from Helsinki by Peter Richards

+++

He wore a tight aqua t-shirt which signifies

to me at least the end of June actually

the whole of March bears out in a reasonable

way my recollections of a well-known cellist

still playing at home her mat was made of horsehair

her mat was made of green horse feathers

and much to her disgust I sometimes wore

my uniform and sometimes I bit her seneca lobe

which has every appearance of being modern

and contrite but contains the initial error

I sometimes see behind Mohammedan curtains

or the magazine said to contain 70 of the world’s

most beautiful men they seem timid at first

but just start in with a little Portuguese and you

will soon find no man is a better authority than

any other man any divinity as the low end estimate

of a number some arbiters regard as a trick for it does

not record the fact nor contain action requiring

thought in clear view my recent attempt was like

my first in that I neither consulted the highest

nor was I ever truly released from Helsinki

+++

I do remember as a small boy being brushed

by a black man in the courtyard feeling the small

of my back lightly brushed so that it sank deep

into my imagination and partly the initial deathblow

Helsinki prepared for my boyhood drawing an invisible

orange line at the base of my skull leading to this villa

my parents shared between them each room holding

a portrait of one of my parts and one room wrongly

represents the cyst in my knee another captures my chin

before it was mended a third stretches to the evil side

of the room where this tear sits hard and white and so

I think it must be cold so cold the cold outnumbers ice

from when the ice was young no tear has taken its place

so it must live beyond the great doors of winter and sing

as many flesh and blood songs as a frozen tear can sing

+++

Providing these consultations

remain unsaid if he kissed me

he kissed me in fugitive droves

and disappearing were the soldiers

surrounding us both except they

were ably and frank and as soon

as undone he refused to do other

man bidding knowing our night

made for that negative evidence

compared to his eyes lesser black

was the lozenge shouting disinterest

in the ship in its spatial authority

some other being must have left

open and in places wantonly split

+++

My tube was never removed so this painting depicts

the continuation of sound passing through one boundary

wall to the next on and out into space where I still have

a more or less decent view of the villa though it looks small

and perversely flat and pink like a tile or patch of laminated

foil on the head of a rat still it seems fairly represented and I 

can still make out a little bit of me huffing in the wrongly placed

foreground where there is no eyewitness save for the disordered

fellow himself I suspect to be overwritten and miserably white

inside his chamber even the spirit of the hour won’t convulse

in his bed fatalist to excess he uses small bodies and forgetfulness

+++

I myself forget how my death was privately tended

it lasted about three minutes I awoke in a villa

to the sensation gently brushing my back I could see

his face looking down at me through masses of hair

then we started quarreling I don’t know something

malpractice or shirts until gradually I was no longer free

or prevented from seeing his face the locus for innumerable

variants elders volume rug pouting muscatels

I mean the variants were everywhere and they went on

forever even my first step was drawn from his face

but that I myself was rumor and whether or not we actually

went together I leave for you to decide because I don’t really

want to talk about that anymore not here anyways

where I can honestly say I know what it feels like to be

roasted forever on green spits in a cool halted valley

of repeating presence where no weather is the kingdom itself

(from his book Helsinki, Action Books, 2011)

from Helsinki by Peter Richards

+++

In time I came to see death was the hay

binding one soldier to another and my own

death would appear partially lit as during

a nighttime operation the moon barely attends

whereas I with new density carry on as before 

again I go razing Tanagra so plainly familiar

to me that it does sit upon my own reflection

and all about me on deck where my double

does well so the spoils and I can finally make

it just this or that way for a while never mind

the snipers the charges and this loose cloud

of animal gadgetry eating air and chrome alike

until absent any ship garrison or wish to remain

we set out with our lancets on idle command

+++

When we came upon this large orange hide

staked to the ground by three orange feathers

I knew one of our boys lay headless beneath it

but from the air who could tell he was one

of my own or that I would come to remember

his face what restraint he brought to my tent

at night his anxiety that seemed to smile upon

me same way a white dot begins to ripen inside

this one mountain of Nice a face of sad orange

decorative stone where I lay surviving the prattle

but losing the kiss until finally I gave his name

to the mountain the campaign all night the full

story how for sixteen hours I hung from the beams

of the parliament ceiling and while the jeering

population looked on I could hear in the blackout

the plan for one day holding their lives in my hand

+++

Possibly a human face grows intensely black

when excited for I was carried inside a blackened

little ship of playing fields and hives involving

practical guides to civilization in the white dot’s

presence I felt this ongoing chance to be neglected

I was being photographed by a flag of especially

crying six-thousand men each one having deserted

the patriotic part of a lion for now on they study

my life as a papal state and consider it my duty

to maintain a forcibly shaved militia between two

families there’s a ball we can touch together during

the party one of the oarsmen rolled me a cigarette

when he stood up I could see his waist was enchanted

+++

For gulls sitting a score at a time

my mouth carried a broad arcade

and so rich was the slaughter

afterwards nothing could imagine

my body a late plentiful number

saying would that I was your true

cause to love your rose so deep

was the torchlight in consultation

with itself that dawn was that

twice tied odious trumpet

my tent did fetch itself a city

and to his mood I let out the gulls

thinking it unnatural as his mouth

sought out my fingers in the metals

ribbons and bright hooks I undid

+++

Or if the large body of a boatswain

had come to my assistance but I was

shot down and plied with a spade

or that I go to a hospital to see how

a body might suffer in life I suffered

very little I had no idea how terrible

a body could be mostly what I recall

is taking great pleasure being your hand

especially your hand which is the mean

flower of Italian youth day and night

I follow you like a mound of falconry

that cannot follow or stand being

regarded until passing a solitary farm

house I burst a mild burst and flew out

over the mound filling your hair

with backbreaking nearness it was

impossible to be held for 200 times

and when the boatswain’s large body

wept ceaselessly into my body I felt

afterwards faithfully observed and never

to be abandoned by gods or the 300

north’s where I can stretch out my body

and enjoy equally assailants and combs

(from his book Helsinki, Action Books, 2011)

HELSINKI: part erotic, part nuclear, entirely mutagenic, dangerously Sublime. HELSINKI: a fort, a hospital bed, an escape pod, the mind, and memory itself. "[A] word chain peppered with strange, colorful ciphers"—Boston Review.