Let’s have a mind and raise flowers.

backstage pacing the energy of ‘at once’
the same convergent horror of unwanted nocturnal emissions
aloneness and cut off from the stage manager’s clip board and the drunk extras
history drops off
that the Haitian Revolution has happened
is weaned by its not being here because the only now is now where forgetfulness reigns
it is the chaos of ten tiny circular spice bottles some of which bear dangerous street
drugs unannounced to you but each holds its own condolences
your kingdom is not in order your own sloughed off detritus of chinese take out
and curled up scripts taunt you on a hair-of-the-dog edge
its deafening-the warfare of your own choosing-it will carry
ruin or genius which either way ends up in after-show bar close
such silliness in that minute before hearing “…yes and it’s trouble that will find us” 

Ryan McGivern

The devil spends his days ripping the final page out of mystery novels.

my phantom limbs like King Hamlet’s ghost
bear keen witness (grasping hands ever reaching/
haunted feet o’er hallowed earth)

wiry nerves of molten yellow steel groan of a birth long overdue
I’m a seedbed in May.
my drugs have withdrawn from me their happy black talons
find no rest on my pocked and guano-white masts
numb me I mouth-their silent answer nevermore
sex and chastity have sunk their sounding
lines in me (found me shallow/
left me empty)
tell me: which bird or daemon
has placed these seeds in me
their germination’s maggot writhing
threatens like Jack’s bean to pierce the very heaven and its host
its a curious unrest my phantom limbs bring me
if this is sleep-let me dream
if a dream-may I wake to life
and if life it is (what terrifying/
beauty odd and awful is mine)
and I-eating dust limbless and hissing
rattle discordant struck by The Bell Hammer
(in the great pendulous sweep that overshadows/is us)
what a long and lonely road it is to Emmaus!
I stop for no one-I speak to no one
I know this road well my slalom carved s is deep
my skins dot hills
my phantom limbs’ echoes crying
The Serpent that did sting thy Fathers life, Now weares his Crowne!

Ryan McGivern

Under Our Newest Moons

Watching the stars come
out is so passé their Zodiac
though changing
is dial-up paced
we are all now unenthusiastic
about the prospect of romance
under the canopy of outdated
and bloated sparks
the newest moons
each packed with dead
and dying Laikas
their Promethean LED lights
cast shadows that trace us back
and forth like the officers’
penlights watching the dilated
pupils of accident victims
we are starstruck by their grace
as they watch us with
their government gazes as
we sin nightly in their vision
the moon whines in its lazy
one-faced pantomime
its craters unable to throw
late night televangelists
back to earth hurtling at light
speed like Lucifer to crash
into our homes

Ryan McGivern

Cul de Sac by Ryan McGivern

“I don’t like where you led me!”

I wrote in sidewalk chalk on you,

turtle backed tough and cold in spring.

“I didn’t lead you. You followed me.”

you wrote back in cracks unnoticed by

the Oakland Public Works Department.

I would have left you long ago had I

not been lost.

My friend Ross emailed me this poem by Daniil Kharms entitled Blue Notebook Number 10:

“There lived a redheaded man who had no eyes or ears. He had no hair, so that we called him redheaded provisionally. He couldn’t speak because he had no mouth. He had no nose either. He didn’t even have arms or legs. He had no stomach, and he had no back, and he had no spine, and he had no insides at all. He didn’t have anything! So that it’s unclear who we’re talking about. It’s better that we say no more about him.”