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Thursday, January 2, 2020

James Diaz Tells Of The Boy Who Threw His Words At A Train, A Negligence of Bandages, And The Warp Of Trauma


Shiver n' Shakedown

Put your ragged heart
in the red dirt

some boy threw
his words against a train
outta town
never made it

calls you sometimes
says; iowa, portland,
mexican border,
i still love you

probation officer
at the door again
late on rent again
had a using dream again
again again

torpedo heart
listen to the town go dead
at night
against the chain link fence
wrapped around
motel six

blue sky kids kicking dreams up in their veins
feel this god make or break you
down into laughter

why,
you don't ask why
anymore

you let the world have at you
take; liver, gut, limb
take what you're gonna take
and shout about all the rest

I need to sleep
dear god, I need to remember
where it is I come from
but never mind that now
I see the lights
I hear the heat
it's all over except it's not
ever
over.


I've Got You, Hold on

what it's like
and no one has stopped

My, that's quite a wound you've got
I know
I really do

to help you
all evening
it's been like this
people pretending no one is bleeding
no one human
can you lift your leg for me
does this hurt, here, try this way
lean into my hand, I've got you
fuck is wrong with these people
I'll go get bandages, hold on
I'll be back

and you tell me it's been ten years since you've been home
and what happened was...
and it still haunts you
and sometimes this feels better
out here, all alone
better that the wounds are now only accidents
and I know, I really do
what it's been like
I see you bleeding
no safe place and so completely human
you're not foreign to me -I've got you, hold on.



It
Is No Act, To Love You Here


Trauma
warp

round
the root

I
rot, you call-

I
come running

feel
the furrow

the
shakes

scan
my insides

all
rut and ribbon

say
this life

will
not escape us

will
turn into

a
porch light

in
the deep

mountains

and
when you cry

an
angel loans its wings

we
beat the earth

we
drink deeply

from
that ground

open
up- something is coming

through,

bigger
than light

higher
than dope

come
drop these chains

come
hold this wheel

steady,
scarred

and
beautiful

wishing
well

belly
whispers

break
the night

and
our hearts wide

open.

More
than

father's
return

this
time,

our
instinct for love

and
deserving-

the
retching along the highway

spilling
its own light,

and
such hands as these to catch it.


James Diaz is the author of This Someone I Call Stranger (Indolent Books, 2018) and editor (along with Elisabeth Horan & Amy Alexander) of the anthology What Keeps us Here: Songs from The Other Side of Trauma (Anti-Heroin Chic Press, 2019). In 2016 he founded the online literary arts and music journal Anti-Heroin Chic to provide a platform for often unheard voices, including those struggling with addiction, mental illness and Prison/confinement. His most recent work can be found in Moonchild Magazine, Occulum, Drunk Monkeys and Thimble Literary Magazine. He resides in upstate New York, in between balanced rocks and horse farms. He has never believed in anything as strongly as he does the power of poetry to help heal a shattered life.