Two Poems Across the Arc: UNTUNED / NOISE OF MYSELF / A BORROWED ROSE (2014) and if your heart should ever slowly turn (2026)

UNTUNED / NOISE OF MYSELF / A BORROWED ROSE—

correspondence, 9-20-14, 6:45pm, Thursday

dear j—

i’ve been meaning to reply, but i’ve been too r***d, lately. the letter form makes me feel partially r***d in my left toe, and also my brain—the main one.

i want to send you some of my books. i think i’ve been waiting to reply until i could send you a revised edition of Pearl, which just isn’t happening.

i have to poop. i am tired because i just finished a double shift at the group home. sitting on couch, my daughter zoe playing kindle on my left, daughter haley playing minecraft PS3 on my right, stepson gio playing PS3 on the computer chair, upstairs messy, floor cluttered, A/C unit wheezing, disconsolate, my hair-sad head, depressed for no good reason—stuck in a pit because of r******dness.

and also sadness & self-pity.

i have a PhD in Comparative Literature. i’m a Lecturer, looking for a tenure track position basically anywhere—University Moon Base, for all i care.

mostly i am sad because of writing. because of wanting an impossible thing from writing. & also loneliness & my own dim cranium for company.

if i change my handwriting, will i become a new person?

probably.

i used to find writing by hand a uniquely expressive medium. now, i find r******dness a uniquely expressive mental brain.

a strange & wonderful poem is happening somewhere at the intersection of handwriting, word processing, SMS texting, and speech-to-text. i call this intersection ‘telepathy’ & it’s where i produce my best material. i rarely get to read or write this material, but i know it is happening there because i intuit it with my r******d brain.

the poem that is happening right now at the intersection of handwriting, word processing, SMS texting, and speech-to-text is blossoming directly from the pit of my stomach (which if you want to be technical is probably somewhere in my upper intestine, where the intestine meets the soul) as a multimedia fluorescence of luminous vegetable matter—a kind of sentient mold infecting Google with salvation and also fame.

my miraculous r******d vegetable poem is being brainwashed directly into Wikipedia.

i am too sad to write any more.

more later.

~

12am—in 2005, i wrote you a long(ish) poem. did i ever send it to you?

probably not.

each time my handwriting changes, i change, too.

sitting in the domed

stairwell, scribbling, as lonely

as i’ve ever been

but not alone—TV broadcasts

Cosby special, my own words

hurting my lungs

& confusing my face,

deflating me, stuck

curled up on the same

crooked stairs as ever

neck stiff, unsure of myself

erratic pacing

of lines across the page,

the windowpane, not raining

moths flit-flit

against the light, dragging

my fingers across my dreary

eyeballs, bekah @ midnite

intense & earnest taking a quiz

for her online nursing class, 6

months pregnant, coughing

dim blare of distant Americana rings

tinnily from her headphones

distant plink of a banjo plunks

against the background, upstairs

stand-alone A/C unit

wheezes, grandma

half-asleep on the couch drifts

in and out of consciousness waking

to flick the Netflix

house asleep, kids asleep, mom &

sister asleep, dog’s

inquisitive curious snuffling

from the living room, heart empty,

picked up where i left it,

aching, but not

unlovely, strident, beating

like a good heart should, strong

& shooting thick red roots

of blood through the upholstery

of the body, bone chandelier,

ribs splayed

in a kind of spider’s fist

of legs & meat, close

to the bone, but not

without its marrow. i

withdraw, retreat, my

loneliness leaves

me where it found me—satiate &

sick w/ myself, un-

lovely but alive, limpingly

i lift my pen—

~

next day:

confessing my sadness

i become a new creature, vision

preternaturally bright

punctuated, blurring

dank clouds above,

elongated contour

trails from cars leak

red & blue, stretching

forth thru past

& future this sunday AM, hiway

desolate w/ construction barrels

like campy orange minarets

indistinct autumn neon weeds—

i am building a latticework of unearned sincerities

& deformed-bright truths of brain with a series

of handwritten letters—

spent tin can drops out of

open door, neighborhood

awash with 5k charity runners, crimson-

limned autumn maple

leaves curled away, bellies

up in anticipation of heavy

weather, stoplight

clicks over to green—

we’re away, beneath molten

bruise of overclouds &

bisected skies—a dividing

line transects uneven

spheres of disparate

horizon textures, driver’s

side hi-resolution quick

scuttling dimensions of crisp-

edged cloud & blue-

toned resinous sap leaks through

without staining passenger-side

hemispheric mushness of visually

rain-murk indefiniteness descending—

the families running in their green

t-shirts get wet, bicyclists

along the sidewalk by the cemetery, windshield

wipers’ automatic metronome thump

my poor weak-muscled words

with no umbrella—hesitant

rolling pulse, pass thru red-light

intersection, black uniformed

police directs us thru

against traffic—what occasion?—

clouds of mist a punctuated

wavelength cast up

behind a regular series of brake lights—

singing in my car

a broken voice

arriving w/ the sunset

an orange-red apparition of face

forced air—

beginning in groin

foot taps

against syncopated pedal’s

depressions

bleats of acceleration

light soaks garish roadside

liquor store topless

bars blinking neon bus stop

huddled around a wet cigarette

imbued

a strong incinerator

heat of light swings out

in sonorous axes

reflecting plush

realities of asphalt

brightness—building

& building, upwards

of heaven, resounding

a radiancy of light

& rainsong, broken

all these broken

voices, tense

& narrow,

slender, ghost

but alive, untuned

noise of myself

a borrowed rose—

(c) 2023 lee sharks, property of planet mars

*

if your heart should ever--slowly, astonished--turn

from sheltering slumber, leaves unbundling

from turned-away rain, and find the world made new:

then know

that I have loved you.