Cortney Lamar Charleston
Telepathologies
Tell me: how does the mind host its sickness?
Is it hosted anything like how a website is,
the Internet just a cancer spread of ones
and zeroes? Is it like how a mixtape is hosted
by a DJ with a bunch of zeroes behind a one
behind their name? I downloaded a sick
tape off DatPiff not even two days ago,
but what was sick about it? Is it the way
a baritone-mention of pussy makes the
mouth wet, or is that just how a word is
born, normalized by biology? Is biology
the reason Ebony pops up before all
other exotics in a survey of masturbators,
or is that the symptom of a sickness?
Would you consider WorldStarHipHop
a sickness, or all the site traffic from white
boys watching in the suburbs, as if vitiligo
has gone viral? If I told you a black woman
had her tubes tied tight by television signals,
would you label that sickness idiocy or
call it rational? Does the answer change
if she was scared of having a son end up
like his father, or is the sickness in your
assuming what that means? If I feel her
in idiom, does that diagnose me suicidal,
or just afraid of homicide? Is sickness
imagining your death or imagining it
by your own hands? How is that sickness
hosted? Is it anything like how a website
is, the Internet just a cancer spread of
ones and zeroes? Is it infinite in reach,
or is my body the bounds? Am I the host,
a lasting cure only discovered once I’m
disposed of for good? When the next of me
makes the nightly news, gone for good
via gunshot, will you be bedridden with
a sickness, or will you step outside, healthy?
Will you develop a healthy fear of your own
shadow? Would that be just? Justice? How is
that agent hosted? Anti-body? Like a cancer?
In Case I Still
for Alton Sterling, Philando Castile & Korryn Gaines
I’ve been here for hours. Maybe days. Maybe
months. Maybe years at this point, sitting in the dark.
My TV’s one big eye is Aryan blue, makes my skin glow
bruise purple and ghostly inside its unflinching gaze.
My TV has a loud mouth and won’t keep my name out of it.
Today my name is Alton. Today my name is Philando.
Today my name is Korryn, but on air they mispronounce it
Hillary; my name is something used to spook
other spooks like me: dead
tired, bags heavy under my eyes wide open and veined--
red from fatigue from corner to pupil so all I learn to see
is blood. And I didn’t even watch the video.
This time. And I didn’t even talk about it.
This time. And I didn’t even post about it.
This time.
There was a song spinning in my head,
but it’s gone now. There was a shotgun burning in my hand,
but it’s gone now. There was a fatherly yearning in my heart,
but it’s gone now. Bye bye, baby boy,
girl. But my body remains a portrait of grief, I guess.
If it’s not remains. If they haven’t moved it to the morgue, then
the witness stand, then out of your thoughts completely.
Please, if you care as much as you say, call on me in case I still
have sense enough to answer, weight undead enough to move
from my seat and use productively like units of silver. Transact
not against me Samaritan: spare me pictures, let it click when I pray for
clique, when I need understanding, like today, when I needed you
like I need blood and you couldn’t even remember my name.
Cortney Lamar Charleston is the author of Telepathologies, selected by D.A. Powell for the 2016 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize. A recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem and The Conversation Literary Festival, his poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in POETRY, New England Review, Gulf Coast, TriQuarterly, River Styx and elsewhere.
Visit his website here: https://www.cortneylamarcharleston.com/
Return to January 2017 Edition
Tell me: how does the mind host its sickness?
Is it hosted anything like how a website is,
the Internet just a cancer spread of ones
and zeroes? Is it like how a mixtape is hosted
by a DJ with a bunch of zeroes behind a one
behind their name? I downloaded a sick
tape off DatPiff not even two days ago,
but what was sick about it? Is it the way
a baritone-mention of pussy makes the
mouth wet, or is that just how a word is
born, normalized by biology? Is biology
the reason Ebony pops up before all
other exotics in a survey of masturbators,
or is that the symptom of a sickness?
Would you consider WorldStarHipHop
a sickness, or all the site traffic from white
boys watching in the suburbs, as if vitiligo
has gone viral? If I told you a black woman
had her tubes tied tight by television signals,
would you label that sickness idiocy or
call it rational? Does the answer change
if she was scared of having a son end up
like his father, or is the sickness in your
assuming what that means? If I feel her
in idiom, does that diagnose me suicidal,
or just afraid of homicide? Is sickness
imagining your death or imagining it
by your own hands? How is that sickness
hosted? Is it anything like how a website
is, the Internet just a cancer spread of
ones and zeroes? Is it infinite in reach,
or is my body the bounds? Am I the host,
a lasting cure only discovered once I’m
disposed of for good? When the next of me
makes the nightly news, gone for good
via gunshot, will you be bedridden with
a sickness, or will you step outside, healthy?
Will you develop a healthy fear of your own
shadow? Would that be just? Justice? How is
that agent hosted? Anti-body? Like a cancer?
In Case I Still
for Alton Sterling, Philando Castile & Korryn Gaines
I’ve been here for hours. Maybe days. Maybe
months. Maybe years at this point, sitting in the dark.
My TV’s one big eye is Aryan blue, makes my skin glow
bruise purple and ghostly inside its unflinching gaze.
My TV has a loud mouth and won’t keep my name out of it.
Today my name is Alton. Today my name is Philando.
Today my name is Korryn, but on air they mispronounce it
Hillary; my name is something used to spook
other spooks like me: dead
tired, bags heavy under my eyes wide open and veined--
red from fatigue from corner to pupil so all I learn to see
is blood. And I didn’t even watch the video.
This time. And I didn’t even talk about it.
This time. And I didn’t even post about it.
This time.
There was a song spinning in my head,
but it’s gone now. There was a shotgun burning in my hand,
but it’s gone now. There was a fatherly yearning in my heart,
but it’s gone now. Bye bye, baby boy,
girl. But my body remains a portrait of grief, I guess.
If it’s not remains. If they haven’t moved it to the morgue, then
the witness stand, then out of your thoughts completely.
Please, if you care as much as you say, call on me in case I still
have sense enough to answer, weight undead enough to move
from my seat and use productively like units of silver. Transact
not against me Samaritan: spare me pictures, let it click when I pray for
clique, when I need understanding, like today, when I needed you
like I need blood and you couldn’t even remember my name.
Cortney Lamar Charleston is the author of Telepathologies, selected by D.A. Powell for the 2016 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize. A recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem and The Conversation Literary Festival, his poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in POETRY, New England Review, Gulf Coast, TriQuarterly, River Styx and elsewhere.
Visit his website here: https://www.cortneylamarcharleston.com/
Return to January 2017 Edition