Christopher L. Jorgensen: Uncollected
Midwest
In a field of shorn wheat
I jerk off into the stars
and dig in the dirt until my fingers bleed.
This is Nebraska.
Nothing like Iowa.
In Iowa it would be a field of harvested corn.
I'd still masturbate.
I take a drink of deep water and weep.
Cry myself to sleep
and dream of potatoes.
But that's Idaho,
and Idaho is not in the midwest,
and I can't beat it to potatoes.
That would just be weird.
Would you think me mad if I said god speaks to me
or would you think me madder still if I said he didn't but I believe?
Shining women scream and I taste the sounds of their words
and hear such colors as to make gods jealous.
I still feel pain.
I'm a simple man, not holy at all, not a praying man, too simple by far.
Feed me completely.
Whisper words into my soul:
Love and lust and compassion. Music and desire and death. Addiction and prayer and
weakness. Water and loss and orgasm. Vindication and forgiveness and nothing else.
Allow me this full harvest
under a cold moon and I will rest with my cock in my hand.
´08
Blind
I write myself to sleep
begging for words
and rest. It has been two
decades since last I
kissed my lonely pillow but
in darkness I hold it
tight, my midnight
companion.
No longer do I
dream, and the
space between eyes closing
and opening is less
every night. I fear of even
a fistful of sleeping heartbeats.
Soon I will be
unable to blink.
´05
Parting
Every movement says,
I am leaving you.
With too thick lipstick smile
and casual flip of hair, she says,
Don’t look for me tomorrow. I won’t be there.
Her touch already gone.
She dances sad eulogy—that final parting—
drunken caresses forgotten, her touch breaking
every promise of forever,
and she never waves hello.
Her laugh only memory.
The scent of her tears a cry from the past,
I am lost!
And there is nothing to be done.
No way to hold her, no way to keep her
to yourself,
loving her lonely fantasy.
She’s meant to haunt many.
A shadow, a shape, an unseen form,
a ghost with pennies for eyelids!
In darkness a pleasure unknown or tasted,
shed hair on your pillow your only proof.
And she’s gone.
And she’s gone.
As you knew she would be.
From the first touch, that dry kiss, her lopsided grin,
gone.
I love you always her way of saying,
goodbye.
´06
She is Poetry
She is poetry.
Her smile, her stride, her sideways glance,
a sestina in motion.
But how many lines written about her?
A question best unanswered.
To imagine this personal muse once another’s unthinkable.
Or worse, many others’, promiscuous instrument of inspiration,
whole volumes given over to her name.
How many men have penned her golden hair,
her small unpainted mouth, her eyes bright wide and quick?
How many attempts to capture her in sonnet or fast couplet
only to languish in cliché? A sad smirk, an upturned chin,
a blush to humble all men and some few women,
humor and sense, open arms and slender hips, saying,
“Welcome.”
And the poets of yore, were they better poets?
Does she still yearn for their concise quatrains,
their firm grasp of image and simile?
Or perhaps she still unwraps symbolism and elegant
phrasings well into the night.
As a poem about a far star cannot compare to its light,
how can mere words on a page hold even a part of her?
Too many questions to answer in clumsy rhyme
or pathetic penultimate line.
But impossible these the first, uncreative words laid at her fair
altar. She deserves better.
´06
Bulletproof
I will be bulletproof for you,
one of the good guys, and not at all like other men
you’ve known.
I’ll eat glass and walk on coals, will bite
the heads off chickens and tell our fortune
in entrails (or coins and cards if you insist).
I’ll put a pistol to my head and pull the trigger
as many times as you demand.
five, four, three, two...six!
Bullets can’t hurt me if I have you.
I’ll lie to make you happy, will ask you to divine
the difference between honesty and truth.
I’ll walk into any firestorm, answer any duel,
—flintlock or foil at the ready—
hold you through nightmare, laugh at lightning,
shake my fist at god, search for paradise,
and swallow any pill.
I’ll kiss your hot tears, your forehead, your closed eyes,
practice the laying on of hands.
I’ll be a charlatan, until you say, “I love you,”
then I will be true.
´06
Thin Z
(for Johnny G)
Reptilian chicks turn me on.
You know, women with way too many teeth angled backwards
and the ability to dislocate their jaws.
Cold blooded bitches swaller ya whole!
Eyes too big and too wide, skinny fetal alcohol babes,
bony and near breastless,
forked-tongue prophets speaking lies out both sides
of their mouths,
saying “Milk my snake tits!”
´06
Christopher L. Jorgensen
Christopher L. Jorgensen is no sellout! When Hollywood drove the money truck up to the back of his house and offered to buy his life story, he told them, "I'd rather toil in obscurity. Besides, you don't get my poetry."
He momentarily reconsidered when they offered to have Casey Affleck portray him in the movie with Jennifer Chambers Lynch directing.
Christopher is currently holding out for another million dollars and Paul Bettany with Terry Gilliam directing. Then you can call him a sellout.
Hollywood still won't get his poetry.
