The Gilded Auction Block Read online

  Buckle you in you ask What’s that I glance through

  The window just behind your head and answer

  It’s just musicians then I look again e-

  ven though I saw I’m certain who knows when it

  Comes when it comes who knows who will be singing

  GUNS WILL BE GUNS

  “I can only say this: If [the man who shot the Sutherland Springs shooter] didn’t have a gun, instead of having twenty-six dead, you would have had hundreds more dead. So that’s the way I feel about it. [Gun control is] not going to help.”

  —DONALD TRUMP

  America the guns themselves

  if you / Try to control them boy watch out the guns

  Themselves will start / Killing

  America they’re very sensitive

  America they boy I’m telling you they want

  They just want to be held alright that’s all they want America who’s

  It gonna hurt / Really

  you might enjoy it if you let yourself

  America I wish it wasn’t true / And I don’t

  want to have to say it but I do / Boy I could say a lot of nasty things

  But I’m / Gonna be nice

  America sometimes you have to just

  lie back and close your eyes

  lie back and close your eyes

  2

  REMEMBERING MY WHITE GRANDMOTHER WHO LOVED ME AND HATED EVERYBODY LIKE ME

  America I was I think I was

  Seven I think or anyway I prob-

  ably was nine I anyway was nine

  And riding in the back seat of our tan

  Datsun 210 which by the way Amer-

  ica I can’t believe Datsun is just

  Gone anyway America I was

  Riding in the back seat we were we my grand-

  mother and I were passing the it must

  Have been a mall but I have tried and can’t

  Remember any mall in Austin at

  The time America but do I really

  Remember Austin really I remember

  A thing that happened once when I was passing

  A mall in Austin so a mall in Austin

  But then and when America will my

  Grandmother be my memories of her her-

  self be replaced by memories of just

  Her presence near important or unusu-

  al things that happened does that happen will

  That happen we America we were

  Anyway passing on a city street

  But next to it the mall and actually

  I must have been in the front seat actually

  And maybe it was winter all the windows

  Were rolled up maybe or at least the one

  Right next to me in the front seat Amer-

  ica when for no reason I could see the

  Window exploded glass swallowed me the way

  A cloudburst swallows a car glass and a

  Great stillness flying glass and stillness both

  Together then the stillness left and I

  Jumped either over my seat or between

  The seats into the back America

  Or neither here I might just be remem-

  bering the one real accident I’ve ever

  Been in I was a child still maybe eight

  Or ten and we were in an intersec-

  tion hit and I for sure jumped then my grand-

  mother and I again already my

  Memories of the Datsun breaking seem

  More solid than my memories of her

  But I remember her but all the feel-

  ing is gone from the memories but I

  Remember accidents and I remember

  Silences after arguments but I

  Remember her teaching me how to hail

  Hitler us shouting in the living room

  And I remember after the explosion

  I said I saw a black man in the trees

  In the bushes on the traffic island with a

  Black .45 I didn’t I was lying

  I think I was just trying to convince my

  Grandmother to buy me a gun for self-

  Defense and for in Texas even Austin

  Self-definition so I said I saw him

  From the shadows break the glass through which I saw him

  FORGIVENESS GRIEF

  Already what would kill you was

  There killing you before you did

  Those things that strip my memories

  Of you of love already what

