The Brooklyn Rail

Godzilla Meets the Beast

In some desert, yeah, I too came upon a beast eating its heart and I said, “Dude,
what the fuck?” but in Japanese, and he said, in English, because the beast is
white and originally from Pennsylvania, and because bilingual communication
is common amongst us scary monsters, “I eat it because it is bitter, and because
it’s my fucking breakfast, ASSHOLE”—which made me reconsider all my
previous assumptions about beasts, the lives they lead, and their proclivity for
feasting upon their own vital organs. That’s when snow started falling upon
desert sand, that’s when women wearing blue bikinis started twerking until they
began to glow, and men wearing black boxer shorts ran frantically the fuck
away from me. Tonight, snow will extend to the outer suburbs, leaving moist angels
upon neon signs, a lovely cloak of fractals for the cold monuments of capitalism
because I am Godzilla, King of Monsters, and we're all runaways on this planet,
refugees from hideous demons and nefarious demagogues, waiting for the right cult
to take us in, feed us cake, clothe us in delicate robes, tell us we're beautiful.

For Modern Lovers Everywhere and Anyhow

Some people go to poetry readings to pick up girls and
get called assholes, this never happened to Vladimir
Mayakovsky—he could walk into the Stray Dog and the girls
could not resist the formal experimentation of his verse—no,
Vladimir Mayakovsky was never called an asshole. Not like
me. Well the women would turn the color of an unripe tomato
when they read the work he selected for the Levy Front Iskusstv;
he could scatter dirty words on the page like a poseur or a psycho
but Vladimir Mayakovsky was never called an asshole. Not like
me. Well the world moves on like a nightclub after midnight and
its lights flash through the universe for several million years, and
I think there’s a corner store where I can buy some Slim Jims
plus a six pack of cheap domestic beer; I’ll sit down on a park
bench and suffer so brilliantly until I feel just slightly drunk.

A Sonnet for Big Time Professional Poetry (in gratitude to Stephen Ciacciarelli)

I want to see Victoria Chang in a cage match with Fatimah Asghar anything goes
because yeah sometimes I just like to see poets fuck shit up. I want to see Billy Collins
in a cage match with David Kirby anything goes because I think they’re friends and
when friends fight you get a big audience and I want to be the vendor handling concessions.
I want to see Stephen Dobbins in a cage match with Bob Hicok anything goes because
they will look at each other sneeringly and suspiciously for half an hour and that alone
will make it a classic match. I want to see Natasha Trethewey in a cage match with Natalie Diaz
anything goes because Jesus wouldn’t you and besides the world is too big for this not
to happen. I want to see Layli Long Soldier in a cage match with Nick Flynn even though
everyone knows she’ll make Nick Flynn cry for help from his mama. I want to see Jeff McDaniel
in a cage match with everyone in the current edition of The Paris Review anything goes
because Jeff will say “what the fuck?” before destroying all his opponents with an incredible
metaphor for discomfort. I want to see Terrance Hayes in a cage match with Robert Pinsky
anything goes so I can stand tall as a potentate and play drums like Patrick Rosal but with my teeth.

The Collected Twitter Threads of Godzilla as Reinterpreted by the Late J Dilla

Some people are so sure of themselves, never stop
in the middle of class, on the way to work, at the fast food
drive-through, or before breathing fire on motherfuckers
cowering below at their pointy feet to ask, “Is this
what life's all about? Could I perhaps be more mindful
with my destructive powers?" What a bunch of true losers,
spiritual paupers, perpetual slobs, assholes. If you’re not
sure who the killer is turn your guns away from me and
give America a call. Me, I'm afraid that when I'm asleep,
the duende is going to eat me like I'm leftover beef stew
that's about to go bad. Do you realize that my fire breath
is subatomic? Do you realize that you have the most beautiful
face? Do you realize that in America—Africa, Asia, the world—
so many days will end with you having to scream louder?

A Belated Elegy to Lux Interior and for All the Decades Lost and Remembered the Last Time We Thought the World Ended

If I were a bikini girl with a machine gun
wearing my shades way past sunset would
the revolution happen that much sooner?
Would the visitors from outer space then
take off their human faces to reveal that
they’re actually lizard-like creatures and
tell us between in-and-out slitherings of
their rough bluish tongues in voices that
have a slight but not quite menacing lisp
what exactly it is they want from us?
And what I’m thinking about exactly
now are those days when I had no one
to stand beside me, no Godzilla no
garbageman werewolf horror antihero
to lead me or learn me like a long day
in school, and those nights I never
thought would brush by like feathers
making me sneeze when the water
leaking from the wall and the cold pipes
with no heat never seemed to dry up
and never seemed to gather heat, but
at some point when I wasn’t looking or
expecting it they did. I guess you knew
what it was like to stand alone for so many
years and highways, and then not know
for so many more; and though I’m not alone
anymore I still know what it’s like to stand
alone, out of space and out of breath with
bad breath and broken teeth. It was the way
I walked away from whatever I couldn't stand
or a sit down strike from my job with the man
and this elegy is for you and belated because
I never heard you sing in person, never saw
you roll like wild drums and bones across
a stage, or belated because at heart I was
a lazy slacker dude too dull to learn how
to pimp or too scared to start beating up
on people with my words even though
that was one thing I always could do.
You were strange, you were weird,
you were exuberant, you were like
me in so many of the ways I wanted
to be but wasn’t, but this isn't just to you.
It's also a way of saying goodbye to my life
as a misfit even though a misfit is what
I still am. It's just that being one neither
ruins me nor rules me even as it defines me
though I now draw its borders and fill in
the colors for myself. And it’s for the decades,
the one we’re in and ones long past that
expressed themselves in vast sweeping movements
that gathered us up in their arms and which
we hoped would send us back down to Earth
tumbling, somewhere on the New Jersey Turnpike,
like in that movie from 1999 that was pretty good,
but could have used a go-go dancer at the end, stepping
out of a huge UFO, then telling us what to do.

The Name of This Poem Is Swan Lake

When as a child I dreamed of America, I was the
cool guy and it was my country because in my
dreams I was an insider not a freak with tics and
weird eyes and odd colors but the popular guy
the girls all had crushes on, the popular guy
who everyone knew would make it even though
his cousins and half-brothers were nothing but
half-wits and trouble. As child in America I listened
to Tchaikovsky in the living room of our apartment,
going around in circles on my tricycle as the music
made me dizzy and I put on my shoes to go
outside or rode on the bus to go downtown
with my Mom and ate tuna and rice for dinner
some nights and sometimes my Mom my Dad
and my brother and I would go to the beach
except for one place where they wouldn’t let us in
because the guy at the gate said we were Flips
which stands for fucking little island people
and though I don’t remember it was probably
a great day for someone. When as a child I peed
in my pants in school because it was less frightening
to pee at my desk than to ask the nuns for permission
to go the fucking bathroom and I sat and watched
America from the back seat of a Chevy Impala
reading the words written on the city walls
in 1968, saw my Mom get teary eyed when
she gave the old man everyone was ignoring
some change to buy a sandwich and learned
who to believe and who to trust and who to stay
away from because I was young and like a kid
lost in a store I needed help. When as a child in
America I was called Chink or Chinese Checkers,
because the dumbfucks weren’t even smart enough
to know that the proper slur for me was gook
I felt bad or sad and wished I could say something
back but as a child I was always quiet and showed
respect to everyone no matter what they did or
said or showed to me. As a child I waved
an American flag to my friend in the seat
behind me on the bus back from Gettysburg and
the Army Sergeant trip chaperone who was the
father of one of dumbest boys in class stopped me
saying I was waving it to taunt my classmate
because I had one and he didn’t but it wasn’t
my flag it was his flag he bought it at the
gift shop choosing it from among the Ulysses S.
Grant paperweights and the sets of toy Union
soldiers and copies of the Gettysburg Address
on fake parchment so when he handed it to me
I started waving it promoting it but even then
it wasn’t right and the Army Sergeant stared me down
until I sat down and stayed quiet for the rest
of the trip. As a child in America I was told
that I needed to learn to like myself when I always
did like myself it was the stupid fucks who surrounded
me that I didn’t like. As a child I thought that
GI Joe was an asshole and I grew up fearing the bomb
instead of finding glory in its power. As a child
in America when all the other kids wanted to kill
the space aliens all I wanted was to see them do
dirty things with each other. As a child I heard my
so-called friend in high school tell me there was
nothing I could do that would ever make me look
like a human being. As a child in America the only
woman I loved other than my mother was Elizabeth
Montgomery but I knew I never had a chance because

the name of this poem is Swan Lake. I am staying
up late at night thinking about it. As I walk during
the day its words go through my head. When I turn
on the television the figures on the screen move
to its rhythms. The name of this poem is Swan
Lake. It’s about why I feel like I’m always ready
to flip my lid or swim to the other side if I could
swim. It’s about a composer I listened to when I
was young but who seems too easy and sentimental
for me now. It’s about what I embrace and what
I reject though I speak more about what I reject.
I wrote some of this while listening to There’s
a Riot Goin’ On, especially the part where Sly
Stone sings “Feel so good inside myself, don't
wanna move.” One of the greatest albums ever
recorded, it came out in 1971. That was the same
year Miles Davis’s A Tribute to Jack Johnson
was released in the United States. I listened to
that a lot this year, too, but the name of this poem
is Swan Lake. It’s about knowing that I was as
smart as or smarter than anyone else but feeling
that I didn’t have a chance. It’s about why I feel
like I’m always on some border and mistrust
any sense of belonging. It’s about why I hate
all the so-called normal fucks who walk and talk
on the street and look at me like I’m the third nipple
on their inbred baby’s chest because the name
of this poem is Swan Lake. It’s a story about my
younger years and how I stopped being quiet and
stopped being sad and about two songs called
Swan Lake, one by Public Image Limited and
one by Blackalicious, that moved me in different
ways. It’s a narrative about some things I love
and some things I hate and the things I know
cannot be said in this poem named Swan Lake.