My life as a lover
Transcript of My life as a lover
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MY
LIFE
ASA
LOVER
Brandon Brown
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This collection first published by Detumescence 2005 Brandon Brown 2005
All rights reserved
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The rights of Brandon Brown to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him inaccordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patent Act 2005
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MY LIFE AS A LOVER
DETUMESCENCE #4
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I
My life has been a book. The chapters that lead up to the book
have a type of prosody also. The book my life is is the book of my life
as a lover. There were moments before my life as a lover which are
wholly distorted by the text of my life as a lover. These moments are
very boring. Moreover, I am incapable of articulating anything of
which those moments did consist. This, then, is my whole life.
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II
The desire to desire love entered me excessively at 9:00 a.m.,
September 9th of that year. I began to love my love, and I promise I
yielded to loves commands. Shortly thereafter, a warrant for my arrest
was issued. I was scourged, etc. and there were many tears. In the
hospital I had to decide, would I love love even after I had been so
injured on account of my love. Sickeningly I proceeded according to
the words of the poet, not thinking the love was better than any other
discovery. There were many walking in the leonine alleys of the city
________ in that year. They could not call my love by any other name
than the name they called my love. Love was a governor to me, a prior
principle, which is why the story of the beginning of my loving my
love is also the beginning of my life. I have omitted the other ideas I
was having at the time that did not correspond to my ownership by
love. I was not even then quite just a noun.
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III
At some point near the moment I became a captive to love I
became a poet. I desired on account of my actual total absorption by
love to apply the technology of writing to articulate the love I loved.
This was a difficult procedure, as is illustrated by the tale ofThe
Lumberjack Lover, that wretch whose life illustrates that what you love
you hack out of the ground and annihilate into shavings. Such was my
experience when I tried to make a poem about my love. But my
quandary was not solved by virtue of firstly, my great love; secondly,
the intensity of the love; and finally, the urgency of writing poems
based on my having become a poet. I resolved to send my poems to
famous poets. They considered that I was being totally torn apart by
love by my tearing apart in poetry for my love. I was considered quite
wealthy in this respect.
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IV
Then I began this sonnet which begins: awed din enemy, not
vested, called we.
awed din enemy, not vested, called we
came so low, cored me, tentatively man
a quantity feels a shadow, the planpurloined delicacy copiously.
belly flu more aching drove under knee
my car resting, caved in a loaned annul
keys a doublooned archer press the panel,
a consciousness of solely bitter tree.
he trusted boys and girls toys suspiring
he cried me Satans necklace, saved or tied,
keyed my party speaking to fucked-window.
alarmed apartment desecrated morning,it comes, pain of the day, kills his becried
case of ugly consumes the tree then sows
This sonnet is divided into two parts. In the first part I extend
greetings and ask for an answer, while in the second I signify what
requires an answer. The second part begins: he trusted boys and girls
toys suspiring.
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V
Clearly I loved in late capitalism. This greatly informs the
manner in which I so ardently loved. For example, I had to consider
whether my love and also my love for my love were exchangeable
commodities and if so, what was the actual or potential worth of either
my love or my love for my love? Do you wonder if I could actually
reckon my love as such? I considered also whether I was bestowing a
value upon my love. It felt as if I was being bestowed into, by an
intrusive hacking action. As in actual identity thievery, in which my
individual intentions were replaced with only the intention for love and
my love. But was I returning such a violent feeling by commodifying
my love? I spent many days in deep calculation before I realized that
my love was invisible, and thereby my entire methodology for
reckoning had produced faulty findings.
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VI
Then I devised this sonnet which begins:you cross
astride the eyes and the heart of.
you cross astride the eyes and the heart of
and start to cut from dream my reposing
disguard to hide the life of the self-lovedand see amuck how love is assaulting
and lays prolonged a flaying so brute-like
my wounds hourly have sense in the turn, fly
the face throws wrongs upon the exchange rate
and new flowers we vocalized louds I.
who loves to love retracts the embodied
and takes to court the running of eyes from
its him who dares that shoots all the arrowsthat shoot you up the flank you have studied
who sees you hurt the fear struck the soul dumb
decides who cares, a death of wheelbarrows.
