In Loud Water

“His sonata for the left hand went
Unplayed.”

— Ariana Reines (Ariana Reines, “Hegeling Before the Glass,” Stanza 1, Lines 12–13, in “The Saddest Year of My Life” of A Sand Book, published at London by Penguin Books in 2020; page 221.)

“Our walks become a weekly occurrence, whereby [my dear reader] escorts me on interminable journeys around the gardens and through the moors, the sun lowering progressively earlier, our shadows cast before us like freshly dug graves.”

— Virginia Feito (Virginia Feito, “Chapter VI. Of One Mr Pounds,” in “Part I. Three Months Till Christmas” of Victorian Psycho: A Novel, published at New York by Liveright Publishing Corporation in 2025; page 43.)

“The Angel’s trumpet blares and the dead rise from their graves. […]They’re waking up. Or perhaps giving a standing ovation, after all this is our only musician in the deck. And the rapture is the ultimate encore.”

— Ryan Edward (Ryan Edward, “XX. LEIUGEMENT/JUDGMENT,” in “Trumps” of Playing Marseille, published at Stamford, Connecticut by U.S. Games, Inc. in 2020; pages 20–21.)

D   o you want

                         i.

what I don’t
have, or what
I can’t give?
The grief is

built-in which, in
a sense, references
Catholicism, pain paid
for making belief

take the place
of faith in
oneself, like the
obligation created whenever

a gift is
given, no matter
how oblivious one
is to self-acceptance

no one ever
asks, yet everyone
expects reciprocation, a
whole caking war

                         ii.

when a peace
is taken, ends
up settling for
zipping up and

rushing off after
coming, ‘Let’s do
this again—’ sent
without an echoing…

disastrous, the cathedral
in the arch
of your ass,
its chorus an

act of sacrifice,
my erection’s inability
to resist or
pass up its

consequence an act
of non-resistance, turgid/tumescent,
tumultuous, without questions,
in this city

                         iii.

nobody interrogates desire,
only complies, compiles
lists of conquests
best hid in

the bombed-out archives
of ruined minds,
upon beds, behind
petroleum-stretched veils of

plastic-wrapped eyes, contented
by the lies
while reveling in
revealing pleasure that

hides what we
truly need, not
even so deep,
or just, but

out of sight,
ignored by touch
enough that sex
satisfies its thirst

                         iv.

the way ignored
sculpture nourishes urban
culture’s hunger, taste
irrelevant when gratifying

craving with your
ignorance of the
history of this
partner, not necessary

to seek after
the personalities and
personæ of his
previous lovers, only

to acknowledge, in
silence, your eventual
othering, the fact
of you never

mattering, occurring next,
your influence statistical
as any massacre’s
body-counting aftermath, you

                         v.

may as well
have laid still
as carved stone,
faced as any

saint ever was
with doubt in
the existence of
this pose’s purpose,

opening, as it
does, the argument
that the same
mouth god closes

is, in fact,
this hole poets
know how to
pull song out

of, in loud
water swallowing an
other bedroom, scoring
its conquests’ choruses.