March 19-25, 2001: Shannah Hogsett and Jak King

Eleutheria That summer was grand and lazy, laying on the lawn- swatting at the mosquitoes we swore could smell our young blood They were hungry, and so were we Soft skin was tight and numb, drunk from wine and laughter- pretending not to feel the eyes that stole glances of shorts and arms and the hint of a curve Nag Champa curled into noses, traveled up to the brain and spread like warm honey-sweet and hard to get off the fingers Night glow of white teeth and brown skin dazzled under a July moon and attracted them like moths So they sang, To acoustic and drum “One was dark, one was light, one was trapped in twilight “ Girth and Splendor A rounded hip gives under your firm touch Milk and flesh are what hungry hands reach for When we lay like this And you whisper into my ear For one moment I am perfect and tight and lean Contracted muscles humming with electricity Fueling bodies in the blue glow of the alarm clock Reflection In the shocking truth of bathroom light I see myself Not alone I carry the years upon my face Only twenty-six, but the years are there Perhaps the line between carefully tweezed brows came to stay during those awful two years that I lived with a scowl , while I lived with him My ears full of holes from my wild days Two lines Smile lines they say And the chicken pox scars from childhood in the corner of each eye I am not alone I carry the years from head to toe

Jak King
jakking@home.com

Bio (auto)

My name is Jak King and I live in Vancouver, British Columbia A cockney by birth, I now speak west coast American fluently I have always written and have had several poems and essays published over the years I have also published two chapbooks of my poetry, and performed my works in bars of loud repute Between bursts of poetry, I am currently writing the great British-Canadian-Chinese novel.

The following work is Copyright © 2001, and owned by Jak King and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsover without written permission from the author.

Visions of Cendrars’ “profonde aujourd’hui” in A Photograph of Soldiers At The Front, 1915 You were young men in the Guards treading water in wretched trenches swinging kitbags and rifles and broad silly grins so young that two billion volumes single-spaced wouldn’t be enough to list all of life’s treasures you haven’t experienced yet and still you would die right then right there doing right or so you thought as you lay where no-one could tell where mud ended and blood began three and four generations removed, we lay wreathes for your wraiths on a hollow day in November while the parades and the poppies hallucinate an annual landscape of memory profound today, gone tomorrow and for a week or more the flowers fade and the greenery browns at your memorials and then the work crews come young men and women with guarded futures treading water at minimum wage swinging brooms and shovels and black plastic bags and when the work trucks leave your memory has turned once again to cold undecorated stone and nothing can ever change the fact that you died before you started living. Landscape Beloved lady, sprawled naked across our cot, Arms akimbo, legs athwart soft pillows, Calls me with signs Like some hailed cab Circling for a U-turn, I search eagerly for the approach; But no opening lines Need separate our desires Her breasts are Stepping stones to the dark beneath; Nipples taut as tines, Or lighthouses on the distant shores of isles Discovered in the tumbling seas of passion Our legs entangle, vines That grasp and clasp my hawthorn root as it Dwells and swells within the quicksand of her sex, Deeper than mines Of gold and silver And no pithead whistles Match the banshee wails that celebrate our Coming in times Uncounted And the finish brings no endings Or sorrows or regrets as we lie together, fragrant Beneath the pines. Jimi Hendrix and Me Jim Hendrix was born in Seattle and died in London choking on his own vomit I was born in London and almost chocked to death in Seattle on a fishbone at Pike’s Place Market Whole books have been written about Jimi while I was reduced to a 3×5 card at Seattle General Hospital Excuse me while I touch my fly and check that I can still sleep with good looking women and Jimi can’t All in all I’d rather be me now.