MADE FOR YOU AND ME 2: hive Being (Stanzas 2017--part 68)
scent of the day: Dunhuang, by Prissana
Dunhuang (2022, Prin Lomros)—a peppery-incense fragrance whose oddball-clash of film-noire smoke and creamy-citrus glow evokes for me not what the artist intended (Dunhuang, the historic Silk Road outpost of the Gobi Desert) but rather a techno-mystical Chinatown filtered through the neon-fog lens of 1980s retrofuturism—
sprinkles an array of spices (rye-bread caraway, pleat-sweat cumin, singed-wick black pepper, licorice-medicine aniseed, five-spice cinnamon, tiger-balm clove, wok-zest ginger) and herbs (campfire-ash Lapsang Souchong, citrus-leaf jasmine tea, slimy-mulch patchouli, greasy-dreadlock costus, AC-algae moss, celery-dirt angelica root)
across a bed of lived-in florals (jogger-panties jasmine, lemon-custard magnolia, overripe-apricot osmanthus, grandma-pillow rose) and tang-bitten fruits (Capri-Sun tangerine, vitamin-burp mandarin, Pine-Sol kumquat, red-wine plum) all pestled with binder resins (tarry-leather labdanum, headshop-basement incense) and smeared, as if some ceremonial shellac, over decayed wood (hamster-cage cedar, buttered-beam sandalwood),
a concoction that—especially with the musky thrum of hamper-skids civet (which calls to my mind dryer sheets)—feels like one of those better-not-ask fortification potions that Egg Shen might have brewed in Big Trouble in Little China before handing it to Jack Burton for the showdown with the campy Lo Pan and his glam-rock elemental warlords (I always loved the lightning-bolt guy off of which Raiden had to have been based)—
the overall effect being a smoky-earthy fragrance that, competing in the same medicinal-tea-in-musky-leather-pouch territory as several Ensar releases for a fraction of the price (even Of Wolves and Men), really does give me the impression of an Egg Shen potion brewed offscreen in some back-alley apothecary whose scatterbrained glut of elixir vials and mortar powders exude a folk-medicine ancientness that, much like the leak-rot shelving buckling under the swollen weight of musty leatherbounds, stands in stark contrast to all the haloed neon outside (the same cyan-magenta duo of 1980s laser-backdrop yearbook photos) glowing over a foggy metropolis (neon-lit, stimulant laced) where, just around the corner next to the 2036 noodle shop (and right out of the Neuromancer dreams of William Gibson, as in the Ninsei district of Nighttown), cyberpunk teens in shutter-shades wrestle arcade joysticks to the ambient pulse of Blade-Runner synth as rain trickles onto asphalt glistening in the hot-purple radiance of blacklight-neon mandarin signage.
*This is a portion of an ongoing mosaic poem called Made for You and Me. This portion is from the first installment: hive Being (Stanzas 2016-2020). More specifically, it is from the 2017 portion of that five-part work.
MADE FOR YOU AND ME 2: hive Being (Stanzas 2017—part 68)
another hit to live with oneself for taking the last
ever itch your own asshole with a fart?
triter than picking “Peaches” as your whore name
a gay gene—or is it a sex gene shaped by triggers in utero and beyond?
debating someone in absentia
“Party’s over and bitch still wanna get high”
booger nose breathing like a hot Geiger counter
creation by finding and selecting
jailhouse Muslim: a Muslim to avoid joining a gang
close-mindedness fueled by expert degrees
she felt she was somebody only when around those who did not take her route
not needing the stranger’s arrival to explore the hinterlands within
that humid-sickly musk in a dorm of Tren bros
started dancing because her dog got really sick
we have all tasted death, before birth
each new litter of feral cats, nested under sagged porches crumbled by decades, bears a mute witness to that rupture when the corporation pulled out of the ecosystem it built
another stereotypical hot-for-teacher boy whose lifelong brag for what happened one afternoon of eraser-clapping detention we deem a self-delusion nearly as upsetting as the assault itself
a key point of writing, which we outsource at our own detriment, is figuring out what we do and what we should believe
if anyone says anything about you killing puppies (that sidewalk-smash move that leads to convulsion), say—if only to buy time—you have a snake at home
was it kismet that trick and ho, a random pickup on the blade, both had brought along their infants who now sit in carriers in the backseat line of fire?
smack dab in the situation he has dedicated his life to avoiding
autism by nurture
fired for drinking
too far gone to create a home even out of a fully-gifted house
listen not just to what they say but how they say it—even to what they do not say
writing teaches you to trust the process, which is perfect for birthing and dying
even Obama, a good man, ordered hits—practically flying the drones himself
checking the phone replaced biting her fingers
the white supremacy of times tables in Portland
if the intent behind propaganda is to cultivate unity, we would expect the military industrial complex— given its stake in disunity—to spread diverse propagandas
pegging yourself for prostate stimulation does not mean you are gay and being gay does not mean you are attracted to minors—likewise, being attracted to minors does not mean you desire to rape children
in a different society, getting fucked by your number-one hero is—and stays— the diametrical opposite of trauma
