thirteenth floor

[Doreen Peri]

(2003)

1-

surgical scars
sliced skin diced
tongue cut out
lizard splice
wizard vanish
twice tripped
dipped quill
stilled riverheart
parts mirrored
exposed breasts
televised pre-empts
resonant sense
tears feared trials
denied lies miles
wheeled, stolen
trajectories
manifested in
public private
intimate breakdowns.

2-

there are whiffs of innocent vagaries set aside by scents spent on gifts, each treasure imminent, each savor a decadent re-creation of a surface smile.

3-

i have resorted to candle mimicking.
i shine to allure shadow glancing
in order to form resemblances
of a flattened me, dark, stark,
naked.

4-

i decided to wait
ten minutes but
what if i miss the sky
if i do?
what if the sunset
is behind you?
what if the renewal
of speech could teach
the blind to guide the
so called seers?

5-

i have sat eye-to eye
across small tables
with wicked lighting,
demonstrators
and entertainers
on the other side
of wait.

i am holding a plume
saturated with violet.

i am the annihilation
of my very own dream,
brushed off dust
in between
ink drops.

6-

let us not be partial
to self destruction, ok?
there are days
we seek ways
to speak silence,
incurable sates
of big ones little
ones hips legs grazed
who got away, never
made the keeper jar,
thrown back into
the stream.
but i will go my try
with the opening
of mass appeal.

i am feeling
my way from
one side of a day
to the night side
of which way i came
from, darkened by
a thump of
a kettle drum
or tympani.

pray on and for me.
i may be history.

7-

if you could feel
what i feel
you would appear
as eighth notes
on a published score,
adored by paralleled
references
to sonatinas
and previously published
rock operas.

i offer you room service.
what is it you care
to eat?

8-

oh my sweet sweet
terminal repeat of love,
if i could coffer the blind
residue of a see-through
cloud, pastel faded
behind pretended nods,
i would make a vow to
never allow the missing
or insisting
of drama.

my roll is
to be taller
than myself.

so i stand
on your heels,
toes poised
for a bouree.

9-

trauma dictates creed.
weeds which trick a garden
into conceiving more weeds
should be plucked and dried,
rolled up smoked
like dire memories
of never was.

there are words
which should be
stricken from
the dictionary.

should.
could.
must.

10-

ten.
one, the first.
two, the second hand.
three, the graceful.
four, the more.
five, the tasteful.
six, the waste.
seven, the full number.
eight- the great ten minute stage
nine -- times executed.

11-

i don't know where
i went with this but
i must persist.

the revolver
is loaded.

so am i.

i am a read-rosed souffle
stuffed with alkaline vision,
my mission, to splatter
tomato matter
onto white
walls.

12 -

this is the recording.
i am writing myself live
nourished by a coagulated
pen.

i thrive on
my celibacy
from death,
each breath
a meaningful
vocation.

boom.

doreen peri
has left

the room.

14 -

i am not here
to be blamed, not hear
to be raised or maimed,
not here
to be not
here
claimed
adhered
to blind man's
bluff, intrusion games
circling folding chairs,
stop the music,
sit down, musical, lyric,
small inside a play
of rings you may deny.
be calm.
i welcome
your circling,
your celebration
of a landing star
coinciding with
my earth.

i am the birth
of liberty, the first
rising victory of rivermist;
bliss being the rising
curtain.

upstaging
simply
tries
me.

i am guilty.

i refine define
design myself
then give me
the chair.

15-

i have murdered me.

i deserve to be

punished.