Excerpt from Counter Daemons

There are a few computer science ideas that form part of the basis of this poem. Letters such as i,j,k,a,b,c,m,n,x,y and z are commonly used by novice computer programmers as variables, especially as “counter variables,” hence, and for other reasons, the “i.” Counter variables are used by computer programmers to count how many times a program has gone through a processing loop. Loops are a common notion in computer programming, as well as being a variation on a circle, something I use often in my work. Counting, in this case, also obliquely refers to the North American Plains Indian notion of “counting coup,” which values touching an enemy over killing them in the midst of battle. In computer jargon, a “daemon” is a program that works for the operating system, instead of for the user. Some other programming terminology and ideas made their way into this project, though they are usually used in an ambiguous or polysemous way, and do not require the reader to know much about computers. Many of the computer terms in this work are used in the database query language known as SQL, or are used as common word processing terms, or can be found in the relational database language known as 4th Dimension.

[a variable’s light return]

i am the lemon that cuts, and the sound that turns to corn
i free shores for black birds, and gather the crabs on our necks
i revolve with your iron husk at the end of the tunnel
i am a street home for beggars      in the land of the bottomless hood
i explode at your schools
       with a drowning satellite
       as your blossoming pearl
i UNDO every word that you’ve uttered, and give it back tied
       in the lashes
       of your growing
       emergency
       colors
i frame your murders with wood
       in the apple field
       of making the paper hold words
       for the firing squad
in the shiny sphere that breaks

i see you in the trade, in the dust, in the foam
i am silent with spokes, like the unpronounceable names ive forgotten
i am smaller than birth and larger than maggots
i cross the line of your mouth
i am the window that breaks in the summer
i am the switch you turned off with
i rest in the pus of our pillows, in the clear blue skies of our bruises
i put your leg in the fire, ready to go
       through the end again


i put air in your body, smear letters on pages, and foam through flat rooms

i stuff cotton balls in your mouth when you're dead

i drill holes in your palms

i answer your questions with feet

i put an oven in greetings

i disappear in your arms

i put bugs in your rooms and listen

i dig tunnels through nightmares and wear off my hands

i take molecular steps in your cells, my travels are long

i change corners to spiraling shells

i go to the snake fair in threes

i put my face through the oceans

i switch every crime

i lose scents by the trails in the on and off skies

i slide black marks on the walls

i let out your secrets in droves

i free roaches in town

i call all the numbers i learned as the word

i dress in dried flesh