Liam Burns

(poetry notebook)

[liamcburns-blog]

source sink transfer

There is always a source

a mode of energy transfer

there is always a target

the dry yellow man intoned

as he chalked

upon a greenish blackboard. 

  That four-hundred person physics class. 

Maybe it was a target of me,

my fresh slouching body

in that cold creepy auditorium.

I was only beginning; firm like fruit

belief that I had four-hundred targets

to send energy towards, not dreaming,

(quite like a physicist in that)

I was there to receive.  402.

[liamcburns-blog]

Staying In to Read Lolita

I had a dream that the world was covered in colosseums

We must eat these colosseums! It is our right and quo!

shouted the people from the gray mountain-tops.

I hid from their big gray teeth in the library, where a broad-chested boy

was reading by the gold streaming sun like an angel

What are you reading? I asked, looking up at his massive face

and its corona of sunlight that could never be eaten

Lolita, said the angelic boy.  Maybe you will be able to someday.

I left the library to find Lolita because beautiful boys

stared at her like she was an angel.  Meanwhile, the whole world was being eaten by fat

fat fat fat people.  Stop! I yelled.  You will ruin my Lolita with your quo and your

extra assumed rights with ketchup! I looked up at the balcony,

Sisyphus was watching me intently, like he wanted to remove all of my clothes

eyes boring into my bare shining back.  I couldnt tell much or see where he was

the stagelights were too bright white and my eyes puffed shut,

I dreamed I was allergic to stage makeup.

I walked around the world  looking for wahing water and Lolita, grinding through the steps

like I did so many times for the beautiful blonde girl, so Matt could escape with her friend.

I drove her home, her hair was a real mess from dancing but she tried to fix it while she drove

around around the the little spinning world that was still being eaten by giant gray robots wildly

and in a pretend still place I found a freshly printed copy of Lolita in the lamplight

I fell away from the blonde girl’s bedside, she called me from her door. 

Lolita is blank! I shouted to her All white pages!

and the walls and floors all disappeared from the maze, bending out into the dark

To stop crying she ate the Eiffel Tower, blowing her nose on Downy Extra Soft Tissues because they soaked up emotion like they mopped up what was left of the earth.

Lolita was blank, all white pages, and at the end of the semester I fell into that whiteness

I cant stand dark bedrooms, I cant stand yellow lamps.

In my dream, I ran back to the library and fucked an angel.

[liamcburns-blog]

A Moment of Blossoming Peace

I hold his shoulders again.

He rests a cut elbow on my mantel a carefully pressed rolled-up sleeve, and pouring from it a dark ugly, a scab pouring from underneath it onto my mantel. 

I hold his shoulders carefully after the man who shook them. We talk about history many evenings in my living room.

He comes and goes, as do I We talk about stocks many evenings in my living room.

The well-starched man stops resting his elbow on my mantel I don’t hold shoulders anymore, carefully although my hands have since found themselves in well-pressed pinstripe pockets.

Men with pens say new scars are raw pink But I see pale purple

a lilac uncurling over the elbow that no longer rests on my mantel.