three poems
by Ryan Hooper
Track Marks
(VU & N – 47:51)
Track I A note not played still scars, mirroring last night’s regrets:
anxiety haloed in celesta bells blooming forgiveness.
Track II Where phantoms hang, ghost-white on Lex & 125th
– anticipation is the itch that scratches itself.
Track III The candle burns out. Albertine leaves. & Nico too. Edie walked alone.
You circle streets to amplify absence
Track IV because absence completes more than controls. It folds
the loft, 56 Ludlow leather boots, against your Venus chest.
Track V You sit at Café Bizarre waiting / swaying / like a reed in the wind.
Writing an envelope poem to fix the gate that opens the sun.
Track VI Like shiftwork on speed / exploding plastic / memory
falling in love with falling spikes / paperclips dancing between strings.
Track VII Such detuned disorder / laughing annihilation down at the 7-Heaven.
When I first heard them, the earth turned; I was hooked
Track VIII on klang / hisssss / lull + storm / hitch-hike / disssssonance /
Track IX the taste of madeleine. She said I’ll be your memoriae,
shimmering on Syracuse sighs.
Track X That sanded-down viola drone adrenalin fit.
A furious Greenwich heat that hits – lingers – luminous.
Track XI Of course, NY still stings. It marks you. Will eat you. Peel and all.
kneel
here is Severin listening to Lou’s tongue –
drag a leash across my ear
–whip–
song as recital / Venus in viola
ostrich-tuned boots as bruise
–lash–
& I kneel
inside the drone
–bleed–
I am fur
wound
song
Photo of Ryan Hooper
BIO: Ryan Hooper is a Cornwall-based writer, artist and sound maker. Working across mixed media, his practice explores the intersections of personal experience, memory and the natural world, reflecting on themes of identity, loss, healing and resilience. He is the author of A Map and Not a Tracing – a deconstructed novel about remembering and forgetting – and founder of Heavy Cloud Press, through which he has released works integrating collage, sound and text.