DEAD RINGER

CHARLES BORKHUIS

BLAZEVOX[BOOKS]
Buffalo, New York

Dead Ringer
by Charles Borkhuis
Copyright 2016
Published by BlazeVOX [books]
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without
the publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews.
Printed in the United States of America
Interior design and typesetting by Geoffrey Gatza
Cover Art by Nick Piombino (Free Fall) courtesy Otoliths Press
First Edition
ISBN: 978-1-60964-235-8
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015954032
BlazeVOX [books]
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Kenmore, NY 14217
Editor@blazevox.org

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NOTHING PERSONAL
pronouns like us
appear as interchangeable
pebbles in a stream
the I-you-he-she-me of it
nodding in mirror-rhythm
with our multiples
maybe Ive been listening too long
to your miniature black hole of a head
or your heart only two letters away
that leaves a loose end like me
stumbling down an endless corridor
of on-off switches
nothing personal you understand
you can have the facts
Ill take the rest to the coffin thanks
so much for your anti-virus protector
Ive found a smooth stone on the road
after about a million years underwater
not the one with the fossil on its back
but the other worthless one in my pocket
its an all or nothing situation
but inside the all theres plenty of nothing
and inside the nothing theres the rest of us
breathing through straws

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DOUBLE EXPOSURE
one face drawn upon another
so we can never know
whos speaking
and whos an echo
at the limits of the sign
a mirror might double my chances
or my troubles
flattened to a hairs breath
I dont bounce off
or pass through the looking glass
I am captured by the surface
like a bug on flypaper
while a second-self escapes
with my name
~
to walk your pain around the block
like an optimistic skeleton
to always keep a little death in reserve
for a rainy day
one sees a floater on the cornea
mistaken for an insect
scurrying through a crack in the wall
as when a boy glimpses
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out of the corner of his eye

a graying man who isnt there
standing at the threshold
between living room and den
invisible to the boys parents
working on the tv reception
the old man smiles and starts to play
the violin
~
one hears a stranger in the locks
the rattle of time loosened at the hinges
the graying man produces a shiny locomotive
from his breast pocket
it begins to puff towards me
bending clocks to its great velocity
I would indeed age less on a speeding train
than my twin at the station
o wondrous science
I read it in a book

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~
the beginnings of
a haunting in the eye
a flicker
not to be trusted
the porous skin
of what is
and what is not
held in the same breath
the one on the train passing
the one on the platform

I was underwater for the longest time

while my brother watched
my swimming ripples of light
the world might be broken in two
four sixteen insect legs scurrying
behind ones back
inside the reflection of facing mirrors
I am my twins twin
the object of his subjectivity and doubt
extended indefinitely

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the one left behind and the one

that disappeared in light
leaving us to wonder
which one of us is saying this

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ANTIMATTER TWIN
between yesterdays resolute conviction
and todays passionate correction
theres time enough for every decomposing
body to turn over in its grave
which means there is no bird
in any hand for long
only the worm of an idea
growing out of the synecdoche of a wing
any symbolic residue must take a number
the sentence hung over
the writers head turns in its grammatical locks
the way purity gives ground to process
which is haunted by the missing subject
and what once seemed authentic
now appears hopelessly contrived
as the particle is sometimes a wave
so the judge may be a part time criminal
and the murderer an accomplished violinist
devoted father and loving son
no last words said the philosopher
as the ground shifted again under his feet
and his ghost particle his infamous
antimatter twin waited in the wings
for a surprise guest appearance

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ENTANGLEMENT
my insects roam outwards on a stem
leaving through the eye of a leaf
held up to the light it appears
I was spun from the same wavy
psychomatter as a stone but we inhabit
different spots on the spectrum
everywhere there is talking
bouncing off objects
as if thoughts step in and out
of the shoes outline so things
wear us witness the gooseneck lamp
thats learned to read me like a book
~
before I know it Ive entered
the bent reflection in the toaster
that stares back at me
as if I were a boy caught peeping
through a keyhole at a certain
naked someone who turns
and strips me shuttering
naked at the end of her gaze

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how quickly things reverse themselves

or is the opposite always already implied
we play both parts but only one
at a time
in principle I am the other you
standing in your shoes
while never having left my own
speaking these words while entangled
in a distant parallel rotation
as when the dead writer notices me
reading his book and smiles
to himself in passing

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WHERE I COME FROM

where I come from
there is no there
everyones busy
turning her insides out
while simulating a tan
where I come from
nothing matters until
its fatal
and even then
everyone knows
he wont really die
theres always an undisclosed
number of copies
hanging around on street corners
living out different hers and hims
I dont want to embarrass anyone here
I dont want to insult you to your face
Id rather you turned your back
thats how its done
where I come from
everyones roasting in his own juices
everyones head is squired on a stick
everyones thinking its not his head
its the other guys

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where I come from

there are a lot of pregnant pauses
between life sentences
and the shoe is never on the other foot

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CURIOS

actually your disease looks good on you

better than mine on me
not that I want to switch mind you
Ive come to buddy up to my little curios
rococo ornaments growing off odd ends
makes me want to smile
life is various and then it gets
just plain ugly
still what a gift as they say
to be slogging through it all
eyes wide open or shut as you prefer
while pains cracked lightning
singing a solo on a nerve ending
makes you want to dance
youve got to love it
now that you know what others have suffered
or maybe not depending upon
your capacity for a lifetime of compassion
whats real the dead man said
is what keeps coming back
after the drunken falls
the lies and lurid hallucinations
the bitter bile and blame
after throwing up the world in flames
after the smoke has cleared
what remains

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the room the chair youre sitting in

the simple pleasures a rose defoliating
in a glass of water the world still ticking
and overgrown with verdant memories
whats real is what keeps coming back
the dead man said
who kept dying and reviving
like a specter of history
thumbing through our thoughts

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