I Stood On My Name In The Valley Poem by John Courtney

The cattle in storm, boulevards of unconscious light,
everyone hides in my room in my head. I stood on my name
in the valley, loved life like an open dress, the good
nights bled upside-down, bat-like on stadium light.

Several hundred trees watched, the darkened voice of time,
a cold gift of pocket watch, I held on With one hand, both eyes
saw this gold-plated guillotine take him away, his words burned
my name, the sound of our earth piling at the door with hot knob.

The dead leave long-winded messages on the answer machine, a
nearby whistle much like the shameless kiss of a priest. I have
touched every base and rosary bead, felt the motherless smile of
the farm's prized pig, the violence of weight beaten into trophy.

And rejection, the lawless motion of thieving poets, my heroes
toothless, content to smirk on shelves, the lovesick chastisement
of crackling fire, I miss them dearly and crawl on broken heart
through the super market to lick at the paw of a bleeding egg.

These bears often follow when I pray, smelling the cotton candy
jail of my stinking blood, but I am heartsick in the strength
of nests and long to die alone. The sun must never see the moon,
and to that I demand the human sky be torn apart, pain enslaved.

I bounce on my mother's bed in my room in my head, I stand on
my name in the valley, one day forever like a bird at my shadow,
like my word in your mouth, one that we have stolen from shelves
in the ash, from the ears of the sea, from the waves that fall.