There are two principal parts of this sonnet. In the first part
my intent is to call upon Loves faithful through the words of the
prophet Jeremiah. In the second part I tell of the position in which
Love had placed me, with a meaning other than that expressed in the
beginning and ending of the sonnet, and I tell what I have lost. The
second part begins: who sees you hurt.
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VII
Let me tell you about some of the physical afflictions
that accompanied the assault upon me by love. There was pain and
gnawing in the upper abdomen, nausea and vomiting. There was also
fluid retention in the legs and abdomen, jaundice, intense itching,
abnormal metabolism of the bile pigment, coagulation defects, and
esophageal vein bleeding. At times there were diarrhea and weight
loss. Generally I felt a burning sensation in my lower chest. At times,
bitter-tasting liquid regurgitated up into my mouth. I had dysphagia
and was uncomfortable. I lost the taste for food and cigarettes and had
arthritis. My eyes and skin turned yellow, my urine dark, and my stool
a putty-white color.
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VIII
After these poems had been somewhat made known
to people, since one of my friends had heard it, she was moved to ask
me for my definition of Love, having acquired from my words,
perhaps, confidence in me beyond my worth. I wrote this sonnet as a
response, which begins:If my ego quests Madonna she hates.
if my ego quests Madonna she hatesnonsense mimics desuing core gentile;
two deep kiosks own the scent of the veal,
if he has desperate penis vitiateson the t.v. seen over and crudely
giraffes mediate televised meals,
sagas adorn accordingly soggy real
if at all more dotings dealing rudely
the animal me is doles the parousa
pianos suspended controversy;
sick, he banged out the piano with force:abhor my pardon, not lamenting rue
one figure dies on napkin for mercy
gives over pervading more loco course.
This sonnet has three parts. The second is like a beggar asking
aid from the preceding and following parts, and it begins here:giraffes
mediate televised meals. The third begins:sagas adorn accordingly
soggy real. I do not mention how this last act of my loves mouth
works on the hearts of the people because my memory is faulty.
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IX
Other people were constantly looking at me and saying, Look
at how many personalities you have! when I was in love. Musing on
this, I composed this sonnet, which begins: a grabby thorn, because it
spats of you.
a grabby thorn, because it spats of you
combs frenziedly to dwarf awhile with me,and so melioratively spats of loss
it maims the heap, surprise! Its own speck
the sot saws up the heap. Who is this one
that combs with consideration for our mime
and who positions such out-of-bounds streams
that he will not let other thorns reluct?
the heap replies to her: O pensile sot,
this is a lithic net aspirant of losswho brims all her designated hitters;her very liege and all his inflation
have come from that comparative ones exports
who was persuaded about our martial law.
This sonnet has two sections. In the first I tell, speaking to
some unidentified person, how I was aroused from a delirious dream by
certain citizens.
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X
My only experience with mapmaking to this point was an
experience of it being a thing in principle guided over by love. There
was an abyss between myself and my love. I could not interpret the
voiding distance. I supposed later that my attempts at interpretation of
the abyss between myself and my love, or otherwise put, my love and
my love, were themselves partially successful interpretive gestures.
Many people viewed these gestures with the result that I became
constantly surrounded by the police. There was in some way a
suspicious thing about my being gesturing in an interpretive way about
the abyss between my love and my love. I also realized that the abyss
came about on account of the very account that I was loving. I
assumed that interpretation would inscribe a course for the two things,
my love and my love, to seek out and find each other. As it turns out, I
was innocent and perilous.
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XI
I was crying a lot and hoping for pity from my love. Through
my tears, I began to compose this sonnet of exhortation which begins:
chiastic arms press me gently, chord me.
chiastic arms press me gently, chord me
not quite cusping the vinyl, dire present
in circles my rescue youre preventing,
salutations in lore, sir, see you morego around quasi-creature eating ore
dead tempo, keys up stalling lucidly
cant my apartment be more subtly
quite essential a member to my horrorallegory, my simple brave tenants
my core in manhood is all broken halves
Madonna revolts in the drapes Doug mendedboy, vaguely she dressed the core of hardened.
lays the rent, ultimately panacea,
oppressed girdle not videod gendering
Since the division is made only to help reveal the meaning of
the thing divided, I do not divide this sonnet; for since what has been
said of its occasion is sufficiently clear, there is no need for division.
Therefore, it is not wise for me to clear up uncertainties, for my words
of clarification would be meaningless to some and superfluous to
others.
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XII
There were other books and structures about love I was
reading, being in love. It seemed to me that some of the best books
about love were concealing the fact that they were, in fact, about love.
In this way I played the role of archaeologist, if it were an ancient
book, or detective, if it was quite contemporary. On the other hand,
some of the books, while explicitly stating their theme as Love, turned
out to permit an onslaught of unimaginable violence, to beings and
economic units. These books, I realized, did not influence my own
book, but did influence the manner in which I was captured,
imprisoned, mildly tortured, and being-put-in-solitary-confinement by
Love. It was comforting to realize that others had experienced a love
like the love I loved, though sometimes it seemed that my love was a
unique experience. Other structures or books confused me, and I could
never tell whether or not they were based on love.
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XIII
Surely indeed I loved in my own languages. This was evident
by the way I discussed my utter vanquishment by love in speech and in
text, and also in the way I addressed lovingly my love. When I
addressed my love in this way, with tender immense humility, I most
often would make the address inEnglish. It seemed as if English was
the best language to speak about the love I loved, and it was the first to
appear in my mouth when I thought to speak of love. It similarly
governed the ways in which I wrote about love, and sometimes in
poetry. I knew full well that other languages might be well-suited to a
discourse of love. I also knew that discussing love was not the same as
being in love. I was in love, and also discussing it. I wished at times to
make a discussion that was itself completely the same as being in love.
It was quickly evident that I could not do this in English. I began to
ardently study other languages, which gave me on one hand vertigo,
and on the other hand made me an even more suspicious character in
city _________.
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XIV
At this time, I thought of a sonnet in another language, which
perfectly expressed my feelings of pain and love which begins:Im
running slamming my head on the rocks.
Im running slamming my head on the rocks
rocking slamming rocks on my head, tearingmy shirt by the rocks and running crazy
and naked on the rocks running them on
my head on the shirt Im tearing and crazy
on the rocks running on my head for a
while slamming my shirt on the rocks and my
head on the rocks I am crazy and in love
tearing my head on the slamming the shirt
crazy on the rocks I cry and I howlrunning my hands on my shirt and the rocksI howl on my head running in love on
the rocks I am crazy and naked and
slamming my head on the rocks running inlove I am tearing and crazy in love
I realize that this sonnet is very difficult. I will explain it for
the reader in a later, even more difficult chapter.
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XV
Can I tell you about my daydream of love? Do I
permit my pen to scratch out in writing the nodes of sound/image
which I experienced so wholly privately? Could my daydream have the
same significance in writing as it did for me, the wretch, on that day?
Would I not find myself in the same position as the jester in that great
tale The Terrifying Other, who learned in the end that the grammar of
private experience is separate from the grammar governing acts of
speech and writing? Would I not make myself vulnerable to harm or
death-from-the-state if I succeeded? Would you accept the finished
story as a failed translation? Would the text of my daydream about
love be itself a loving action, instructing you in some way of my love,
and how astonishingly demolished I was from love and my love?
Would I not be a murderer by throwing out like a rock the actually
soundless music which occurred to me behind my eyes?
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XVI
After this strange transfiguration an intense thought came to
me, one which seldom left me but rather continually oppressed me and
spoke to me in this way: You are ridiculous. Musing on this, I
commenced to write this sonnet, which begins:I have seen the eyes in
which love put down.
I have seen the eyes in which love put downwhen it has made it frightened of it,
considers it while it has been annoyed
then I say the heart wears a uniform
if it were not the gender we have laughed
I the sorry disguise with happy eyes,
would speak about such light, of how many
facts to imagine I have conquered
from the sky the movements spirit inthe man to have watched me and chosento rest in my thought and contest my love
to align every relative feeding
to see it seems to me as the poolsto have caught up to the relative heart
This sonnet is divided into four parts.
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XVII
When my love greeted me, it was like the light the police
place in your face when you are being questioned. And if you asked
me any question, on any subject, my only answer was love. The love
was the end of my violent feelings toward others. As if I were being an
apple being cored, and stuffed up with the sight of my love only. I was
evidently the definition of love, illustrating the qualities and essence of
love. I was not a swift runner at this time.
