occupied the tundra tentacles of night.
In the midst of stories made of hands
and gray eyes that film like wornout scotch tape.
I am in the middle of this October
and in this apart-mented planet laughs
are slanted in wine
and galaxies of smoke serpents
dance spirals above our silk woven smiles.
Eyes and hands, voices and
shapes for bodies radiation flirts through;
with the warmest approach
tenderly addressed homelessly as far as intention propels.
5 like a hand, each finger a lover,
a glove fits like a night on a day; a week in a heart.
We bid apart as a fist opens,
after swallowing suns into moons
and drifts of December whisper
voluminous previsions among the eyelids
of cold celestial sidewalks.
A burned image in oil protrudes in mind,
holds me there as warm and lonely
as in the arms of a new prostitute.
I surrender submission in exchange
for domain and all its friends.
I stand and fold the moment into my long tired arms,
like years that extend from the shoulders
and end with branch-like boney fingers
that call in stretched creases,
the touch of a sweet banquet of flesh.
5 origins in a carousel at light speed;
the spinning metal whirs
into a long note sung,
proclaimed by our lungs
and all of its deaths.