New poems by David McLean

 

 

subversive subjects

 

it was when we wanted not to be,
and dreams fell from us like the fumes
of glue dissipate in mornings
and the compassionate remorse
we feel for selfish ourselves

and all their whens -
all the kisses that went missing
as we drowned in their absence
and they fell from us
like bodies were good

and their meaty structure
a god had constructed once
giddy with love, he was
he saw that it was good, bodies
are good for us, enough

flesh, enough lust

 

 

small things

 

everything builds small things
like kittens, more important
memory forgotten was yesterday
that was. OK.

situation normal all fucking
forgotten. and just so here
on this balcony some "i"
buttresses nothing, sniffing

glue, and what i was then
was several children
dismembering all my selves.
they was "me" and dead

already. it was 1986 and
almost heaven, we said,
writing it down, murdered
evil clowns, small things

forgiven, mostly kittens

 

 

Lacan and the Surrealists

 

Lacan tells us why the surrealists are stupid,
their theories, he says, are confused and useless;
but he never tells us why they are such twats -
i don't know why he never mentioned that

 

 

bye-bye, smelly signifier

 

the signifier is no smelly fleshy phallus
today, but a nice plastic strap-on,
vampires and zombies are my fantasies
and good at chasing away angels
and nightmares. god does not care,
and that is fine by me, neither of us
is here, neither of us exists or really
cares. mankind too, we forgot
how to be lonely, we have no reality
to share. reason is still all it means to us -

just shit - too many memories
to forget, too many orgasms,
too many deaths

 

 

a zombie sits

 

a zombie sits dead between us on the sofa,
between each instant. at one point
i shot him in the head with memories,
and his jaw hangs deader
than the rest of him, maybe
because of this, dead
as a telephone and twice
as hopeless

i hope he records what we say to him,
some place that he displaces
anxiety in me, he is all my dead
forever, and hangs hopeless
his lovely eternity. profane
decay, baby, this zombie he
sits dead between us on the sofa -
i hope he remembers me
his arrogant eternity

 

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