#christopher bursk

[cardamomboy]

anne rice’s interview with the vampire, season 2 episode 4

“your father sunbathing” from ovid at fifteen by christopher bursk

the vampire armand, by anne rice

[normalbrothers]

[thismustbeso]

First Aid at 4 a.m., Christopher Bursk (From ‘Places of Comfort, Places of Justice: Poems’)

[asraeas]

So This Is Who You Are?, Christopher Bursk

[givemearmstopraywith]

Unlike you, God, I can indulge  in the harmless love of a boy and permit my Adam  to be vain and defiant. I can allow a son his few errors,  a boy’s lovely carelessness. 

Christopher Bursk, “After the Operation”

[barenerveendings]

Christopher Bursk

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

(Follies of God)

* * * *

Not for Love or Money. Not on your life.

No, said the cabbie when I asked him to change the station. No, said the waiter when I tried to apologize for spilling the soup. No, said my mother, when I begged her to stop firing her nurses. No, said my daughter, when I told her she’d feel better tomorrow. Not now. Not ever. On no account. Under no circumstances. Oh, n, what would we do without your almost blissfully stubborn negativity, your fervent refusal to look on the bright side, your delight in slamming the door with such emphasis it’ll never be opened again? Doctrinaire. Single-minded. Devoted to your convictions. The nail driven in: Nada. Null. Nicht. Nope. Nah. As if that’s what the mouth was made for: to find fault with as much as it can, to settle for nothing and to relish doing so. Uun-unnh. No siree. Not on your life. Not now. Never.

by Christopher Bursk from The First Inhabitants of Arcadia University of Arkansas Press, 2006 [via 3 Quarks Daily]

[annevervaine]

False Bride by Christopher Bursk

The birch pulls bones out of its long white woman's throat. Spring comes to town like the circus, tents pitched, rigging hoisted, a fanfare of jonquils, a freakshow, flowers sweated like sugar crystals out of a clenched fist, an old woman unhatched still living off her yolk. The princess, that fairytale daughter of her father's dotage, that well-sucked pacifier, an only child, is sent to smooth things over, to be given in marriage, to be dropped in the turnstile like a subway token. Serving women help to pack her jewels, her silver spoons. (You listen. Why are you here? Two weeks ago I lifted you from under a car.) The queen takes a sharp knife, lets three drops of blood fall upon her handkerchief, tucks this in her daughter's bosom. (You want to turn the page.) Surely he would not let her bleed for long, she would long for hime, the prince would smile like a girl, They would tell stories on fathers, how their organs grew bloated and drunk as feudal lords. "Please turn down my sheets, please get down and fetch water in my golden cup, comb the road out of my hair, fan me until I grow drowsy and can dream of swans." The serving girl strips her mistress, makes her promise never to tell. She sends her to tend geese. (You lean against me staring at the silver silhouettes of their naked bodies. You look deep into the crimson darkness of lakes, the bleeding dyes of a fairytale woods. Have you been here before? You gaze at the flicking pages as if watching from a train.) Evening after evening the princess tells her story to the ashes, sifts through cinders for an earring, a brooch, sobs with spellbound self-pity of the high born as if their sorrow could save them and death would grow ashamed of his base intentions, his rough laborer's hands. (All these years I have pretended it matters; being molested is a cheap terror, getting off the train and running; he placed a jeweled knife next to me. "Use it. If you don't trust me, use it." He rubbed his fingers over me as around the smudged rims of waterglasses on counters. The stone subway platforms stretched like unforgivingly dull passages in the Bible, station after station like verses to be learned.) "What doom does such a false bride deserve?" the king asks, having listened to cinders, their small mouths gossiping idle in the flames. The serving maid suspects nothing on her wedding day, replies, "Put her stark naked in a barrel stuck with nails, drag her by two white horses through the streets." (The queer sentence themselves to death. I was thirteen. Doctors were lit for me like banquet halls. This is not my child I ease out from under the car, begging, "Don't close your eyes." I pick up the doll, it's not even broken; my cries hover like innocent bystanders, hands over mouths. I wait for a fate equal to my birth. You grow weak in my arms. I am thinking of something else.)

[aleelewisharlot]

Though this is certain death, the victim stands still as if he were indifferent to such business that gives the other pleasure.

[a-labyrinth-of-stories]

Exploratory Surgery, Christopher Bursk

[vashhanamichi]

(...) So what if you loved me more intimately than anyone ever would? A cancer cell could say that of any body it refused to let go. Once the heart was infected, how could it be corrected? So what was I waiting for? The truth is, the doctor smiled, the microbe adores the flesh it's dating.

[aboutmercy]

You’ve let the cold run so long over each hand,

it fits you like a glove,

you can almost wear it away from the faucet.

For the lack of anything better to do

you’ve scrubbed your face too,

then let the washcloth’s dark

fall over your eyes, your nose, your mouth.

Then another washcloth, then another,

their heavy animal sadness pressing against you

till their need feels as great as yours.

Another day of shooting hoops in the rain,

of walking a creek,

of keeping water company,

of envying even it,

preoccupied, as it always is, with the rocks

it wears grooves in, the trail

it keeps widening in the earth,

following the same path, never bored,

rubbing the day over and over.

Saturday Night, by Christopher Bursk - “Ovid At Fifteen”

[redlinepoet]

Am I not to drink the cup that the father has given me?

by Christopher Bursk

No one else was willing to be Judas, so I agreed in return for a few good lines and the chance to bestow a kiss of betrayal on Clarkie Truesdale

towards whom, on opening night, I moved with the authority of rain brushing aside Apostle Paul and knocking over Apostle Peter.

On my tiptoes I surprised the unsuspecting lips of eighth grade’s tallest boy who—clearly tempted to wipe away my spittle—

stayed in character. At rehearsal after rehearsal I’d merely grazed his hairline as my Sunday school teacher had coached.

So why in front of parents and schoolmates did I elect to turn pariah and plant my mouth so explicitly on his? I can still taste those lips

my lips pumped for information: chapped but softer than expected. It hadn’t seemed right to kiss the Son of God

on the brow, as a grandfather might, or on the cheek, the way an aunt might. From His mouth had come the Great Commandment

and though ours was a Unitarian church attended by Ralph Waldo Emerson’s befuddled descendants, all Lent we’d led up to this man’s sacrifice

of his human body for our divine souls. The least I could do was offer Him a little tongue.

[nsantand]

Christopher Bursk – "Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down"

(...) Como podemos nos preparar para o futuro / quando estamos tão ocupados bagunçando / o presente? Talvez esta seja a vingança mais verdadeira do tempo: / conscientizar-nos de sua passagem, a cada minuto / de cada dia. (...)

“Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down“1 Se vou me transformar em cinzas em uma década ou algo assim,por que ficar acordado até depois da meia-noite encarando a TVcomo se ela pudesse mudar de opiniãoe eleger, por uma vez, um candidato independente para o cargoou acabar com a guerra e, ao mesmo tempo, remover a acne do meu neto?Talvez eu devesse apenas desfrutar do uivo do cachorro na casa ao lado.A…

[asraeas]

How far did you get?, Christopher Bursk

[givemearmstopraywith]

Jesus, press against the inside of my brain like radiance, like a solution of opaque glimmers. Let me know the easy lapping of light that does not hurt. For years I have wanted to be brilliant, I have wanted, I have wanted, and tasted the little, shocking yeast of ambition spurting up into my throat.

Christopher Bursk, "Disappointment"