GoGaGiGu

The Alpaca Sofa

It is my honor

to sit seiza

in front of your alpaca’s mouth.

I calmly feed it

specially-filled gyoza.

Your alpaca smiles

at the flavors

and the hallucination 

of being

a gorgeous, celibate panda.

You ride high

atop its hallucination’s plush

black and white back

like Sam Peckinpah

swinging a colorful handbag

above his head

and shouting quotes 

from Zizek.

Within 

your alpaca’s brain.

a film of chemical cinema

plays. From its bluest-blue sky,

a panda-god slowly descends--

upright, spot-lighted and humanoid

(not a filthy zoo-bear). 

Behind its movement, a river

of noisy pink flowers churns--

10,000 zujaka petals

falling off from the edges of sounds.

Your alpaca smiles,

its eyes half-closed in effort

to stay alive within the dream,

to not lose the line

it draws itself on.

Perched below and above

your alpaca’s luxurious fleece,

we chat about odd creations

of the world, connecting distant

details with things vaguely visible,

finding more than could be 

possible in this world without us. 

Your alpaca eats another gyoza 

from my hand. Its digestion rumbles 

from deep inside and we laugh out

a perpetual rebellion of

culminations.

for RM

by jerry gordon

4.17.13

With My Ghost in the 2nd Moon

We walked up here 

waited entered and left.

Then returned,

to the same place,

unrecognizable

to what was

30 minutes before.

We climbed beyond

the place the police stopped us,

up into the burnt square

painted by 11 brushes of fire.

We walked the path of the flames,

like ghosts that had visited here

on mistaken dates in their pasts.

We leaned towards

the crowded dark,

searched for abandoned ribbons

to access the fragrant listening

and saw them come out and in

dressed in 9th century parachutes,

readied for leaping

from word to word

over the distances of lifetimes.

And just before we left again,

you walked away from me,

to be near the water

and the lanterns became

the several phases of 

the moon's voice, 

each softly describing

a different curve

of your right shoulder.

by jerry gordon

3.14.2013

"petals fall,
drift and lift
the roof beyond
reach of these roots.
i walk and walk,
everywhere within
their shade."


4.11.2012

Between

Preparing to leave this world,
I am shown the images of
underwear and igloos
and CantonPop ambitions.

A rat revealed
himself last night,
scampering over the wall clock
and rattling Ornette Coleman
on his perch.

I left the rat my house
to reside in for 10 days
while Aya wanders
her shy, silenced solitude.

The sky is bluer above above.
The sea breaks apart
against these winds.

No one except for you
sits beside me.



by jerry gordon
3.24.2012

Artificial Sunset

Bathed in the buzz
of an artificial sunset,
I turn my head
to see you turn your head
back from looking at some distance
not present in the landscape
outside this window.

This is when I most want to kiss you,
and taste the exhalation
of some breath you’ve taken
in your other world.
I imagine it to be seasoned
with garlic and blood
and the mutterings of some ghost.

I have lived alone for 47 years,
for 17 years,
for 9 months,
for 13 hours,
for one and a half hours,
for 3 minutes.
But how can loneliness
be measured with time?

I have rolled the stone of my tongue
across your body, and it has learned
the songs of gravity.

Now is when the flowers fill the sky.
Now is when the roads reach
beneath my raised foot.
Now is when the danger is total
and terror loses all urgency.

All imagining vanishes
and the taste arrives.



by jerry gordon
4.9.2012

Miniatures Vol. 3: March 18, 2012

Market Report

i wonder what i would talk about
if i walked that same path.
your eyes found so much food.
would my eyes find more details of the cracks and stones,
the patterns of water and textures of stains,
the quality of echos against the shade?

your eyes in your head on your body
my eyes in my head on my body

we meet
in these gifts of such
sharing



by jerry gordon
4.12.2011

Exchanging Belongings

Yangjah and I played last night in front of the moon and Docomo building, thinking of Meri and all others with us in this world right now.

When we finished, a German man came out of the dark and told us his experience of being on the 30th floor of a Tokyo office building during the quake. His voice and eyes only hinted at the moments he witnessed. Speaking to strangers about experiences he can barely fathom he had. Telling of his need to smile and be reassuring to other people near his desk while at the same time he watched the ground rippling beyond his window and thought he would soon die in that building.

We meet and exchange belongings, leaving lighter and heavier in our movements.


3.20.11