#alexander long

[killyridols]

hbd by alexander long, 2024, acrylic & inkjet on board, 8 x 9 x 4 inches

[blistexenthusiast]

Black and Green Candelabra Cake, Alexander Long

[blistexenthusiast]

Clock Cake, Alexander Long

[blistexenthusiast]

Solstice, Alexander Long

[mercymaker]

deadindunwall, i'm not even sorry

not ever

[mercymaker]

Welcome to Freaktown. [x]

[bonfiresfornobody]

As if these words could alter wind's lucid course And make the trees wave hello again; As if the wind had something new to bless, Confess; that, finally, today's losses were palpable, explicable Even; as if there were a reason for this self-pity To descend again like shade From the maples and lilacs and palms, The sweet peach and lacquered locust, Those cherries, chestnuts, and oranges .... It has to be All of them, all of them lining those streets whose names I loved: Calle de la Bonanova, Rue Descartes, Aldstadter Ring, And further still, Coates and Sharon, which aren't In Barcelona, Paris, or Prague, but from Sharon Hill, from childhood, Places that don't exist anymore. As if childhood were some tourist destination to visit Off season, walking those sun-stroked sidewalks, Sipping wine in the street-side cafés, saying hello to those I'll never know in a tongue I used to know. As if anyone's history were myth, and that myth an unconditional love For loss. As if sorry didn't exist, Any need for sorry. If only childhood would tell the wind where to go, If only it had a home. If only this poem could hold childhood in its hands— All gnarl-knuckled, chapped, blood-cracked—long enough To say goodbye, to the bartender in Prague Who was from Brooklyn, who talked with me awhile About what home can't mean to him anymore, who got lost Hiking in the Alpines and "ended up in here somehow, never left.... " As if childhood's a place never left and never found, never Said goodbye to; As if that mattered now, as if there were time enough To say goodbye to childhood With all the slowness loss demands; As if loss and childhood were distinct. As if there were someone to talk with, walk and smoke with. Besides, after awhile, we'd feel a need to sleep, This me and that you I once was, Our skin chilled a little, turning to gooseflesh a little, swept By an August breeze weaving its way through the trees. It doesn't matter, though, does it? You've already begun to name the trees for yourself. But feel that? The trees are waving, too. I'd like to teach you the names of these trees, to confess How much I need to miss you to finish this off.

'Goodbye in Slow Motion with Those Trees Waving Back' by Alexander Long

[hypocrite-lecteur]

"Maybe it's worth it: no one dies More alone, more slowly than the suicide.

They have become their desire, their own admirers, they are no longer Cliches of our own grief and narcissism.

But why does this poem feel otherwise, why have I placed my friend B. Inside a still life, the moment before

He looks up at St. Joseph's statue, spits, and kisses

The pistol? No desire, maybe, though this moment has snow Falling, enough to create a quiet so large that even madness

Seems to descend like a gift, or a song. I don't know Much about madness, but B. must have practiced it daily

The way a singer will leap through scales backstage Or in the green room holding a cup of tea.

If B.'s performance was final, his image is not.

That's why I'm here, still.

                                         &     &     &

How selfish the living can be:

At dinner after the funeral, I broke three fingers Breaking someone's jaw who claimed

That B. was a pussy. How blinding

Grief can be, how selfish and necessary To blurt it out between shots of Bushmill's and plates of roasted pork.

B. and all the suicides don't have to deal with us anymore; how Careless of me to lump them all

Together. Dante knew better, but Still got it wrong. What dreams may come

For them are not suffused with rings of fire, But are fleshed out in sleep, gauzy canvases of us grieving,

Then forgetting them.

Wind blows through the high windows of the mansion they stay in.

The white curtains sway like wet swans of the mane of a palomino.

B. leans back, curls into himself, and sips some warm milk.

He pulls the white blanket up."

Alexander Long, "Still Life with Suicide"