Poetry
from Lovers in the Marquetalla Republic
VI.
“You are my Xibalba,”
I say
and I think
of the Mayans
plotting the sky
as they looked up at hell
As I look up at you
o angel
to articulate
the sound
of your neck
gently snapping
under the nakedness
of these stars
your form recumbent
as they drag you
through the tall black grass—
From where do
the soldiers come
through the anatomy of the night
where carnage
runs rampant
whose blood
spurts out in gobs
their semen
spurts harder
trembling
as they cum
all over
the night—
VII.
Our anatomies
derive from the grist
the wildness
also raised
by the
specters of the dead
a unity
pried open
in space and in darkness.
Which is the deeper scar?
Bear us up
who only seem
to be bearing.
Brothers
bound to each other
by their crimes
charge flaming
into the orifice
of the earth.
They suckle
each other
like kids
at their first funeral.
VIII.
What it means
for two lovers
to pursue the word of the angel—
that we are here
in order to say,
“I love you”—
nucleotidinal
excess
spills out onto
the synaptic threshold
that holds us in awe
of the sayable—
the soldiers satisfy
their own phantasies
each side resting
in trenches
in the recesses
of their scrotums
IX.
What it means for two lovers
to praise
the word of the angel
to sing
frightened
at the precipice
of its mouth—
to ask of it,
“For whom is the
cannibal adorned?”
“For what battle?”
we are meant to be
Lovers in mutual manducation
and it is
the groin
and it is
the drooling
sea
without sap
without song
without orifice
peeking into the window
to find that
the pane is intact
with shit studs
with the bullets
of an Onanic orgasm
in its eyes.
X.
Conjure
a lyre
to soothe yourself
Conjure a salve
your lips
are bleeding
&
the tender points
at your temples
are bleeding—
the cattle low
on the hillside
break into
stampede
&
trample
their young—
nothing
troubles
the image—
the slope of the
hillside
makes
your vision
slip
you reframe the death
of the young
as a love
that will turn
necrotic
in the end—
the pustules of the young
will congeal
around your eye
and drool
insects
out of its
lowered lid—
they will praise
the lyre
that also sleeps
with the dead
praise the soldier
who catches you
at the throat
as all
turns ripe
in your heart—
the swift herald
of their love
the swift music
that decays in the air
the swift
sun
o angel
will steam
hot blood
your face
in thick binding
will sweat
a red milk
your chest
in thick binding
and red sweat
a sigh
at the sound
of your arythmia—
your heart
pumping
toxins
onto the hillside
growing red
in the dawn
of all beginning—
Contributor
Tim VanDykeTim VanDyke grew up in Colombia, South America, until guerilla warfare forced him back to the United States His most recent manuscript is Farallones (Garden Door Press, 2018). His work has most recently appeared in Typo, The Yalobusha Review, and elsewhere.
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By Tim VanDykeJUL-AUG 2022 | Poetry
Tim VanDyke grew up in Colombia, South America, until guerilla warfare forced him back to the United States His most recent manuscript is Farallones (Garden Door Press, 2018). His work has most recently appeared in Typo, The Yalobusha Review, and elsewhere.