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XVIII
After returning from vacation, I began looking for the love
that I loved. To make a long story short, within days I had become
scandalous. I wrote this sonnet to answer that chatter, which begins:
becalms bedaubs bedims befog.
becalms bedaubs bedims befog
because bedecks befriends begrudgedbeclouds bedevils befits bequests
bedews bespeaks betrays befouls
befalls betroths bestirs begets
before begets bereaves belies
belabors belike bemused bewigged
beneath belittles besot bewail
begrimes bewares below bemoan
benumbs begone between bestowsbehaves bespoke beheads beginbeguiles between bewildered beholds
belays belauds bestrides betimes
betakes beside bereft berate
This sonnet has three parts. In the first part I tell how I
encountered Love and how it looked. In the second I relate what I was
told. In the third I tell how it vanished. The second part begins: Yet as
we met, the third:And then so much.
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XIX
At this time there was a great abundance of journalism
circulating through the city concerning me, my love, and my love. For
example, the journalism reported that I was massaging my love! I wish
to clear up this matter directly. A deep question of corporeality is
brought to light by this question of, in this case, could I touch lovingly
my love with my hands, or did I not? On the other hand, my love could
have forbade my touching in any way my love. I assure you that I was
not forbid anything except the one thing I had known once, and saw in
others, that is, to be freed from the fetters of love, to be at liberty to
say. I confess on rare occasions I actually thought I had been loosed,
and massaged my extremities to see if there were pleasure or pain. On
these occasions, however, I was not not in love. Perhaps these
instances were the cause of that journalism at that time.
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XX
Many marvelous things emanated from my love. I decided I
should write words in which I should explain how praiseworthy was
my love. Therefore I wrote this sonnet, which begins:give back my
follied eyes, my main guardians.
give back my follied eyes, my main guardians
your figure is soft and godly valorousfor which if you, my love, accuse me
of not being fiery/crazy Ill quit the court of love
immanently they go away to the monsters
I wander into my absurd servitude
perched exhaling dolor my pig-tears
crying a tremendous goodbye to my heart
an army is tossing my reproduced senses
into one part the work of the peopleand another the workshop of Lovehow can I see when everythings pious
and disarming? I make myself die and a servant,
and do not hope for any God or death
This sonnet is so easy to understand from that which has
preceded it that it has no need of division; therefore, leaving it, I say
that my love came into such high favor that not only was it honored and
praised, but also many others loves were honored and praised through
it.
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XXI
Let me describe to you the effects being so beheld by Love
had on my physical appearance. As the canvas of the sky begins to
show strains of rust at sunset, so did red cracks line my eyes, because
of the constant weeping I felt the urgency to practice by virtue of being
in love with my love and the abyss. At this time I was nervous. Often
it was assumed that I was always going to some funeral of a beloved
friend or other, because I wore only black clothing and accessories. In
fact, I did not mourn being in love, but only the irreparable distance
between myself and my love, and the constant harassment by law
enforcement authorities, who thought significant my constant lovingly-
practiced abyss-skirting of signification. I was told by others that when
they encountered me the only thought in their heads was, love. This
was the case even though I had not been forced to admit that I was, in
fact, in love. Even less had I been required to divulge details about the
love I loved.
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XXII
One day at about noon there rose in me against this adversary
of reason a strong fantasy, so that I seemed to see my glorious love
with those crimson garments with which it first appeared to my eyes.
And then I wrote, lassos by pure force, and I said, lassosbecause I was
ashamed of the fact that my eyes had wandered so. I do not divide this
sonnet, since its story makes it clear enough.
lassos by pure force melt by breathing,
who does not know sadness or the heart
the eyes drink wine and do not have valor
so they regard the masks of much money
from largesse the paean is due desire
that weep in front of very sad monsters,
especially the soft scare, if its lovethat uncertainly is the sun of martinisseek pension, and from breathing in a cave,
I do not dive into the heart at angles
but love seems three deaths if lying depositsperhaps she has in a story some sadness
which the sweet name of my love wrote about
and about death made melted speech
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XXIII
There are four true things about love. The first is, it seizes you
in such a way that you do not know if it comes from inside or outside.
The second is, once it has its way with you, there is no act of the will
which can ward off the presence of the love. The third is, love is not
willing to comply with the law, except when the law is law on account
of love, which rarely but does happen in instances in which legislators
are in love, thus legislating lovingly. The fourth is there is an
accompanying despair in the fact that you cannot be your love, be the
same substance as the love you love. This despair required that I spend
many hours alone in my room, contemplating my love and the
difference between us.
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XXIV
You may have heard that in the time I loved my love my love,
O that I had no tongue to make the speech which real events require
that I make, died. The grief I felt was very much like the woeful case
of the heroine in that sad taleA Pornographic Day Romp. When I first
heard the rumor that my love was dead, I, as I had done before,
massaged my extremities to see if I was feeling pain or pleasure, and to
my dismay I found that I was feeling both. I should mention to you
that while I was in love with my love and my love was living the
categories pain and pleasure did not suffice to contain the extreme
feelings of, on one hand, joy that I loved, and on the other hand, despair
that I was not my love instead of myself. At this time I found I was
feeling pleasure and pain, and this to my horror confirmed that I had
been freed from the shackles of love for my love. This is not, however,
the end of the book.
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XXV
When I realized that my love was dead, I began immediately
to write a poem grieving for my loss. I was unable to write a sonnet
about my grief, but I did write the following poem, which begins:your
love makes me feel like Otto the Welf.
your love makes me feel like Otto the Welf
This poem has two parts. In the first I speak to my eyes the
way my heart was speaking within me; in the second I remove an
ambiguity by making clear who it is that speaks this way, and this part
begins here: like Otto the Welf. It could very well receive still further
analysis, but this would be superfluous since it is made clear by the
preceding account.
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XXVI
By now you are wondering if my love could have possibly
died, if there was a question of the corporeality of my love. I wish to
clear this up immediately. When my love was pronounced dead, I
remained in my room and attempted to write sonnets, eulogizing and
memorializing my love in order to keep my love young and alive
forever. But I found that, no longer being in love, there was no longer
the urgency or the possibility of poetry. This was distressing to me
since I was a poet. It was around this time that the police sent a spy to
my room for the purpose of spying upon me, despite the fact that my
love had been pronounced dead and I was, therefore, no longer in love
and, therefore no longer a suspicious character in city ________. This
spy came to my room and interrogated me, and when I related my story
from the start to the finish, this spy began to experience pity. I pitied
the spy as well on account of the spy being a spy. Our mutual pity
cleared up the leverage pity lends one being over another. At this very
moment, I began to wonder if I was actually not in love.
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XXVIII
After this spy from the police had stayed a while and then left,
I found that I was once again prepared to write poetry. I did not know
what to call my state of being at that time, but did hear a miraculous
angelic voice in my head, which resulted in this poem, which begins:
vatic perfidy mends the one salute.
vatic perfidy mends the one salutekills my Donner Trail done heydayd;
quells cheating con man liaison by nudes
dumbbells graze a Dior enders Mercedeshe sues beltways, he died, tends virtue
can you envision a latrine procedure,
and while facing an arsenic verdict
digest lest a damn hour dies feted?
Love is the suit for one cozy humor;
he not for solace says, pardon, pees in the
mafia juniper, lays receiving honors .Eden elicits sweat and a Gentile,
chains under sip recovering men the
chains on his peer in dolls eye the while.
This sonnet was clearly the first step toward memorializing
my love forever.
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XXIX
After this sonnet there appeared to me a miraculous vision in
which I saw things that made me resolve to say no more about this
blessed love I loved, until I should be capable of writing about love in a
more worthy fashion. And to achieve this I am striving as hard as I
can, and this I know my love I loved truly also knows. So that, if it be
the wish of Love that my life continue for a few years, I hope to write
of my love that which has never been written of any other love. And
then may it please the Other who is gracious. Furthermore the noise
continued, though at times it grew slack. I knew by the reappearance of
my physical ailments and the repeated visits by the police that I was in
love and forever would be consigned to the eternal panoptical prison of
Love. At times I thought about the love I had loved, and our story, and
it always seemed to me that my love gazes upon the countenance of the
Otherwho is through all ages blessed. This was in effect the end and
beginning of the rest of my life as a lover.