  Would kill you was there in the scans

  Later I saw stained light how hard

  It was and is still to accept

  An innocent a physical illness

  As an excuse I wanted you to

  Have wounded me with your whole heart

  As I had thought you loved me grand-

  mother for what love ever have

  I fought so fiercely as I fought

  To keep the harm you did to me

  HATRED

  I stood on the bridge in the sky on the bridge between

  Two buildings at the second floor but in

  Between the buildings so in neither one

  But in the sky at the second floor in the sky

  Barely I had just barely stepped from the

  Nordstrom to cross to the food court barely and I

  Stood looking down I stood still looking down

  At the white boy with the Nazi armband on

  Below me to my right below then I turned

  And if I had fallen straight down then he

  Would have been standing right in front of me

  He was beneath me smoking talking we

  Would have stood chest to back him turned away

  From me and to my right away and smiling

  Talking to the white girl leaning against the wall her

  Back against the wall him turning also

  Sometimes away from her and to her left

  To blow his smoke away from her his right

  They stood so close together then they might

  Have kissed they didn’t kiss I watched but they

  Still might have loved each other I watched afraid

  That if they loved each other I would see

  SEAWHERE

  America I am unnameable

  Maybe you’ve never seen my skin my skin

  Is brown but brown like I might be Italian

  Most often people think I’m Mexican

  Once someone saw my double in Peru

  She said He had a noble soul I knew

  Exactly what she meant but smiled Ameri-

  ca now I might not have to smile but this

  Was 1995 and she meant well

  I think I am unnameable and so

  I have no inner life no inner life

  I recognize and so I just don’t know

  Really what white people are like inside

  I know better but worry the same goes for

  Black people too it was an accident I had

  My childhood black child raised by whites and now

  The problem isn’t that I don’t see faces

  Like mine it’s that I don’t see inner lives

  Like mine I mean the way a person’s inner

  Life is expressed partly by the public spaces

  Created by their culture also partly

  By their behavior in those spaces I’m sub-

  merged every day in the ocean of the inner

  Lives of white people it’s white people mostly

  To make my way through you I have to borrow

  An inner life the way a scuba diver

  Whose tank was empty might borrow a mask

  America to make my way as Pharaoh

  And Pharaoh’s army made their way through the sea

  Tell me where is the sea where is the ocean

  I cross to emigrate to you I see

  It nowhere though it closes over me

  IMMIGRANTS
r />   My great-

  Grandmother or

  Her family was was some of them

  Austrian some of them

  Some German I imagined them

  When I was young

  Her parents meeting on a row-

  boat in the middle of the Atlantic meeting they’re

  Escaping to America

  They’re wearing heavy woolen coats

  They do not know they will be hated in America

  The ocean the

  Atlantic clings to them the

  Cold spray the white fog clings

  To them their coats it seeps into their coats / And soon their coats

  the heaviness of their coats

  Feels like the heaviness

  of / Their own exhaustion soon

  already / There is no difference

  Between the weight of their bodies

  And the weight of the world

  3

  THE HELL POEM

  Then Chukwu saw the people’s souls in birds

  Coming towards him like black spots off the sunset

  To a place where there would be neither roosts nor trees

  Nor any way back to the house of life.

