Monday, December 31, 2018

chester giles

a man needs a woman or a man to be a man


bill callahan put it best when he said a man needs a woman or a man to be a man.

i don't like work that references other work but i don't like myself that much either so it makes sense to me when i do things i'd rather i didn't - and i can live with that. this tongue in my mouth was grown from out of other peoples bodies and handed down to me, trained on the words i heard other people use. all the words it forms some one else has spoken.

meteor shower last night and i thought of kate, and i thought about thunder storms and being there with kate as the sky fell to pieces and tore apart and made all that music and all that theater. and a strange girl in another place sent me obscene messages so i thought about her body and being inside of her but without desire and the whole time i just wanted kate and wanted to be close to her watching that sky, and knew she was across town seeing the same things. the meteors sparking and flaring above the roof tops of the houses.

a man needs a woman or a man to be a man to know what he is, and it's her that makes me feel the things it's good to feel and without that the whole world is seen through the filter and film of longing.

 man alone,
 man without woman or man
 man searching for woman or man.
 a soft filter, blurring everything at the corners.

this is a document and testament of mans loneliness on this earth, still led with the same masculine narrative. still concerning "man" not "the human" but i barely feel  human  - i rarely feel humane and there is this organ which hangs down between my legs and there is this power in my hands and a great strength all through my body, all across my chest holding me up making me "man".
               so this is how i talk and what it is i think.

                     
i stood close to the waitress in the cafe this morning (the same sky above the same roof tops, the same ceiling closing and holding down the same city in longing) as i lit my cigarette.

  she stood closer,
   arching her neck to the side as she put the coffee on the table
and i knew the movement and i understood the scent and language written in her body and
felt it talking through mine.

" i wanna snatch you up and do those things to you.
    lift you by the waist and tear you all open and apart inside
   take you and move you with all the force inside me
   leave you gasping needing air on the other side of all those stars and white noise and
   dilated pupils."

 short breath and our bodies close, the smell of sweat and the morning and perfume.

she smiled at me with the side ways eyes, wide and full
 then
walked away.

the woman i wanted to belong to living on the other side of town.
the soft filter making everything blur at the edges

Image result for denise meteor shower paintings
 Meteor Shower -- Denise Deiloh

1 comment:

  1. Bill Callahan is the son of language analysts for the National Security Agency, the American organization that engages in global monitoring, collection, and processing of information. As Smog he began recording home-made tape-albums in 1990 with "Sewn to the Sky." Its liner notes claim it was recorded on a "dumpster Portastudio," the 1st (1979) 4-track recorder based on a standard compact audio cassette tape. This one one of the pioneering "lo-fi" albums, mostly lacking melodic structure and clumsily played on poorly tuned guitars. Much of his early output was instrumental, but his later work focused on lyrics. Rather than relying on the usual verse-chorus structure, his songs employ a free-form approach that has little melodic or lyrical repetition. In 2007 he released "Woke on a Whaleheart," his 1st solo album under his own name, which featured "A Man Needs a Woman or a Man to Be a Man":

    When you leave, I go into our room
    And lay me down on birds of paradise
    It's pretty womanly in here!
    Roses noting every move
    Nothing goes on except what should
    A vast legacy of good

    And I don't know if I can uphold it on my own
    I don't know if I can uphold it on my own
    I don't know if I'm to be trusted
    In our room
    Alone

    A man needs a woman or a man
    To be a man
    A man needs a woman or a man
    To be a man

    The light is explicit
    Between nine and noon
    The light shows a life to things thought dead
    Like oaken legs and fireworks beneath the bed

    Fireworks are wasted in the day
    I set 'em off anyway
    To pass the time 'til you return
    I Can't see a thing 'til you return
    Maybe a little smoke 'til you return
    With fireworks
    More fireworks!
    And you tell me to wait
    Just wait, wait
    Just wait

    A man needs a woman or a man
    To be a man
    A man needs a woman or a man
    To be a man

    And when it's good and dark
    The sky a wet black
    Like earth has turned
    You say OK
    Now is time, OK
    Like earth has turned

    Above us explode a golden lion dripping red
    A blue bear spitting white
    A spider of fire on a web of sparks
    A green dragon with spiralled eyes
    Fireworks light the way
    Fireworks light the way

    Before us lie many a night
    Before us lie fireworks in boxes
    But only in you
    Deep in you
    Only in you
    Deep in you
    Is the fire that lights them

    A man needs a woman or a man
    To be a man
    A man needs a woman or a man
    To be a man

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