HIERARCHIES

CHASE BERGGRUN

with lines from Rilke’s First Duino Elegy

~

who
if I cried ~ even if

my tongue
twinned
my

mild disenchantress

my dreams
cold water splashed
with lemon ~

the way the air feels
sweet after suffocation

~

I

needed
& need had me
by the unclean
throat
whom could we ever turn to in our need

everything relying on

the simplest ~

kiss

the simplest

~

a spring flower floated
through memory

to my hand ~ to my silver vase

painted white ~ through memory

an early flower ~ the simplest

the beginning of terror

meaningless ~
under April’s morning smile

~

perhaps there remains
another

aching pleasure another

stripped down daze
a circling buzzard
seeming somewhat similar ~ another

who would come to me

the hardest part being

I hold myself back

~

oh and night ~ oh yes

it follows
like an untrained lover

lapping at
affected grace ~ I ask

full of infinite space

did you see my tongue split
sharp like sugarcane

the simplest ~

uncompromising

like the way I love
but a little less obvious ~

~

like a worm through snow
the way I move ~ I
moved in and never left

trapped within
the hermeticity of the city ~

where I live now ~ the simplest
springtime of my commute
settled square & center ribcage ~

standing clear of the closing

~

is the legend meaningless
meaningless ~

exhausted ~ & vestigial
uncomfortable but resigned

the simplest ~

exotic ~
floating away in every direction

~

and so I hold myself back and swallow
& so

like ~ the space between magnets
I blossom
in half ~

like this ~ I am
a language of gears
flush
matched
mated

like this ~
a distant organism
undressed by anguish ~ I

fling the emptiness out

~

don’t you know yet?
how hard I have been trying ~
a modest

molecule of myself ~
still just able to endure

don’t ask me please
I am tired of rubbing

this dry acre of skin ~
the simplest sky

hangs low
& waits in
an empty alley ~

as if I owe it money

~

my loose mouth
open ~ swallowing fog
inevitable ~ that wind
distracted by expectation

the simplest ~ unbearably
meaningless

being dead is hard work
& I’m performing poorly

~

the solitary heart so painfully meets

another
sometimes somewhat similar ~ so painfully
& still ~

approaching something gentle ~
the simplest

& still ~ still
in our interpreted world

we play at kindness
meaningless ~ alone

the simplest
serpentine tongue
relying on ~

a second ~

the simplest ~ kiss