  —SEAMUS HEANEY

  1. Intake Interview

  Describe the lake I’m still

  not sure

  how I got here I was just hiking

  Or not exactly

  hiking but

  I like to walk in the woods behind

  My house I mean

  my apartment

  in the woods behind the complex so

  I’m hiking

  and it’s a nice day a little

  hot I guess but there’s

  A nice breeze so I’m hiking

  up this hill and I

  start to get really

  Hot and I

  can’t breathe but I

  just need maybe to rest for just

  A minute so I look

  around for a bench or

  something but I can’t

  See anywhere to sit

  and I have to sit or I

  think I’ll faint

  Then suddenly I’m rowing I’m

  surrounded

  by sailboats nice boats

  Yachts I guess I mean

  that’s just a big boat

  right white yachts and sail-

  boats and I’m rowing this

  it’s like an

  open canoe I’m rowing but

  It’s like I’m on a track

  the waves don’t

  rock the canoe and I stop rowing

  But I don’t slow down

  plus I’m invisible this yacht

  it’s drifting

  It looks like it’s drifting slams

  into me I mean BANG

  I thought

  I was dead

  but it bounces off I shout

  but the passengers they all

  Looked like that one

  rich guy on Gilligan’s

  Island they don’t hear me they

  Don’t even flinch

  it’s like they’re on tracks on the yacht

  it’s like they’re robots

  At Chuck E. Cheese and

  me it’s like

  I’m in a bubble on a track

  Too I’m fine

  I don’t feel a thing

  so now of course I’m terrified

  Describe the bird the bird

  the bird

  looked like a big gray seagull but

  The bird looked like a robot too

  but free the bird looked free

  it dove

  And landed in the boat at my

  feet in-between my feet

  and spoke

  It sounded like a dog

  barking it

  sounded like it couldn’t speak

  It said

  barking it said Hey fuck you

  asshole you fucking asshole fuck

  You follow me and coughed this little

  skeleton hand up

  middle finger up

  Then it took off

  barking

  the bird looked free it couldn’t have

  Been free if I was stuck

  and followed it

  stuck on a track or maybe

  It was free but everybody

  has a boss

  I let the oars slip

  Into the lake

  except they didn’t

  sink they just stood there then heads

  And necks and faces

  sprouted from the handles then

  arms and legs sprouted

  From the sides and the oars walked away Describe

  the oars

  the oars walked on water

  Like oars

  their faces steamed in the sun

  and the steam caught the light from the sun

  And glowed above their heads they

  walked away

  from where the boat was going

  Describe the gate the boat kept going

  toward this weird

  whirlpool in the middle

  Of the lake it was

  I mean the water looked

  pixelated white but splotchy

  And the water twisted

  pixel by pixel

  from pixel to pixel

  It looked like it would hurt to fall in

  the pixels looked

  well square but sharp and

  That’s where the boat

  took me the whirlpool

  chewed the boat to splinters and

  As the boat broke

  and sank I looked

  down and saw I was floating level

  With the surface of the lake

  and the lake

  on all sides was rolling away

  From me and I saw night

  beneath me

  and for a moment I was any-

  one watching from above me would have

  seen a bright spot

  in a big darkness

  I must have been

  I must have looked

  exactly like if only then

  The man I always thought I was

  floating above Hell

  and then I fell

  2a. The Fall / The Tyrant Beetle at the Banks of the Living River of the Dead

  I fell a whole lifetime of fall-

  ing as I fell and as I fell I

  Fell through my life I watched my life

  Projected on the walls of the hole

  I fell through but projected through

  No lens no carried by no light

  No but projected like a movie

  On the walls of the hole I fell through but

  Backward like watching was like watching

  A movie from behind the screen

  In kind of it was in black and white but

  In supersaturated whites

  And blacks like scraps of carbon paper

  Their edges spilling over the edges

  Of the darknesses in the world the blacks and

  Whites overflowed the objects they

  Belonged to the objects I had thought

  Belonged to them and as I watched

  Falling the camera overflowed

  The edges of my memories

  Once and again and then again

  To follow people I had hurt

  Through selfishness through inattention

  From the edges of my memories

  Into their memories and lives

  I saw the harm I did I saw

  Eventually I even my

  Harm disappeared I disappeared I

  Had thought at least the scars I made

  Would be the scars I made forever

  I was a desk lamp next to shadows

  That would not be if it were not

  And are its children and itself

  And fade when sunlight fills the room

  As I fell slow through darkness watching
>
  Memories carried by no light

  Until I didn’t I just stopped

  Falling suddenly and no impact

  Suddenly I’m standing in

  A room my back against it feels

  Like skin a wall but only as long as

  It takes for me to realize

  I’m standing in a room my back

  Against a wall and the wall oppo-

  site from me disappears the wall

  Behind me slides forward and shoves

  Me out I stumble into a

  Cave or a warehouse somewhere big

  And dark that didn’t really feel like

  Part of the world facing a row

  Of mumbling kneeling corpses their

  Eyes open their mouths closed but mumbl-

  ing but their voices didn’t the

  Sounds of their voices didn’t come

  From them their voices flooded from

  A giant black hundred-legged beetle

  Hovering in front of and above

  The corpses its black back to me its

  Pale orange belly pulsing a

  Different voice pouring from each leg and

  As I stepped near it spoke to me

  But somehow only in my head

  Look at me I’m a huge success you

  Want to know how I got to be where

  I am of course you do of course

  You do see this tremendous line

  Of people here I promise you

  Trust me ok you will not find

  A more tremendous group of people

  Anywhere ok and they’re all waiting

  For me just to hear what I’ll say

  Ok and they don’t know can you

  Believe it they’ve already heard it

  You’re hearing it right now believe me

  It might not sound like much but when

  I’m all you hear and all you see

  I’m everything the beetle’s voice

  Swallowed my mind consumed me I

  Staggered to one end of the row

  And knelt and as I knelt a man

  At the other end of the row stood

  And walked into the dark beyond it

  Opening and closing his

  Mouth like a goldfish what I think

  Breathing or like a cartoon shark

  Chasing a goldfish really just

  Snapping its jaws its fat shark head

  Stuck in the bowl and disappeared

  Into the dark beyond the corpses

  Talking out loud his body dis-

  appeared but as his body faded

  His voice detached from the beetle and

  Became his voice again which I

  Had never known to be his voice

  And as his body disappeared

  His voice grew stronger and I heard