David McLean

of long dresses
 
What is the current that makes machinery, that makes it crackle, what is the current that presents a long line and a necessary waist. What is this current

What is the wind, what is it.
(Gertrude Stein)

the line that distinguishes is critical the line that is written
and there is never any death in us
until we are no longer embodied in all this sexless flesh
as the flesh is left, without its sex, to the scented exigencies of death

it flows us now all this unforgiven living
with all the sad entropy force is determined not to be -
it gives confusion next

 
gram Friday

and it is never gram fucking Friday
nowadays, it is a world lying over earth
like psychosis and a very penetrable barrier;

it is never gramme Friday, maybe,
just everyday passion
just homeless

 
reasonably enough

the Bandidos shot at an unmarked police car tonight,
reasonably enough,

and things in general happen or do not happen:
we do things because we are stupid

or we die because we deserve to,
just like everybody else does.

the other subject and its empty eyes
is all that is truly disgusting,

the superego gets off on farts and vomiting,
it feeds on dead children, we want our fathers

safely dead, all that is totally unacceptable
is progenitors who are living --

and if there really was this alleged fucking god
we would have to do great things

to hunt, locate and kill it

 
it is anxious

it is anxious in the thundering stomach, replete
its fullness like death or ovulation
and nightmares devalued by the tight spiral life
cutting scars in skin or memories from time;
we wear terrible nothing pulled up over us
its insatiably patient painless touch,
like snuggling up in blankets and blood
like dread Armageddon and defection,
like rabbits and love

 
children through windows

children through windows an ancient forgotten cocaine Friday
oblivious the monstrous is and there is time enough
for devils to be invented and not touch;

like all the anxious devouring the nostalgic gut,
like pebbles and empty riverbeds,
dead men to touch

 
cautious corpses walking

and here is no cautious corpse walking invulnerable his loveless,
for sleep is dreamless and diamonds,
a window pane and never yet;

horses are waiting patient for the anxious chivalric and courtly love
has dropped her easy lesions in muddy puddles
with every forgotten lesson;

the ghost of Hegel is sitting his luckless nothing
insulting anxious, somewhere his Marie is furious
and he is never done explaining his meaning -

we have dropped the medium idiot fish glimpse
where corpses used to go dancing
through all the absences -

and he pretended he never said marriage was an ethical state
and love just a fucking feeling, nobody ever said that yet
in remembered Jena who ever met Schiller or Schelling:

but i do not intend to accept him to my lap yet,
happy like a puppy is until he is dead enough
to learn every nothing and love,

till there is no dread memory left for corpses to recollect -
till Hegel and wife come like summer suns,
like memories or blood

David McLean is from Wales but has lived in Sweden since 1987. He lives there with his dog, Oscar, and his computers. In addition to seven chapbooks, McLean is the author of four full-length poetry collections: CADAVER’S DANCE (Whistling Shade Press, 2008), PUSHING LEMMINGS (Erbacce Press, 2009), LAUGHING AT FUNERALS (Epic Rites Press, 2010) and NOBODY WANTS TO GO TO HEAVEN BUT EVERYBODY WANTS TO DIE (Oneiros Books, June 2013). His first novel HENRIETTA REMEMBERS is due in 2014 from Unlikely Books. During 2013 a seventh chapbook SHOUTING AT GHOSTS is forthcoming from Grey Book Press. More information about McLean can be found at his blog http://mourningabortion.blogspot.com/