Dying Hour

I want to use these great lungs of mine
To hold my breath for an hour.

I practice meditation for hours,
Warming up for the final act.

The final pause at the end of Life’s stanza.

The Taoists say holding your breath
Is yang, it strengthens every muscle

And every bone in your body.
The Taoists say that exhaling is

Yin, it relaxes and prepares
The body for some final rest;

And so, to breathe out, even to sigh
Is to die. When you read poetry

Out loud, you die. Not metaphorically,
But literally. It is the cycle of life.

I want to hold my breath for an hour
So that I can feel immortal. So that I can

Feel a strength that has never been
In my muscles and flesh. So that I can

Hold time still for just that short, minute,
Dying hour.

-Patrick Conners Jr

Kept Awake

“God’s refuted but the devil’s not”
-Charles Simic

I used to be kept awake
For hours each night,
With poems circulating
Through the veins of my mind.
It was a chore keeping up;
Like keeping the yard clear
               in the fall.

They were mad thoughts.
I thought they were not from me,
But from some dream state.

I collected more lines than
A confessional booth;
The notebook I refused
                to set down.

In the morning a shadow
                remained on the page.

-Patrick Conners Jr

Morality is trivial
Mice make metaphors

Unfocused eyes see
Nothing out the window
Today

The Seducer Only Smiles At Himself

There is so much more
Security when everything is naturally
                At odds--
Then we do not need to invent ways to
Fill the silence
                So unnatural.
Crafts and trees should
All be bells,
They should scream or just echo
Their last brilliant murder.
Dullness is never sought.

We need to
Fly toward the vibrant
Light until unconscious flies.

We need to be stuck in a
Wind tunnel. Though we crave
                Control,
Silence we cannot
Master--it breeds in us,
We do not produce in it.

If we only appreciated
Stillness, surely there'd be
no survival--Life depends
                on strife.
Love moves toward war of forms.
When you've gotten everything
Else done, just get high,
                You deserve it after all.

The alternative is stagnation,
un-accomplishment. Motion measures
man--growth, worms, cities,
rain, the heart beat-- Movement
                is connection.
Sound unites, we are
Comforted by distraction. Jesus
Was born, performed, spoke, died
Rose once more--even in death
Was not silent--silent, stillness,
                A disease,
There are pills for that!

If connection is holy, we must live in a
Holy age, right? Contemplation, no, that
is odd--Seclusion shows an indifference
and intolerance--War has always been
                a love story. The seducer only
Smiles at himself.
A soldier is anyone who knows
For whom he died.
                God does not smile at all.

-Patrick Conners Jr

flesh 'n wine

God, you're holding your palm out
for your future to be read

you've cast lots to divide your realms
we, we, we, our great race us humans

Have been entrusted to fight holy wars

To bless your children Because we hold your

Palm and study the lines God you should use

hand cream your skin could use to be smoother

Its rough as a snake we, we, we

Improve nature Have a cure for that

our reason and understanding The civilized

nations and our courts have no need for justice

you could say we we we know a great deal of

divination and tarot prophecies The man with

the beard and his half completed song we we

we are premature we want bread and wine

flesh and blood ripped from holy flesh

-Patrick Conners Jr

Search

I went looking for you in a hill last September.
The wind tossed my hair in front of my face,
My legs burned underneath me,
feeling the urgency of the search.

I ran up toward the expanding dark blue.
As I crested the hill the sun blinded me for a moment.
I looked around into the pure white light;
Everything was gone, the wind was deafening.

In another instant, everything had returned.
I was at the top of the hill with the sky and blown leaves.
So clearly I saw all around me, the small creek beyond the hill.
Alone on the hill, I walked to the creek.

The shallow and clear water did not even hold a face.
I was alone for miles in all directions;
I wondered at where you had gone.
For all these years you've wandered far from home.

It is impossible to describe my disappointment
I thought I had found you,
And my joy faded like a young child's at dusk.

I knelt at the water's edge,
Began dipping my cupped hand
Into the water, bringing it up in handfuls,
Digging just on the surface for a trace of you.

The water never left a spot to be reclaimed,
A constant stream entirely unaware of my hand.
I wanted some essence, some proof.
Digging and digging, tirelessly, the wind did not cease.

