I am singing now while Rome
burns.

Richard Siken

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There’s smashed glass glittering everywhere like stars. It’s a Western,
Henry. It’s a downright shoot-em-up. We’ve made a graveyard
out of the bone white afternoon.
It’s another wrong-man-dies scenario, and we keep doing it Henry,
keep saying until we get it right … but we always win and we never quit.
See, we’ve won again,
here we are at the place where I get to beg for it, where I get to say Please,
for just one night, will you lie down next to me, we can leave our clothes on,
we can stay all buttoned up …
But we both know how it goes—I say I want you inside me and you hold
my head underwater. I say I want you inside me and you split me open
with a knife.

Richard Siken

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Moonlight making crosses
on your body, and me putting my mouth on every one.

Richard Siken

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We have not touched the stars,
nor are we forgiven, which brings us back
to the hero’s shoulders and the gentleness that comes,
not from the absence of violence, but despite
the abundance of it.

Richard Siken

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Here I am in a rabbit run, here I am in a valley of pine, waiting for you to find me. I could pretend I’m speaking to everyone—assume a middle distance and transcend myself—but I’m taking to you and you know it.

Richard Siken

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Is that too much to expect? That I would name the stars
for you? That I would take you there? The splash
of my tongue melting you like a sugar cube?

Richard Siken

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We still groped for each other on the backstairs or in parked cars
                                                                                                                                                      as the road around us
grew glossy with ice and our breath softened the view through the glass
                    already laced with frost,
but more frequently I was finding myself sleepless, and he was running out of
                                                                                                                                                                          lullabies.
But damn if there isn’t anything sexier
                                                            than a slender boy with a handgun,
                                                                                                                                  a fast car, a bottle of pills.

Richard Siken

Mots clés siken

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I woke up in the morning and I didn’t want anything, didn’t do anything, couldn’t do it anyway, just lay there listening to the blood rush
through me and it never made any sense, anything.

Richard Siken

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I had a dream about you. We were in the gold room
where everyone finally gets what they want.
You said Tell me about your books, your visions made
of flesh and light and I said This is the Moon. This is
the Sun. Let me name the stars for you. Let me take you
there. The splash of my tongue melting you like a sugar
cube…We were in the gold room where everyone
finally gets what they want, so I said What do you
want, sweetheart? and you said Kiss me. Here I am
leaving you clues. I am singing now while Rome
burns. We are all just trying to be holy. My applejack,
my silent night, just mash your lips against me.
We are all going forward. None of us are going back.

Richard Siken

Mots clés snow-and-dirty-rain

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He could build a city. Has a certain capacity. There’s a niche in his chest
where a heart would fit perfectly
and he thinks if he could just maneuver one into place –
well then, game over.

Richard Siken

Mots clés poetry richard-siken

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