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Animals (Part 1)

from Live at The Sickhouse by Stephen Lin Poetry

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lyrics

"True, a great work takes up the question of its origins
and lets it drop. But this is no great work. This is a sketch
sold on the strength of its signature, a sketch
executed without a trial."
– Ben Lerner, The Lichtenberg Figures

my writing has lost the element of truth in it
capital T. the strength of a fire at night,
the weight of a creation myth. my writing is
cold, the way the Earth was before blankets,
planning so much for the trip
the actual departure feels like travel photos.

this is the element of self-discovery in poetry:
i'm never as happy as I think I am,
i'm never as in love as I think I am,
i think too much and it distracts me.
embers tattoo my arms and i only notice scars.
my flesh burns with an animal smell
but i pretend not to drool.

the detritus of biological machinery survives the post-apocalypse.
ghosts in the machine are sloughed by nuclear fallout
and some intuition makes me raise my head,
sniff the air,
watch mushroom clouds sprout like fungi
as I try to rationalize.

ashes whirl like a herd in migration.

i appeal to logic,
i appeal to thought's attempt to explain itself,
the head's attempt to join the heart:
calling after the herd as it leaves me,
"Do you feel me, people
Do ya feel me?"

credits

from Live at The Sickhouse, released December 24, 2014

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Stephen Lin Poetry Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

The poetics of parallels and intersections, collisions and contrasts.

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