Eileen Myles

The Dog


The dog
has poems
in her
I have to
get them
out.

The dog has
jewels
in her
head
the dog
has peed
on the
bed

It is my
favorite place
in the world
like a tree
with no
glasses
like a cemetary
with snow
arlington’s 
ponds
have frozen
@ last

I had dinner
w Ollie &
Doo. Drank
tea
with Arlene

the dog did 
not know
me yet.

May I sleep.
yes she purred.

From the Toilet


I like your life
I hear the
triangular
nyla bone
clatter
to the floor
& I love how
you hesitate
(“Did that really happen?)
Then leap
       down to pick
it back up
the bed hits
your stomach
as you land
and you pull
yourself up
the last three
inches
and resume
chewing 
in the sun.
Thank you.

Oct 9th


Sheep & cows

fast dense stripes
of yellow & green

spots of trees
on a hill

I will love the
rolling mounds
the chug of you
sweet singing 
             train

I want to feel more 
wear less        Spain
is coming

grooves in the brown
fields

empty of me,

I sent a photograph
to my friend

no longer my

lovers  she looks
at her phone
as I walk past

yesterday’s thrift

I went down past
angel with
Summer to her
winding halls &

explained my past,
irreverent practices
read this food

the owner 
of the love about
seeds   dates you must
always throw them
wherever you are in
the world city or no

& Humana who
has twins

we went to the
sorcerer’s library
I was given
the arcane card

so I lived & crowds of
them in London &

here the door was open
we had already been to
the puppet museum of
bells, and dogs & 
rat’s music soaring
everyone dying in a
life & the hour was

full & we went to
Gloriosa I think
for figs & chicken &
lemon grass tea
and I told them about
the leaves going
whap whap whap like
the sybil

& Forest’s friend
Oisin equally turned
like him time fighting
to find a way out
from the horror through
lists, indexical

& the lights shifting  I
like & clanged

enormous faces & obscene
legs turning wheels 
cling cling cling

meta language black &
white cows. Kalled Karen

please hold my red
scarf tearing day
after day of Proust.

Happy man across from me
hello. Was it racist
       I asked if he

was going to keep
                       speaking

we had a tart little back & 
forth the couple I referred

to as the couple were talking too
but soft phone talk ac-
centuates as if fear
of being lost right

into the hole like the old
fashioned heavy phone

hello hello shouting

a more pointed time
but wrong to the present

abrasive.      This train

is for Edinburgh
waverly British accent
somehow

who owns the line
I suppose

they did do it deliberately
not letting you tear off
the plastic caps

of the water bottle you’re stuck

in the hotel I kept
imagining the wrong lobby

I wanted to eat in yesterday’s
place. It was too late

maybe in both, definitely
here.      I’m babbling

if it was a beautiful
thing I’m not sure

the birds sailing
the mountain blue
scottish one what are these

I’m drawing now.      A previous
little container or a train
car   fenced in for some

purpose like it’s a unicorn
everyone’s got one
come & save ours

Our pretty little prisoner
it wasn’t that
silly houses stone walls

bring the black & white
cows back I liked
that liked telling u about

a complex spine
gotta be a modern
one on a real church
not so great

looked forward or back
here @ lists
when I thought making it

meant I wld write. I did
write something but what

a blurb. views of two
painters & how they want to 
change my tense

there’s the bales of hay
for the future a black
one a brown one sipping
quick stop your damn

energetic phone.

Best olives here plucked
from my fingers from
a little bowl twice in my
life in Barcelona

the boy in the airport
w my same suitcase
opening it, investigating

how did he get in the cab
line so fast. I look comfortable
in all my clothes I still wish
she brought peanuts

I sat nimbly operating duolingo
learning Spanish in the cab
to begin my life in Spain

“M. de la Boulie is bearing won-
              derfully, sir, and is in
excellent condition to hear
           the news of his death,” or “Oh

Will remind me in the future
where I have been. 

And after the photographer
left I am still posing for
pictures, leaning against a pole

the dark matter is pretty ev-
enly spread it turns out past the
boundaries of the milky way

It’s thin too, and is probably
passing right through your body
now like a ghost

it is that thing you feel. As-
tronomers wear shorts &
plaid shirts. It’s pretty much
what you would expect in the 
climate, Texas

The telescope not far from
hold it some part of this
will wind up on a wall Tim’s
resort not that

Light travels through space as
waves. Waves are sorted by their
distance from one another.

Friends or no. Infrared is often 
read as infared but that is
confusing subway crime with
science. I’m thinking to be ar
rested or shot for jumping over

a turn style in New York
city my home is to be infared. 

But there’s no radio, there’s
micro (these are all waves, 
comb them, yes and the
crime.

The minute mixing of waters
in the bathroom in a hotel in
Barcelona to make tea imag
inably will become part of
a surprising chapter in a novel
about love (light) I am un
able to work when travelling con
tinuously that is my crime un
til I realize it is a crime
to stay still I must write
it now from my laboratory, any
where in bed with tea.

tea is good, coffee is evil. 
I like an occasional come
but it removes the sex from

my life this pounding of the adrenals
that is wind. I am ready for
you now my love tea, green
tea.

Fussing is the moment’s baby 
traveling light. Wind in their 
hair, wave lengths jouncing

Visible light singing in Kindergarten
red and orange green and blue
shiny yellow purple 

ultraviolet, X gamma to be
brief, visible light is here.

All the colors that I know

She is an enormous divider, turning 
what’s there into the beautiful horn
of  plenty   pots of
wealth on either end but it’s
light we love

She breaks down the tiny
gloves, suns and galaxies into
knowledge about them. How
they’re moving, weather.

Ultraviolet = hot young
stars and big holes right
at their center, streams of
ultraviolet light

I think coffee’s a little ob
scene

When you jump the subway turn-
style you are often invisible
that’s why it’s a crime. Inside
the room everyone’s dealing cards
and drugs  it’s dust, it’s just
dust in there. They joined
forces with Korea. It’s tiny
Holding a mirror up by its
neck, discover silicon splashing
about. We’re in a pool. It’s

like very thin hair. Cheese. Please
save the pig by this fine cut. I
go off, far far away. They made

it & nothing happened. Nobody used it
the telescope itself is a set of
mirrors alone in a hotel room
that faces a point of light, life

said Cynthia Jaffee. I want a
good science plan and this is
it turning soon to my foot & then

the interview, entirely grateful that
green tea not the obscenity pro
duced this result writing not sex

but sex eventually when different
light is split. It’s a long
lined thing. You’re in it. This

is our kind of dust. Look at that
hole of machinery, man in shorts.

Wires dangling. Things get wet

in my bag, then stick. My shirt 

is stained too. I might just wear
it in Madrid. It is like the
paragraph in a book. Edges

leaning outside, like dark matter
spreading. You felt that
in the beginning

It produces gaps.
It’s a lot cheaper. If there’s

overlap everything can be combined
later to create a continuous
one without gaps, even flinging
itself outside, somewhere.

Try this planet. I did.
Start here. In the shallow venture
I am inventing, my life. This 

is exactly what I did.

He speaks of golden box secret
sauce. I think the scientist
is crazy unlike the kid going
over the turn style getting shot

No this is the overlap. