"Palace of Pureness" by David Brennan

Scantily Clad Press, 2008

Chasing Rabbits

When the pencil without warning erases its lineAnother is simple to draw

But the art is changed.Why did I go away? Was it

To not be with you, my friend, my self? At least I could have touched your hand.

Look at the person I was. My bodya sidewalk of ghost.

The softest grass.I was the greatest of men.

No shame in that.There’s howling worse than a basset hound’s.

Chuckle Lips

Yes, ILack suspense.If lifeQuite forgotten by meAnd hung on a hook by the doorShrills a strident British note,

If Asia is a skyscraper,What then? Heaven’s custodian brooms the cigarette Butts snuffed out Outside the gate?Oh, golly.

The story goes betweenA million windows.

An Epic of Popular Subject

Part I

Flies buzz over killedPens of cattle.Don’t hope to do everything.I’ll be happy enough.A rumor Whispered from the bottomOf your swimming pool.

Part II

She brushes her sexy locksAcross the ink of this Rolling and sleeplessWave that laps at outer space. Each of her hundred tonguesIs an old woman fat on gossipSpreading more cheese on her toast.

Resolution

She’ll have the usual.I hope so, I give up. You’re married now.Your trampoline

Is a trumpet and tears, The pure air. Married, like a melody dartingDown the happy street of punishment,

Dancing in circlesWith festal orgy revel.Married, this entire year,To eternity.

A Riot Within This Isolation

I. Director, Cast, Audience, Crew

The set is fucked, that our love had built. Burnt in and out, wheels and seat, the car smokes like its need. But can't find the end of its fag. A rip up the leg's hose. The crowd cuts in half: to hide or help, hide or help. The stores’ fronts we fed such large spoonfuls of cash: in glass shards and brick ash. The guns pull up in jeeps hyped and with tails tucked up their ass. Blood can look green or blue. If word leaks it will be tough to fill the seats. The stink: a cut, a nun, a can, a bird, a shit, a stem, a rug, a nose. Boots tramp spilled pics of friends. Who picked these props, who said yes? We sob as one and we are

The air shook, a soul casts down on us the sum of it. A soul! A bomb, made of nails or steel balls, can cut the gut tens of yards from the place of its boom. The heat of the blast zaps clean the bomb’s shards. Turn your head right and you won't go deaf. Shock waves zoomed past can pop a rip, the gut can be flipped by the force of mad air! This in a quick blip, while to feel may take months.

II. When the Bomb Goes Off, There is a Woman Standing Nearby

A clap and flash. The Wounded. Just the face shoved up.

THE WOUNDED. Hand, skin, shallow breath and sense a scattered mess, an unmoored breast,noise that shrinks and grows, filth in nose and teeth,

soft wood of singed air, mysterious forest,eternal opiate instant, pleasant blackhappiness, crater to catch my collapse,nearby the pinpricked

hydrant's gush, the sidewalk'sflame burns from bottom upprunes the low branches, the untouched leafgreen torch of tree’s flaring top,

an upside-down evergreenburns, its burning a name lostand I am a throat in the clouds, a sky-thirst

Car a red-bus-high flame. The same time as my toast and jam. Quite a scene. I might be a scream.

III. These Three Voluntarily Enlisted to Do This Sort of Thing

In space lies The Wounded.Sounds

gun firefzzzzzzza car hornkid shoutO hell yeswind in treesup chuckgleeGodlack of Godhorse clop

3 grunts: A, A and A. Crouched and puffed their want is to get to The Wounded. On tipped toe bit by bit their way is made to the prone shape (loud God sound) hit deck hold heads. Some time. All in one piece, the braced face lifts. Low and lad-like the 3 run from where they are to where they were. Keep in shape. Bit by bit the way is made (loud lack of God sound) hit deck hold heads. Get up fall down get up fall down get up fall down til

old age/young age/young old ageearth's Oson of a butchblonde-locked bitchin a book with bearsno god for me thanksfilms that sucklove that sucksboom boxra-tat-too-weeif day comesI'll get done

the houseand then givethe dog and car a bath

IV. El Presidenté Enjoys a Quiet Moment in the Far Off Palace of Pureness

Not here. He has a bump to itch; some place else his blood sings. On top of his snot rag he drapes a face and waves away the taps of sleep.

The boys know me well,

precocious visionaryI can't help being.

Their private assesaren't worth shining my boot's heel

with. A name fits all.

My digs are top notch.Caviar in the icebox.Massage at seven.

5 a.m. morning.Calisthenics to excess

eliminate me.

Slow Moses of theG.I. Joe. This just in. Car

bomb. Thanks, CNN.

Strategically I consult my Playstation to

determine action.

What a great game! Mythumbs are super-strong. Cell-phone

junkies got nothin'!

Mobilize the troops!Release next-year's arch villain.

I made him from scratch.

A game noise. A line of coke.

I google my life.Introduces teary cheek.

This is different.

What I mean is this:I'm mean. No heart for kiddies.

I give the orders.

Took a picture ofmyself. Sweet and sour face.

Twilight opera.

Hey. I lied just then.Hurt is a long way awayfrom what I'm feeling.

Fantastic funnieswill teach you not to cartoon

my anxiety.

A fact of life. Avery large gun wants good times!

A be privative.

If I say it, itis. My hands are huge! I'm who

you should listen to.

Mustached upper lip.If I shave, then who'll be me.

Babyskin shocks face.

Oh. Then again, hair is more a cuff upside thehead. My boys are bald.

V. Languages of the World, Unite!

A crowd has formed. They shout at the A's from the street. They sound mean and they mean it. A, who has more word chops than A or A, who feels a love of the land in his tongue, cups a hand to ear and makes to mean those words we don't know. His sense has sparked much tense diss sat is fact shun.

A. Liberace is dead! Elvis is dead! Liberace is dead!

It's a weak barbell whose weight is less than happiness!

The downpour of your ripe western penis is what I will drink with you when after many kisses we make up!

Midnight is the mouth to cackle fearless anthems!

A and A. Smirks are hard to hide.

To remove every trace of a place is to crucify a musical composition!

The ocean's peptic tide invites the swimmers in!

The maid who is a sorry mother marries, and grieves the gunmoll such a trinket as the sun!

A and A. Fear is hard to hide, too.

Upright fornication is best in a tree-filled forest, with the tickle of leaves!

Lug the avalanche back up the mountain from which it fell down!

Sex on the beach! Sex on the beach! Sex on the beach! Sex on the beach!

A and A. Real ha-ha's. They need a sharp knife to kill a lamb. The creeps who watch this are a bunch of punks.

Heroes are sentimental chumps, which is why we kill them!

When I cut off your head it won't float!

A hail of rocks. One strikes A, knocks him to the ground. A touch of blood and stunned. This riles up his buds, who throw up their guns. Folks will do what they'll do.

VI. Survival is To Know No One

Smoke and junk and lots of swear words. This is not for those of poor spunk! Rocks and glass and rocks is what the towns-folk are. The Stranger has found The Wounded and on a knee rips a shirt to wrap her wounds. A and A keep up their guns, though it's plain where their tails are tucked.

THE STRANGER. Mother, don't we know one another? Land sakes, you've been blown askew.I won't fool about this. I love youwhen your blood is on my hands. I'm a brute.This might hurt.

The Wounded's wake-up shock from such neat new pain.

THE WOUNDED. You can't park there! No parking! No parking!

THE STRANGER. It's good we could at last meet. There are so many things I need toget off my chest. I'm through.It's reached the point I can't tell if the boy I fixed up yesterday is any different from him

whoseleg I amputated today. They looked the same. Had the same name. Or, maybe; what foolin his left mind pays attention to names? Brothers, then, the twowere very much the same (yanks a knot)

THE WOUNDED. Don't you leave your car there! No parking! THE STRANGER. Shit. What can I do?I can see right inside of you and out again. Are these your groceries? Flour and melons. Honeydew.How will your family hear the market will be closing soon,that there's more shopping to

be done? That funeral plans are a sudden truth. Look, if youever want to look me up, my name is. This is what I do.

—Who are you, so quiet? And the way you slouch in your seat, all at ease—you look like the shape that sits burnt at the car's drive shaft. It makes me think on all this. Is it pure? This act. Is the stopwatch off? Have you had your chance?

VII. Memory Makes Us People

Dark smoke. Green plants drape plum. It calms me. The eyes of dogs and birds. The play bites. Teeth and beak.

THE WOUNDED. (the harp lacks strings) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

THE STRANGER. That's good. Keep it up. Keep talking.

THE WOUNDED. 1. . .2. . .3. . .4. . .5. . .6. . .7. . .

THE STRANGER. 8, 9,

THE WOUNDED. . . . . .6. . . . . . 7. . . . . . .

THE STRANGER. Don't stop. 8. . . . . . . .9. . . . . . . . .10. . . . . . . . . .11. . . . . . . . . . .

THE WOUNDED. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7.

In voice hard to hear, starts to count to that space twixt six and eight once and twice and three and four. The Stranger steps back, spooked. A, still sprawled on the ground, sees.

In death's place the mind takes a death-like pose. Prone. Neck bent broke. Limbs all wrung limp. Torn and tossed. Ice/drink/gas. The spunk spent. Eyes bled. Much shoo and boo-hoo. Is it a nice night? Is that in the script?

A. Yes. I accept it. The asphaltpressed to my face. The slurof my word. It's good for the chanceto rest, to go nowhere fast.It calms me. The fellas at the pubback home, they'd laugh at me like this,like in the parking lot if I fell downafter a long evening of rounds. It's good to be back home.

Say, can you hear those dogs?Once upon a time I had a beagle.Yappy shit. Never shut up.It passed one night. That morningthere was no doubt I'd gone deaf.I woke to the late space of deadalarms.

We went to the mall for dinner.Roast beef on a sesameseed bun. Home fries. Comfortably in a white styrofoam box. Ketchupsmeared back and forth into the neatedges—mess tent dust and sawdustdon't serve foods that are red.

Tea in the morning and fruiton the front porch amidst the plants.Confused adios.Percolating of rain startleswhen sun is undisguised and stern.

My optometrist handed me a prescriptionbut the problem isn't my eyesit's the receptor refuses to reversethe entering image so consciouslyI do twice the work interpreting where I am in relation to what I approach.

It helps to have a bit of down time.Long ago thoughts say hello and laugh.

I curl around my self like a sunwet in the valley. A mistyrefugee in the valley.Beside the road the bent treesnone of them willows

are persistent across the hilltop.This is not variance.The wheat cuts into the windunharvested. If this were memory I would not be this way. This isn't variance. The valleys aren't shifting.They are still carvings of lifted mist.Light on the hillside.The mice asleep.None of them have run fat from the wheat.Fatness will descend from the cloudsnow stripped of paunch by the wind.Already my hands are gripped by brackishness. Spring does not vary. It breathesair into the room that containsmy table. Alone in this room it is autumn. I've been eating apples I don't know the names of.I've been watching trees I don't know the names of.This woman is a cosmonaut.A pressing need for eggs, she wrote.A pressing need. I am tired.I have taken a dull-brown eggfrom the kitchen. There will always be tired men and women.I'm tired. The sun's tired. It's only morning. ButI'm not unattainable. She will come,unnamed old lover of eggs. She will come and be on her way, barely awareI'm also there, forgetting her feet scrape dirt the same as mine.This is all the same.In a bottle a lily stands with its head down.The goldenrod circles my house as if a stone.I laid down sometime long ago. It is all the same. I will return to my livingroom. Return to the paper I have let sailwhere it will, to the parenthesesI have forgotten how to care for.

I have forgotten my onename. I laid it down sometime ago.

VIII. Unconscious

A not false fiction:

Out of land an I(s).Out of plate a smashed plate.Out of moon a one-way wane.

IX. A Riot Within This Isolation

It's the end of the world! Duck! It's tough to pull off an end of the world. What time should it be? Though it's all the same. Then, now. The end is here.

THE WOUNDED. (Damn loud.) I counta foot, a bone, a shard, a fabric, a hair, a burning, awhoever gets their hands on me will kill me!

A scream drowns the whelm of sound. All noise drops while the scene plays. If I said some thing now that sure would spoil it.

ME. (I don't.)

THE WOUNDED. Now that my neighbors are all myself, how do we distribute the responsibilitiesif some of me no longer wants nor needsanything to do with us?

The surprise of the city is the soilis such a long distance down.The surprise of the self is the essentiallessens as it must, when there is remove.

A stands and yells for A and A, who have gone. The look of the lost. Limps to The Stranger and pleads with him. Great chance for pics. The Stranger checks out A, with vim spits in his face then with hand wipes it off. In his face spits two x's. Lets it be. An art. The People flood in.

THE PEOPLE. (They make no bones about it.)

X. Cut-Ups and Outs

THE WOUNDED. He is with me andis silent. I am alive. A falcon with stitched eyes.

He is with me and is silent. I am alive.A falcon with stitched eyes. A. Ahoy!

A. (Hyped) Did you see us go?He is with me and My gun got so light it felt helium-like, is silent. I am alive I could've chased them gunks into the riverA falcon with stitched eyes. if it weren't for these boots and then the sun

went down and it was dark as shit, they all disappeared real sneaky in

theirHe is with me and Addidas and we were out in the middleis silent. I am alive. of the street no one around except all those A falcon with stitched eyes. windows each its own target sight to see

us. We played it cool. Didn't I tell you we're a

couple of ice cubes?He is with me and (Has a tough time with the face to faceis silent. I am alive. thing.)A falcon with stitched eyes.

A. Loyalty is the dependence each has on the other, inciting a

continualHe is with me and discovery of simple emotion isolated

is silent. I am alive. to an impossible level of accuracy. A falcon with stitched eyes.

A. I couldn't move an inch to crack an egg.

How could we not be sound?He is with me and is silent. Whittled down much furtherI am alive. just shavings are left. A falcon with stitched eyes.

A. Do you have an answer for dishonor?

He is with me and is silent. I am alive.

A falcon with stitched eyes.

Though the lack of come-back don't mean

that one don't feel.

XI. These Three Enlisted II: Trash Disposal

A, A and A, who smokes.

A. The hell with ya.

A. It's not alot to ask.

A. He's right. It's not.

A. Some guys just sure don't get it. If he'd asked me, sure I'd say, what's mine is yours.

A. Don't lie.

A. That's right, I wouldn't say that at all. But I'd give him one.

A. Get out of the truck, already. Give me a hand.

A. She's dead, you know.

A. It sure seems it.

A. Look, just one. How about it?

A. I've only got one left.

A. That's just it. Here you go, then.

A hand slap. A sigh. The guys. A mood grips the awed (ee!) ants. Could be they're pissed.

A. You got a light?

A. The hell with ya.

A holds out a light. A power out. The small flame grabs at the dark, then is gone.

David Brennan's poems have appeared and are forthcoming in Parthenon West Review, H_NGM_N, Pank and other journals. Whiskerhead Dreams the Dread Chicken, an ebook, was published by BlazeVOX Books in 2008, and can be read at blazevox.org. He currently lives and teaches writing in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley.