N a p a l m H e a l t h S p a : R e p o r t 2 0 1 3 : S p e c i a l E d i t i o n

L o n g P o e m M a s t e r p i e c e s o f t h e P o s t b e a t s

CHRIS FUNKHOUSER

Photo of Chris Funkhouser by Amy Hufnagel.

Here

for Charlottesville, Virginia

It’s so strange to find myself in this place with

wet sneakers & guitars clashing in the nighttime

a prestigious university with no right to be here other than

I’ve got muscles & know some influential people

their hands on

cheeks apocalyptic sunset eyes bulging ping-pong ball polka

dotted pupils & mouths singing a chorus that no one can hear

because they have no voice not allowed to read in public not

willing to create something in this one dimension how is it

that I got here anyway

with a bookshelf of old rags & tattered

covers & other people’s words how comforting you are how expansive

you are how expensive you are how I am just starting to pay you

back

mountain star fluorescent you light up the southern sky

how lucky to have been led to you by a distant force when will

I see you again when will I have reason to see you again this

doesn't happen every day how you dance like the sun can

on the wall

what is it we see in our reflection as each day passes hair

falling out teeth staining yellow face unshaven steam by shower

water no spectacles perfect vision never changing always

changing

highway where do you lead we know where we’re going where

you’re taking us but how long how many miles gallons of gas quarts

of oil burned out headlights blue & red flashing lights in rear

view mirror crumpled cars the other side of the road

inhabitants

who are ye so odd in a land of Jefferson mountaintops marble &

trees imported from Italy what is the science & philosophy for

the intelligent the eccentric of today’s youth how much money we

must make in this empire how much can we consume

how we are

flattered on our walls in wallets in magazines for money scrap

books for memories or ghosts we all have so many & ever lasting

do you take away from our experience walking walking down the

street first thing in the morning without makeup we are so

concerned

praise be we are fixed

some die to prove a point

are we all victims we are all victims why don’t we learn from

pictures O how we learn from pictures on the wall amongst the

living in black & white or in color they once were but now no

longer

so sit back & watch & listen & don’t feel how can you

relate to mythic dreams there are none listen to the radio

watch the television phonecalls long distance pick up a book &

read it this is something you can’t get on video this is your

life on Earth this is no one else’s this is your brain this is

my mind these are my wet footed words I am shaking

once told I

was “a beautiful person” it was the most amazing thing catholic

school so she’d never have an abortion & we’d be married now

if she’d been pregnant with me O now but she left me O to go

west she left me O woman you left me the place I see you is

dreams it’s just not enough

& does this even matter to anyone

who reads it

my black covered mundane phrases it’s just a phase

notebooks of nothing journal servants seventh one now sixteen

months what do you think of your pages are they open for everyone

am I a sandwich why do your bindings break why such weakness

& a

bird chirped once in a bare December tree & I wondered if I’d

lose my brain & body as I shivered in that cemetery like I am

tonight &

it’s impossible to write without music unless I’m outside

like a friend under sound of the sky infinite hum of the world

big engine night roaring day I need to be sung to to hear through

wires your aim at my sky I want great rockets to fire at me &

never stop

Saint John I’m sorry I ever called you that I’m sorry

I don’t know what I’m doing with this life you didn’t want me

to be a doctor you told me that already father thank god you sent

me away

but the mail is good to me lately with a Michigan

connection friends writing to each other so frequently we’ve got

something here we are young twenty two cents no hell through

winter postmarks postcards junk mail what’s the difference the

mailbox exists how different things would be

how sick I am

of every clichéd phrase the poets have made up about high &

low & I don’t know if I can do any better anyway I don’t wanna

try anyway just wanna use my body just want someone to use

my body I just wanna kiss sometimes can this be possible now

if our

beds could talk what stories they could tell if I sell mine how

will it affect another’s dreams five years of piss stained paint

splattered dreams it’s ripped & lumpy sometimes no cover letting

it all hang out all are equally loved in this life

this not

at all possible without you Mr Jefferson I love to visit you

electricity Mr Einstein Mr Einstein I can’t believe I didn’t

stay with you one night in a dream I have not been neglecting

my math Mr Whitman yeah Whitman which way should I go just so

you know this is so so relative electric genetric forces voices

through walls & windows & air now no water now no water it’s

shocking

speaking of bedtime what do you mean is it true what

they say in the books I don’t buy it O take synchronicity O

take mimesis O this is what it is what I understand haunted

by torn muscles not being able to leave the ground or the grounds

but happy once because on the end of a star once peaking once I

could see how things were faraway. . .

To listen to "Here," click on the play button in the audio control bar above.

[“Here” was originally published as a broadside by BigFireProofBox, 1987. Reprinted by permission of the author.]

Chris Funkhouser, a 1980s Naropa Summer Writing Program veteran, is now Associate Professor and Director of the Communication and Media program in the Department of Humanities at New Jersey Institute of Technology. He is author of Prehistoric Digital Poetry: An Archeology of Forms, 1959-1995 (2007), New Directions in Digital Poetry (2012), the chapbooks pressAgain (Free Dogma, 2013), Electro Þerdix (Least Weasel, 2011), LambdaMOO_Sessions (Writer’s Forum, 2006), and an e-book (CD-ROM), Selections 2.0, published by the Faculty of Creative Multimedia at Multimedia University (Malaysia), where he was a Visiting Fulbright Scholar in 2006. See http://web.njit.edu/~funkhous for more information.