I need noise louder pumped into my ear. I need to hear three, four, sometimes five noises at once. Orgasmic cacophonies, strummed vibrations, released aural energy flowing through an air coated as subversive silence. Or: A lying silence carrying the constant flutter of each resonation or then, perhaps, the culmination of the chaos of all sounds traveling
[landing, being formed on lips on screens on tree limbs and saxophones, landed]
the culmination of the chaos of all sounds traveling creates silence. White being all colors / black the absence of.
I need to find a vibration. If I turn this - * this * - up louder, perhaps a wave will come through and land. Everywhere are eyeballs. I look around and I see eyeballs. Real or imagined or drawn or tape recorded live. Never do you see so much ears. The eyeball is the symbol. A stray eyeball portends. A stray ear is a prop. A stray ear is a silly thing or a gross thing. It’s eyeballs I need. Ears I have plenty. The eyeballs I have are beautiful. A pale blue shines through the frothy-white, small flickering things. These eyeballs and memory do not speak.
I hear the voices. I hear the crowd. This next sentence had you in mind. And so too did the others. I hear the gallery. It’s all so very familiar to me, so like a loving embrace:
my haters cannot hate me like I can because they don’t know me like I know me
and they don’t have to be me like I have to be me so put those arrows back in the quiver.
My aural is the sense so struck.
Please tickle my ear. Pull me to you sharply by the throat + pant near imperceptible vibrations. Let their settling on me unsettle me. An unsettled man is a dangerous thing. An unsettled man is the sexiest man. These two live within, and cannot without, each other. Nature abuses and is abused. We, you and I, who’ve imagined each other this evening (is it morning where you are? what are the nights like? are the skies clear? do you see stars, or satellites? deer? coyotes?), abuse and are abused.
I imagine you as sound. I speak of the red square often. I’ll do it again. The psychiatrist I saw when I first went in, briefly, asked me to close my eyes and make a red square. I could not. She said now make it spin. I could not and I cannot. There is no visual memory. The eyeballs and memory are in a disagreement. And so everything sings. I read your poem and it sings. I call a friend and we sing. I turn on sing and turn it on louder. When it is just you, speaking seriously, with your calm, steered baritone slight lilt just at the top register when you know you’re about to say something hilarious – fuck, this * Can Not * be the narrative – you sing and I sing for you.
Derek Maine lives in North Carolina. He is on twitter @derekmainelives.
It's a strange one. Possibly in that space where it's too abstract and yet not abstract enough. I've tinkered with it a bit back and forth for a week now. Wondered if it was part of something else. If it was anything at all. I decided it was something. It has odd/off grammar, punctuation, and one part where the line breaks delve dangerously into the territory claimed by poetry. The title is awful and I hate the last line. Both are completely unchangeable. I've never primed a piece like this before. Going on rambling like this. Maybe this is my bio. Yes, I'll say this should be my bio. I live in North Carolina. I am on twitter @derekmainelives. I am aware that bio's should be shorter and in third person. Derek Maine is ashamed, but not so much that he won't hit send.