R E C O V E R E D M E M O R Y

 

selections from my fragmented narrative artist book

created at the school of the art institute of chicago

guided by the brilliant minds of heidi mckye & liz medoff

documented by the kickass stephanie gomez

images of the full 30 page book available upon request

all you do is self-observe.

manhood

this is me playing fast and loose with pentameter and taking my hat off to harmony korine.

manhood
(for chris)
brock robinson

concrete is not a gracious bedfellow
but try telling that to your father who
would wash the world of cowardice if you
found him a hose that could stretch far enough,
blood’s no company for commiseration
not that a boy raised on cold blonde voices
shuttled through a phone line would have any place
for such a fragile thing as empathy.

does your chest still know the difference between
plastic and bone? if you won a battle
would you even know? what is victory,
besides forcing your legs to again stand
like a pair of weatherbeaten traitors?
and is that worth the foot full of glass and
the smile from a man who can only
love you through a bottle of cough syrup?

this is all the vitality the world
has left us. it’s just a simple dance. what
could be so irreparable to you? you
who have smoked your way through twenty years of
injuries, never once asked about the
baby clothes, the pictures of her that he
stuffed between bible pages, you who is sweat,
is broken teeth, but is still not yet a man.

ancestry

ancestry

brock robinson

my great-grandfather had feet made of a fire

so hot that he torched a path clear across the

soul of oconee county south carolina and

did not stop until he’d scorched the desires

of every blushing belle this side of the mason-

dixon line. my great-grandfather had a smile

that was enough to make you believe mankind

was crafted in god’s own image and when he

made his way into a church and let the old

amazing grace fall from those honeyed lips

he made the devil himself fall to his knees

and seek salvation.

doubt this as much as you please but there are

nights when the moon is so swollen that you’d

fear she’s going to drop like a stone out of the

sky and I pick up my heavy earthen feet and try

and spark the same magic that caused even the

most pious church-going shrew to crumple at

Alfred Baines Robinson’s feet. my mother

watches me from behind the safety of her green

glass bottle and lets the tears prick her eyes - i

swear to god you are that man reborn - this she

confides to the pillow - what he would’ve said

were he here to see this.

do you wonder why when you tell

me how I have my mother’s soft hands

how I have the bold arabian nose of my

father i in turn tell you how very little this nose

and hand feels like it is part of a grand road-

map of ancestry? how little resemblance

has done to make me feel like I belong?

rather it is in those stolen moments when I

can taste the serpentine tongue of my great-

grandfather in my mouth it’s the heat that

swelters under my collar that pushes me

to tell you this story with my hips under the

crying moonlight it is then that I know that I

indeed have history pumping through my

veins.