Dan Carey
When I Tried It
Veins lined up in formation through the soil of my flesh
the first time I tried it, knew it might happen
when my roommate told me he had something to show me…
I walked in weakly
begged the door open with a nudge, fending off a conscience
buried somewhere between the memories surrounding who I was
becoming.
He was flicking the tip of a needle when I walked in,
making sure no passageway was blocked. He was waiting for me,
waiting to escape
to rock bottom in tandem, just one more time, as if he knew
how on the verge I was, so close…said yes before I could say yes
and the belt was wrapped
with a hint of masochism, caressed my bicep like a blood pressure
arm cuff.
As it tightened, I hadn’t asked any questions, yet, on how to do it
myself,
to draw the contents into syringe, up from a spoon
filled with cotton, to squeeze out extra water, keep bubbles
away from the bloodstream. I rode that brown juice into mainline,
like a burning freight train. The cream ran out the point,
invaded and began to flow quickly through me,
thick as milkshake or cement
dispersing the spew
from the truck onto streets
seeped to the edges
produced the effect
correct it was
working
The Open-Mic
Drive along side streets,
park near projects, walk over
to a friend of a friend’s place. People gathered
in a backyard, at the end of the week. Tall weeds
intertwine with fences, and everybody mingles –
art, the struggle for money,
the crowd pairs off in mutual suffering.
We can agree for a while today,
as we meet at the poetry show, where my roommate reads
new poems, and all the participants
present their unique styles,
while in the same yard, a construction crew
absurdly clangs
music out of the house in the background, so we all get closer.
To love and listen to poems that grown on us
like mossy answers, swallow us whole.
And everyone gets down to these comic and tragic poets.
One drops
his pages to the grass after each final line,
“speaking of disillusion”
that’s the punk messiah who put together
this meeting of minds. Fresh faces at the right time
in another pocket of the city.
Actéon
The morning rowers row their way through morning
while I catch some sun, taint the air with my smoking
through another pack of Marlboros. Each drag
pulls down the paper edges, while the rowers boast
their stamina, pulling oars around and sliding
their shoulders, roll with the ease of water, they glide
like hands on the lutes from early music that plays
in my ears – the baroque Marc-Antoine Charpentier.
Actéon, a French take on the Greek myth Actaeon,
who was turned into a deer, hounded by his own dogs,
and torn apart. It was his punishment for watching
Artemis bathe. The orchestra’s chorus keeps singing,
breaks down the tragedy in six acts. I am told
in another language and the sound has me sold
on the idea that I could become a stag, and wander
the labyrinth of the Charles River, to keep up with the
rowers…
I would outrun the dogs that try and chase me down
if only to stare in this sunlight a moment longer, and drown.
Dan Carey is a poet currently living in Brighton, MA. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Paradise in Limbo Literary Arts Magazine, a print and online journal of literary and visual arts. Currently enrolled in Lesley University's Low-Residency MFA program in Cambridge, MA, he hosts regular open mics around Brighton, and reads poems wherever there's an opportunity.