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Keguro Macharia

Born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya, Keguro Macharia studies and lives in the US. His creative and critical work, as yet unpublished, though in process, obsesses over love, death, sex, and rock-n-roll, in nostalgic homage to the 1970s. 

 

love songs and elegies: a cycle

For Matthew Shephard

At some point we must inhabit ourselves
-Kathleen Fraser

I

the point will have to be the in-between interest
of mili centi deci deca hecto kilo grammars
sewing shut a pleasure is suing for a chest
choices made are life's little freedoms

in the green there is more grinning
blood money buying votes or cobs of maize
so brown stands apart or in a shrouding
buffalo lands in bottles of glass beads

if tomorrow were a conditional in a subjunctive
who is not smart yet to be a radical
all about eve is all about eve and leave
lets get physic emotion spirit or all

when touching is there where is immanence
or questions building as at incipience

(hunger)


II

apropos: softness which is a tongue in

of orifacials which sounds official

soundings of hardness and learned monologues

synesthesia means I can watch tv

so he laughs at vegetables in chairs

In absentia means his disappointment

though discriminating is opposite

what is surprising that vices are true

if it is all simulated angles
Actions is without a script and silence
Or your soft pieces gently placed in me
And both lacking in technicality
Giggles in green gardens or secret ones
How melodramas are lustful in tights


(body)


III

what is visible and a persona
mirrors are objects reflecting objects
distances accrue with recognizing
in tripartite layers there is middle
liminal spaces between it and glass
or angled that beautiful in lighting
is embodied in specular hardness
wideness in broadness and narrow stands back

which eternal eye in slivers can break
seeing in semantics being hermeneutic
but hermetic is closed doors and bathrooms
so touching reveals sensuality
the opacity of opticity
frames are control devices or borders

(gaze)


IV

locations emerge in the arranging
when flipping over is extra footage
so in fixities there is releasing
warmth that is doubling or intimacy
because things sound how they feel in 
that experiences are transcendental
or stripings speaking obscene comminglings
in purple is passionately speaking
as lengthening is growing excitement
for in strategy there is colliding
which as collusion is not repeating
subtle in lusting musk exudes a scent
frottage and mutual manipulation
ravished in ecstatic prolonged pleasure

(sexual positions)

 

 

V

compassed in centrality or around
which is a building or a cornerstone
distorted boundaries lines drawn as crooked
speciation and specification
taxonomies classify differences
joyful affirmation of contingency
a long held belief in narcissism
which as personal bespeaks authority
inhabiting whiteness impaled as pure
ambiguities dressed as well wrought urns
inscribing residual antinomies
meritocracy is non-essential
embedded in spectacles of color
lived in erotic generosity

(Being)

 

 

VI

what becomes a tragedy and is not
responsibility or semantics
absolution in lachrymal outpourings
dispensations by feeling as purging
what is angry and cannot be healing
carnations remind me of funerals
in profusion there is colored cloying
as closeness or heavy padded windows
hysteria modifies crying and laughing
as excess is in proliferation
adagio is sexy in between acts
farewell like raindrops perspire in dropping
empathy which is a plagiarism
fictionalized bodies make great movies

(mourning)

 

 

VII

Because thinking technology changed it
in my focusing there is distracting
picturing desire as liberation
wet out of breath cream authenticity
revolutionary pornography
closed eyes participate in imaging
indifferent desire meaning palpable
confessional modes explicitly dark
disclosure deferring transient pleasure
syllogisms are myths and fantasies
closed eyes make it beautiful in dark rooms
scarlet marks intensity and stale blood
as soreness indicates maturity
supple and pliant words that do not break

(techne of love)

 

 

VIII

see
smell
taste
touch
caress
kiss

       ( )
       . . .

          kiss
          caress
          touch
          taste
          smell
          see

(words)

 

 

IX

He wears blue jeans and a button down shirt
He wears blue jeans and a button down shirt
He wears blue jeans and a button down shirt
He wears blue jeans and a button down shirt

He kisses his mother in the morning
He kisses his mother in the morning
He kisses his mother in the morning
He kisses his mother in the morning

He takes long showers while singing love songs
He takes long showers while singing love songs
He takes long showers while singing love songs
He takes long showers while singing love songs

He eats ice cream cones from the bottom up
He eats ice cream cones from the bottom up

(minutiae)



X

Then is awkward and becomes enabling

In hardness resistance as yearning

Emerging as resistance not escape

Inarticulate asphyxiation

Distance transcends in ambiguity

Marginality as authority

In cross paradoxical parodies

Slow songs as love songs slow songs as life songs

Functional spheres manifest as gestalt

Incommensurable affinities

Textured language fabricated meanings

Phallic unrepresentability

Naming desire as protean certitude

At some point I must inhabit jouissance

(desire)

 

 

 

copyright © Keguro Macharia