Excerpt from the prologue to SURRENDER (TO THE IRREVERSIBLE GLIDE OF COMPACT DISC INSERTION):
According to the Babylonians, the river Tigris was born from the rushing tears of the demoness Tiamat. Her monstrous body—pierced with arrows of wind, divided by the spear of God—would compose the heavens and the earth.
Approaching Baghdad’s Green Zone by military aircraft, the Tigris frowns, languishing like a strangled woman—her stagnant body. Imagine my body. My breathless remains. I wish you wouldn’t. I’m not done.
The river meets my falling gaze like a dull mirror on ruined earth—a used condom on the beach. The Sumerians said it was God’s cum. Its face is green and silent and still.
The real Saddam crosses the Tigris.
IT WAS IN THEM WHEN THEY MADE ME AND WHEN THEY MADE ME THERE WAS NOTHING ELSE
The fireplace is centered
Everything else is
Wrong
Swallowing air cuz I’m
Alone now
Pouring water
Into
Water
Cuz I’m the new star
Footprints wet the
Concrete
Rosy
By the pool
Then
Vanish like a
Breath on
Mars
Vanish like my
Rank
Inheritance
I’m the heiress
Yeah
You know I’m an
Heir.
ANIMALS WITHOUT SECRETS
Rather
If it were the fulfillment of a dream
Beginning with my grandparents in Iran
My queerness as a crown
From the Middle Persian translation of a lost Avestan text
It’s a feral industry
How my slipped disc leads to the near extinction of the gyps vulture
Leopards begin to hunt these new dogs, wild in multiplication
Reversing the sequence of permissions
Haunted by the memory of God
Key size
Key length
Even the Towers of Silence are not beyond chemical persuasion
The will
The fist
For which I would sacrifice my body
My life
The role is mine
I’m real.
ADRIAN LAMO {BLINKING NUDE}
Who is it?
Just because you named
Yourself
After
I’ll call him back
You say that
Maybe
There’s something real about
This situation
Soul of the nineteen
Eighties
Animates concrete
I’m on TV
Don’t
Tell me what to do
Marina Del Rey
The white yacht
Rocks
And
I guess we’ll never know
What the
Sun looks
Like.
RE/TURN
That sound you made
The way it
Came to shore
On
Parrots
Silver
XXL
Ask about the
Lead me
On
Your bedrock
Grace
And how I’m
So
The image of a hanging lake
The black face of
A river
Wet
With
Rings of
Saturn
Crown.
BLACK GLOVE FOR MY DIRTY LOVER
His hair hangs like a flag
Like a rose on the grave
I’m under
The rose
Writing postcards to your
Ugly
Brother.
INSURGENTES
I know this word
I hear it all around
A sick velvet braid
That sound made my right arm break
The city’s a mirror
We’re under eclipse
Snakes roll over and over in black rock glorietas
I feel like a shadow on the moon.
XX.
He was like
Marzipan.
More than almonds to me.
LOVE IN YOUR EYES
Watch me eat
The house
Of
Roses.
XVII.
You are the center of a
White
Balloon.
The weight of a
Vampire
Bat.
When I am left
Alone
I spit ashes on
Mirrors
Blind
Mirrors
You are the center of a
White
Balloon.
XV.
I would be the Lady
Fuchsia
Leather
Monster
Lollipop.
