Chord

 

Skin hangs in drapes. Not quite
Thin enough to move in the wind
& hella fleshy. When the chord
Is pulled a window opens. My tits
Are hanging while I think about
Apartheid & how it descends
Upon America. Falls like little
Stars. Can hardly notice it. Too
Busy being jolted on the ground

So strange to inhabit a body & mind
both male and female & yet I wake up
& go my way hardly considering
Most days I remember. From another
World & my purpose. Had to give it
All up to be in focus. The pain of memory

Time walks away again. I have no
Plan to participate. Came here to
Resolve. The universe is so vast
Folds like an opening lotus
Gifted with time to breathe I
Sit with the memory of mantis
Intergalactic globular red. &
How round the eyes

Strange permutation. Born on
The prairie in an era of urban
Expansion. Watch every last
Tree be cut. Fed industrialized
Poison. Grow breasts. Get huge
Get small. Hang in skin. Forced
Isolation. Get shot. Return to
Origin. My computer screen
Requires no buttons only dried
Limbs and a spark. I can see you

How do I inhabit this body

 

 

 

Tanner Menard is a poet and composer whose current work embodies his mestizo Indigenous and French lineage. Poems are his method of survival, a linguistic medicine of ambiguity which is certain that love prevails. His poetry is the DNA of his queer hybridity, a double helix of gender and identity. As a composer of experimental music, Menard has been published and anthologized in the US, Canada, Europe, and Japan on labels and netlabels such as Full Spectrum Records, Rural Colours, Tokyo Droning, Install, Slow Flow Rec, H.L.M., Archaic Horizon, Kafua Records and Milieu Music. Menard’s poetry has been published in The Squawkback and Rabbit and Rose online journals. He currently serves the Snake Band Tribal Councilman for the Atakapa-Ishak Nation of Southwest Louisiana and Southeast Texas.