Brandon Downing

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

 

 

 

 

1.

 

 

Tell me something those two girls I’m

Talking about hitting who were they,

 

With a pink light for the bed, & blue for the bath:

We know about the exceptional basis .

 

Not because of art, rather consumed by horses,

On West 8th Street, in London.

 

Dying teacups and the fruitless man’s delight,

Tender and sad shadows in rumination’s collar-bones.

 

Were you moved? Because the phone rang.

Thank you: “Oh, I’m so sorry,                                                    (shouting )

 

But 6 married poets are coming over soon: no.”

 

Outside’s tide, the lady lets you out …whereas

Tiling rolls right up on you in checkers of gravité.

 

With a room-mate but no sisters, this unbearable tree,

An optical mess, cozily lighted, but smelly environment.

 

You, what do I recommend? Take off my pants with your hands,

The pink light invisible on your blue dog nipples …

 

A great pursed sonata of jazz, we go 1, 2 times a night.

A Great Actor emerges from a boutique on my right.

 

And so much for women. Prepare the countryside: hilly.

Call it ‘Jeff ’, it leans like your cousin would lean

 

Whilst you clutch his star in your bra: in the forest borough.

What 15th century hatred has arrived tonight in Queens!

 

2.

 

This.

Through a discount center entryway.  I come

In piano spotlight, turning moody & leaden,

Also tired and nude, both like Olson, and like wasps.

It doesn’t matter, because now it’s impossible.

It could cost me my life, with legs folded up.

Breathing on in my common lot, I learn

Passwords, get into a house; stand there, half-undressed,

“Growing a beak.” “Life.”

“It was one night, they went to ‘Dallas ’.”

 


 

 

 

The Proud and the Damned (1972 )/Bachelor Party (1984)

 

 

 

1.

 

“I ’m so terrified of that doll.  I ––”/ “Got my car 2 months ago,”

“Great ––now you can see over me, you’re amazing.”

“No, but we stop any time you and the boys want.”

“No, Bobby, I ’m scared, Will.” “Lots of blush ––

and chapped lips.”

They ’re naked, they show the creek for awhile, they ’re

Done, backs slapped red. “C ’mon, Ben, claws like a lion .”

Sleepy ’s the best actor.  He obeys

The witches in my family, aaahhhhhh-ssssccccrrreeeaaam .

Actors should be allowed lots of time together,

So they get to know each other real well …

And have great times with family, because

They are really the witches of other families.

 

2.

 

I kind of figured her for a man. “Bastard.”

“You bastard.” I was sure I left television on in the lab,

After smoking grass with Adrian Zmed, a doctor

Who lost his life. “Good job.” “English guy.”

“Flames.” “I am ecstatic about ustédes .”

“It’s cruel to be cautious, you slip down a fissure.”

“As dead as steak, later thrown into the sea.”

Or music of the islands, up to its neck in synthesizers.

“Where did the Austrians come from?” “From New York!”

Not from the understanding: why?

“Because it’s the most God thing in the world.”

“You know the water you ’re drinking, God handed you it.

God, who has won some of the most stunning

                                                 verdicts in this country!”