8 Poems from Dear Body:

LETTER IN WHICH IT IS EXPLAINED

Hello again my little word, the smallest explanation.

Bird that took over our apartment.

We were always speaking so small it snowed
I thought or the occult of
having each of us in this place.

Stop.

This was supposed to be a simple meeting
of two souls. This was supposed to be
a simple meeting of two souls.

This doubling I exposed you to

under the blue starlight and you explained “please, no more memories.” So
you withheld the comma from your extreme punctuation; it became

“so you will benefit.” We took a walk in the moonlight and were friends then
before our careers. Stop. The letter where we explain. Stop.

DEAREST BODY:

I am not falling backwards

Some pre-solid self
rejecting this commerce
of the world —

Whether living alone
or living with another human —

Some primitive and infantile
force —

At least outwardly

POSTSCRIPT TO PREVIOUS LETTER

Are you the instrumental one, the missing
twin, the one I lost and crave,
the beguiler — the fix?

Are you here simply —
for nothing other than to be
sunk into, discovered, lullabied, lamented —
united with, differentiated from?

Are you illusion, confusion, mis-
step, dream
mathematical equation
or poorly-worded conclusion?

LETTER OF FAITH

My body, my body, I do not seek to separate my head
from my heart, sweat from speech but to reprimand any who would
attempt such folly. Who could shun thee, when you allow your hand to
write out these arguments to justify the existence of even
flawed things entering into the universe? Is it justifiable to negate you
because this same hand has been used to draft sinful denials?
So are these poems sinful in their own way. Is it
because they are born of some unhealthy alliance between
body and mind? Is it sufficient that the body at times
can be thought to overwrite the purity of consciousness?

LETTER WRITTEN ON THE 27TH OF OCTOBER, HARVEST
MOON, NEARLY PERFECT SKY AFTER HAVING RAINED, THE
RADIO LEFT ON

And it was never resolved, the hierarchy, the light, secret
data points, windows without curtains.

Codes that kiss your symmetry, a monotony of instinct.
Understanding how you came to this place

and how you’d leave it.
As a dream you took along whose words were playthings

swept the room in lovely waters.
A personal one whose hesitation was exhausted.

RE:

Around his thought, or a liquid
caress, something altogether contradictory.

Drunk and singing and laughing:
“I always drew the blinds

of my neighbors into late Modernist shadow.”
Before she left, he would pretend she was not

his mistress — they are in a field
coloring in a fairy-tale house

and smoke opium like ephemeral buildings
necessitate their bed stays wide and low:

“It’s over now” — with great feelings and violence of intention.
One felt deep down it made you cry

“how beautiful I am,” as if caught between
a grotesque body and a deepening love.

OPUS INCERTUM

I often swept into saying.
Wept over the unsaid sayings.
Slept in the loft of an
unknown artist.
I was hurt.
I was unhurt.
I sang into the wind.
There was no wind.
Whatever pain finally
became my anger.
Whatever anger
finally became my pain.
No longer material.
Metaphoric Rock.

LETTER READ WALKING HOME

You type it out — to read it — now go home — the light
is on — this predicates an almost

Documentary-like observation — the gray shifts — you are
looking at the sea again —

Suppose a text you wrote the very color of your skin became so laden
with the absolute it spun and wrapped you variably in its ethereal
nurturing

Dear Body:

At the end of a string, how eyes discern
but never blend, making of an instinct. Ice
spread over snow.

Man is a this if
This if a is man
A is if this man

I have forged ahead this nothing rhythm. Filmed your
talk of winter or sex.

Rocks picked out of sand examined.

Water but none seemed as clear as

“I met my mind,” you said
to which I replied “was that what you meant?”

Dan Machlin was born and raised in New York City. Previous works include several chapbooks: 6x7 (Ugly Duckling Presse), This Side Facing You (Heart Hammer Press), and In Rem (@ Press), as well as Above Islands (Immanent Audio), an audio CD collaboration with singer/cellist Serena Jost. His poems and reviews have appeared in The Poetry Project Newsletter, Talisman, Antennae, Crayon, Soft Targets, Boog Literature and The Brooklyn Rail. Dan is the founding editor and publisher of Futurepoem books, a former contributing editor of The Transcendental Friend and a former curator of The Segue Series at Bowery Poetry Club in NYC. Dear Body: is his first book-length collection of poems. You can visit his author page at UDP at uglyducklingpresse.org/page-dearbody.html.