- Coco Owen
- Cleaved
Thought-possessed—a headmistress—, I dismissed
body as inert e art h, & body receded, in a monumental,
Continental d rift. My body-body & body of th ought
cleaved where tectonic vertebrae once scre wed me
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— to get her. —
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Be cause: my parents inserted God’s Word where bawdy
feelings would have been: trans muted flesh became Word.
The neck’s juncture was a g aping, synaptic cleft of im pulse,
intention & desire neuro transmissions. At tempting to
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— b reach —
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the shorted circuits, I was be reft: having no body
reflexes or parasympathy. This was a riff rift
r ending w hole ness into f rag mental shard.
Ram Dass said, Be here now. I said, Where’s here?
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— Th oughts —
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wreathed & reamed me. I thought a lot a bout them
while so self-div id ed. I felt a b oddity. If sin
entered when Eve bit the fruit, God is at fault for giving
wo men any appetite to war d a Fall. But they would
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— be reft, —
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minds beholding phantom he arts, limbs & clits,
trying to re verse their lost integrity with a parody
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— body-of-th ought —
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- Coco Owen
- X O X O
Cerebral c or tex r uns the bi nary c ode ma king
my hu man he art s peak in Xs and Os.
No t in ones and n aughts, no t
that either/or g am e w her ein p irate s
s laughter each ot her; w he rein X means
treasure and O offers per man ent surprise.
I h id my Génie
in a Christ mas Carol, t he n mad e
more son g of my self,
ad opt ing the nickn am e Coco. It
was given to me by a lad y poet w ho left me.
N ow Coco us es a back channel (a b lack Chanel)
to pull of f an alpha bet k is ses and h ugs—
w her e X equals C,
and it’s an O for an O.
- Coco Owen
- Netted
All the strings {nets-skeins-neurons-laces-yarns}
I hold on to are fasteners {rivets-brads-brackets}
embedded in me & strung {hanging-glowing-buzzing}
everywhere, making me wonder if
it’s a disease {neurosis psychosis hallucination}
to feel this fenced in {detained-enclosed-secluded}.
Worse, am I tied {handcuffed-wired} to
a short fuse? A dynamite proprioception!
Picture innards {muscles-tendons-ligaments},
then more and more and more guy wires
as thin disguise {fishnet-slips-veils}.
I’m stranded with this hair-line fractured anatomy:
a structure too delicate for words, crystalline
as complex molecules. Worse, I’m clasping
at tendrils: the lattice {ribbing-skeletal-scaffolding}
structuring me. Indra’s net fishes me up with cat-gut
harp {piano-guitar-violin} strings. It’s a branching
joinery {filigree-filaments} traducing the sensations
I mine for information {entrainment-entertainment}.
My form of thought follows these tangles of
ganglia {trellises-traceries} stringing me up & along.