-Patrick Conners Jr

They don’t trust us with shoelaces here
                They may be used to strangle ourselves
The sheets and blankets are so thin that
                They tear if you should try to hang yourself
The mirror is polished metal
                No glass shards to split your own throat
Hospital gowns and doped up patients
                Hungry from weeks of hospital food and sleep deprived

Only the truly ignorant claim to understand themselves
Assignment today: Come up with
                Five things you are thankful for
The lady next to me will
Not stop on about how
                They took my babies!
Her husband, she just knows is dead.
They replaced him with a clone,
                She won’t sleep with him
I don’t doubt that’s not why she’s here

My roommate is a returned war vet
                He screams out profanities
At night as he dreams of repeatedly stabbing me
He screams out my name like
                The Lord’s name in a desperate prayer.
He is a pile of rocks under the thin bed spread
Screaming damnation
                Fuck the doctors and fuck my soul!
I can feel it filling the room
                He’s near climax
When he wakes in sudden terror
And moves quickly to the shower
                On quiet feet.

The games of chess I play here
Are the most sincere I’ll play anywhere

-Patrick Conners Jr

Voice Inside Mine

This is why your voice is still inside mine
Why it rings out over and over in my head
I'm convinced I hear it as loudly in my dreams
As when you are standing right beside me
With an assuring smile and soft eyes
This is why you are trapped in my head
Like a prisoner who is not held in by bars
Or cuffs but remains out of guilt
He's put himself in the greatest hell
Because he cannot imagine walking free
There's no freedom from yourself
No escaping our deeds
When we accept the path of Cain
We attach our souls to suffering
We are all cousins of murderers
For this we pray forgiveness
That we may walk in the light
Despite the actions of our Nation
That we identify ourselves with wholly
And Holy we want our mind to become
Our thoughts washed of our darkest seed
We read stories of saints
And invent rituals for cleansing
And plays for our katharsis
As though if we lie with all our hearts
Wholly, holy our creator will see us
He will overflow with pity
He might burst as a balloon with too much helium
He shall count the number of tears that
We cry each day while thinking about Him
While thinking about our own solid condition
We might find some piece of us
Some voice inside our heads that
Justifies our very existence among
Thieves, rapists, and murders
Yours is the voice I think about
Because it is pure light
It is the closest thing to an angel
I've ever experienced
And while our minds give us our
Perception of reality
While we are fed the heart of existence
By what we hear see breathe and feel
Each and every day and I read
About a woman who is beaten for the
Fourth time in a month
By the same man over and over
For years this abuse continues
Through ages filling volumes
Filling tombs and tragedies and being
The very living causes for pain and
Senseless rage
But there has to be something
Something to counteract the screaming
Blood
A single soothing voice of right
Something to declare beauty isn't only in fiction
That rocks and bullets are powerless
To the strongest voices in our hearts
The true source of courage and action
And your voice is wind chimes
In a hurricane
Growing louder in the immutable wind
The chaos is only a yawn
It is a whisper
As I fold my head into my own lap
And listen to the waves of your voice against my skull

-Patrick Conners Jr

Earth’s Prayer

Dear friends, this is how I would pray
You look upon me.
I had these thoughts while
You were building your temples
Upon my mantle.
A holy site, a holy structure,
God’s temple,
You cannot imagine the insult!
Are my oceans not deep enough
To house all of the gods for you?
Are my trees not numerous enough to serve
as fingers for all your ironic gods?
Does the wind not blow fierce enough
To serve as the echoing
Incantations of a mad howling
God who has her whole life served
You with all her passion and bounty?
How much did it cost to build your temples?
What is their upkeep?
You wash my valleys in your blood
In the name of an absent delinquent God
Who has done nothing for you
Which my rains and fields do not
Do freely all the world around.
You cannot argue about my
Existence or divine form.
I willingly bear your waste,
I’ve been reduced to a mere staging area.
I’ve been accused of housing your Hell,
You’ve made me synonymous with filth and sin
And terror beyond your ability to cope.
You have cursed my womb,
Spat upon my breast;
And yet I’ve made you fat,
I’ve loved you beyond the form of any God
Whose temples you plague me with.
I exist now only as the rotting corpse
Beneath your feet.
Keep your alms,
I want no arms in my name.
I swallow your churches because they are obscene.
I reclaim my stone and mortar,
And the wood of your crucifix.

-Patrick Conners Jr
10/30/11

The Cold Is A Terrible Thing To Forget

Reading Charles Simic tonight.
Bad chill set in a few hours ago.
Dogs bark in the late October night,
                Answering a train whistle
That reminds us the track
Is still there,
The same way a dog bite
Reminds us of nature,
And September reminds us of the world.
Glass is empty.
The cold is a terrible thing to forget.

-Patrick Conners Jr

Charles Simic Early Evening Algebra

early evening algebra
- Charles Simic

The madwoman went marking X’s
With a piece of school chalk
On the backs of unsuspecting
Hand-holding, homebound couples.

It was winter. It was dark already.
One could not see her face
Bundled up as she was and furtive.
She went as if wind-swept, as if crow-winged.

The chalk must have been given to her by a child.
One kept looking for him in the crowd,
Expecting him to be very pale, very serious,
With a chip of black slate in his pocket.

-Charles Simic

172

you've been writing all day

listless seeking poignant

pregnant with some art

an incoherent fury of

untranslatable muk

thoughts, sins, temptations

regrets, longings, ghosts

Always ghosts

Running to and diving from

History intersected with

the faultiness of remembrance

imbued with emotion

fretting for the perfect syllable

"Lar!" That is how I'll end

this line! That's it, that's perfect!

the feeling dissipates

your grounded

hollowed tired

you've dragged yourself

over mental agonies

the result is only migraine

and inattention

Frantic suitcase riddle

swarms of experience

highly distant

leading to a separating will

And ego-high

The perfect verse



　
patrick conners jr-

Take Back The Night

Tonight I'm thinking about captivity

And the stars

In the evening as the shadows grow

We flee inside

There are faces outside

We cannot go

Out

The night swallowed

Our freedom

How

Who

The drunken night is chaotic

Its absurd

Without lights where can we hide

Its absurd to be afraid of your own yard

In the vast expand outside in darkness

We can sing out like the stars

And eat of the moon

And we used to dance at night

-Patrick Conners Jr

John Berryman poem 172

Dream Song 172
By John Berryman

Your face broods from my table, Suicide.
Your force came on like a torrent toward the end
of agony and wrath.
You were christened in the beginning Sylvia Plath
and changed that name for Mrs Hughes and bred
and went on round the bend
till the oven seemed the proper place for you.
I brood upon your face, the geography of grief,
hooded, till I allow
again your resignation from us now
though the screams of orphaned children fix me anew.
Your torment here was brief,


long falls your exit all repeatingly,
a poor exemplum, one more suicide,
to stack upon the others
till stricken Henry with his sisters & brothers
suddenly gone pauses to wonder why he
alone breasts the wronging tide.

-John Berryman

With our naked souls in the air we begin our journey.

Here, the devil is just another soothe sayer, nothing to be feared.

We paint the sky as moving into our selves. We settle into our skin.

Langauges are made between two people as a contract of truth;

You have broken every line of it,

You and your infinite tales each more exotic than the last. They entrance us

We sit at your feet like Bhikkhus at the feet of a

Bronze Buddha. We draw you a warm bath of

Milk and rose petals and your ethearal body only floats

On top. I have found that this is not your sign of Christlike

Perfection. This is your unrelenting fear. It fills you like

breath filling an inflatable raft. You lay there suspended over

The warm white milk. The unknown holds us all captive. It

Determines our actions and speech but I have never seen

A case just like this. This inflated indesicive vessel

Over a clean pure tub. We choose our words carefully, our

Independence in this life depends on it. We choose a slow and

Reflective thought, building a water proof vault to stash our

Souls. So afraid that we may not be good at this floating. That we

May soil our soul by living.

Our words and your words. Words, words like charging bulls.

Patrick Conners Jr

-e.e. Cummings poem-

if i believe

in death be sure

of this

it is

because you have loved me,

moon and sunset

stars and flowers

gold crescendo and silver muting

of seatides

i trusted not,

                        one night

when in my fingers

drooped your shining body

when my heart

sang between you perfect

breasts

darkness and beauty of stars

was on my mouth petals danced

against my eyes

and down

the singing reaches of

my soul spoke

the green-

greeting pale-

departing irrevocable

sea

i knew thee death.

                        and when

i have offered up each frangrant

night, when all my days

shall have before a certain

face become

white

perfume

only,

            from the ashes

then

thou wilt rise and thou

wilt come to her and brush

the mishcief from her eyes and fold

her

mouth the new

flower with

thy unimaginable

wings, where dwells the breath

of all persisting stars

-E.E. Cummings

“Please allow me to introduce myself.”

My handiwork has never been far from view, but recently there is even less reason for introductions. Browsing the daily news blogs, or surfing the daily big 24s will get you intimate with my nature. I am a workaholic is all. Adult ADHD. Type-A personality. All that bullshit. I really just can’t help it, it is love, love for what I do, love for who I serve. People do not think of me much as a servant, but if I could explain myself simply, it would be that I am just that: a public servant. People really do not understand love and necessity, that is the real issue. Love and necessity are who I serve, and in doing so I serve humanity. Look, a dictator doesn’t crumble without love, right? Necessity bids me to raise my fingers, and I do. Out of love. Is this thing even on?

“I’m a man of wealth and taste.”

Well, I mean, come on, a servant is allowed his share, right? This isn’t slavery, that is just cruel. If there is one thing I do not stand for, that is cruelty. What is wrong with indulging a little here and there, I mean what is it that Socrates once said, about wealth making virtue, you know the line. I suppose you could say that Socrates and I have a lot in common, I mean, we have both been called sophists a lot. Misunderstanding is the theme here. I have wealth because I work hard, I work hard because I am restless, that is the American dream after all. I am a capitalist and I excel at it, I am not going to apologize for that!

“I’ve been around for a long, long year.”

I am the first and last thought of man, after all. I’ve had my share of tributes and biographies, but I do not feel like any of them have really gotten my true nature. I try to tell my own story through actions. It is deeds that are most honored after all, right? At least, it was at one time, now I might be dating myself in still believing that motto. I took my first stand as an act of sacrifice and ever since then I’ve been proving that man really can’t serve two masters. The Big One asked me to bow before man, can you believe that? And disobey the previous command to worship only Him? Now, I make it my own personal duty, as a service to man, to show them that they can serve only one. All I do is bring the choice to them. I go to each man, individually, and do them each this service. I told you, I have a lot in common with Socrates.

“Stole many a man’s soul and faith.”

Now this accusation, I can plainly deny. How does one go about soul stealing anyway? Are we going to get into a debate about free will? Free will is a great thing when it is used for good, so why is it that every time someone uses it for ill, they go blaming me? All I did was ask him about the condition of his soul. That is all. I pointed out that he has one, sometimes this burden is too much for a man, I guess. But nowhere, Nowhere, in here is there any stealing. I leave the work of stealing to petty thieves, and even then it is by choice alone. Gosh, look at the time. I’d love to continue this interview, but I am a busy man after all.

Patrick Conners Jr

When you cried of loss did you whimper

            ghost names to the mess of sheets on your floor

While crafting your new art did you

            use the colors of your own eyes, hair, skin

Here’s your gun Alan

You know as well as any that

you’ve never seen a gun before

one’s been put to your head

Through the barrel screaming to the dead the angel

shatters the bullet and what should have been your last breath

Is a shutter that breaks your spine

            and then your heart

Paralyzed and mindless you drift across America

seeing the same parks, streets, lots, drugs,

            stores, pits, gamblers, losers, pin-ups,

            sneakers in the store windows, Christmas displays,

            Vaccinations for the virus of obese America,

            dollar stores, pawn shops, economic highs,

            and the derailing lows of mad houses

that put the gun back into your hand

and, Alan, you saw your reflection on that handle

Did you cry for loss or for gain

or do you even remember

where it is in America you left yourself

Street broken penniless full of Gin and Walt

high up in your life and spirit

breathing to the trees and starving bird nests

on Pennsylvania avenue committing the only unforgivable sin

asking for a bread crumb

   or an eternal silver dream

Patrick Conners Jr

Two Sets of Eyes

My lady has two sets of eyes:

There’s the soft,

            Sailingly uncouth,

not-quite-here,

not For Me pair.

(These are wild, but un-alert.)

And then, Oh, there’s

the hard un-

compromising

                        Promising

Fully                 Awake

—Am I immured?—

Pair of Amour.

(She uses these when she means to puncture me.)

But wait

                        Here’s another unfolding green

Erupting persona —Anger— in a flash.

Patrick Conners Jr

Kerouac, I Think I'd like to Believe

Kerouac, I Think I'd like to Believe

(Thoughts and notes during 242 Choruses)

"This tree just told me

            See eternity

            Is the other side

            Of the other part

            Of your mind

            That you ignore

            Because you want to"

-Kerouac, 156th Chorus

I'm running out of places to stash

These discarded crippling hearts.

Kerouac, I think, I'd like to believe

That we are all reborn,

            Over and over;

We are all scholars,

            Responsible for teaching our souls.

And we’re all Buddha and Christ

            To be aspiring saints

Lost in Limbo.

Death's equal is the womb—

            I think that's what you tried to tell me,

And that soft souls know no equal.

 “What’s been buried inside me

            for sure?

The substance of my own father’s

            empty light

Derived from time working

            on dirt

And clay bones.”

-Kerouac, 204^th Chorus

I won't be left with

The crickets forever,

But Their soulless song is soothing;

Teach me to see like you do

Into the valley heart of shades

Rounded by a black rainbow

By the moon that never sets.

That I may see passed the Jewel of Fate,

Emerge from boundaries—you and I.

Learn to not suffer the wicked;

But also tell it apart from the innocent.

Heaven, I have another side—

What's wrong with that?—

Don't send me 'way like the others.

Heaven we're all impatient,

What are you hiding?

"I'm an idealist

            who has outgrown

            my idealism

I have nothing to do

  the rest of my life

            but do it

            and the rest of my life

            to do it"

-33rd Chorus

I bear the language of the romantics.

I have a full heart and empty pockets.

I can appear awesome as a phantom.

I believe there are colors I have not seen.

I’ve spent eleven lives

            Trying to perfect the spontaneous sonnet.

I’ve Seen my silver soul; a speck on the mirror.

“Being in selfless one-ness

With the such-ness

That is Tathagatahood,

So is everybody else

Lost with you

In that bright Sea

Of non-personality.”

            -194^th Chorus

In a crystal-nothing jar

            Nirvana sits empty.

Wait, I have my own ballad;

It’s in my pocket,

            It’s a telephone number,

   It’s a name,

It’s an answer—

Yes?

Wait, my Nirvana,

Why is patience a life-long lesson?

            I’m done waiting for mine.

No, there’s nothing spontaneous

            ‘bout a sunset.

The ecstasy of nothing

Abiding, pleasing, pleasuring,

            Feeling, grieving, having

                        nothing,

            No____thing.

Pure light is always seen

            Even in the no____thing of smoldering

            dark

Even now in the Divine Secular Nothing,

            Ultra Ecstatic Reality.

                        (a pause)

A secular God has only genitals.

"Therefore", she said, "Goddess is a redundancy."

silence

"So the children rush out, saved,

            And he gives them

            the incomparable single Greatcart

            Of the white Bullock, all snow"

-126th Chorus

The dance of the little boy’s anger

            So unforgivable

Mired down in the recess of

            Frogs, flowers, Scholars

An age, and fifty thousand breaths

            later,

Still a washed out vision

            Ambient surreal emotion

And a small diamond is made

            To be a third eye’s prism.

Me and a half-dollar spider watch

            a caterpillar dance slowly on a twig

“Wow, I thought reading that,

            When I start falling

            In that inhuman pit

            Of dizzy death

            I’ll know (if

            Smart enough t’remember)

            That all the black

            Tunnels of hate

            Or love I’m falling

            Through, are

                   Really radiant

            Right eternities

            For me”

-184^th Chorus

Have all my choices been made

            Before I even know them?

Have I written this already—hundreds of times before?

            Once drunk, once high, once sober,

            Once in ecstasy, once alive, once

            Frozen stiff, once in anguish,

            Once after the Rapture, once in

            Fear of hell, once in unending

            Anticipation of heaven and light,

            Once in pursuit of Perfect Gain

And still now while pouring over

The Snake of Eternity.

“Seeing that all’s illusion

You lose your mind

In meditation

And heal yourself well

            (AND WHAT’S BEEN HEALED?)”

                        -203^rd Chorus

The Saints say:

            The universe began in a garden

            All speech was meaningless before being named

            Everything was perfect and sane

(I think

            Blessed are those without a tongue

For they have never disturbed the hymen of Universe.)

Say They:

            Without morals none were judged

            Haloed cherub beings robed only in serenity

            Governed the careless creatures

(I think

            Blessed are those without reason

            For all others shall inherit their sins)

“It is not moot to question how a dream

                                                ends”

                                    -216^th-B Chorus

When you've proven the universal redundancies.

When moved by faith to:

            Confirm all rhetorical doubt,

            Put to sleep a thousand dragons,

            Silence the sirens in the sky,

            And strangle all lonesome thoughts.

Wont you lie down with me,

have a drink, retire

            Stoic

                        nirvana

split my side once more.

Patrick Conners Jr.