Kelly Cooper responds to phrases and images from James Gendron's Sexual Boats (Sex Boats). A Response To Sexual Boats (Sex Boats) by James Gendron
Kelly Cooper I am not knowledgeable or in-tune or out-of-tune enough to understand. I came to poetry through metaphor simile, word play, and white men stayed for the women and the revelation of blank verse and the rawness of the other voice the not-heard voice not heard in my suburban town suspended between the polo club and poverty’s friends: the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, the food stamps. I grasp and turn and read, reread Rereading I tease out fragments You can forgive the one who makes your life amazing Pulling out words that glitter Pulling the wire Laughing at the unknowable The smell of the jagged mint leaf and the smell of one trillion farts pervade the atmosphere I shake my head I skipped a line or three lost my place. On my side of the bed, I made a sweat angel Truth or what passes for memory flickers In fat I see myself distilled more honestly than in my face. My childhood was all ragged knees and pockets full All I ever had in my pockets is still there: hundreds of pounds of it. My eyes burn with anger exhaustion tears You can improve a star simply by turning it. The other side is fresher. It hasn’t been looked at as much. My thoughts can’t track the random elements lacking throughline I get lost. Ideas and I are at cross-purposes, like the wings of Christ. Shake my head again dislodging what-all resetting my eyes I don’t know what an entity is, so I don’t trust entities. Entities are assholes. And look again. Can the judge fulfill her duty and arrest the wicked sun, serial murderer? Or is she more of a pragmatist? Have I chosen only what I recognize? The Louvre is too big. Everyone knows & denies it. Like a hurricane: so big, it competes with the soul. Only what speaks to me. I’m just a haunted question mark. Only what I’m able to hear.
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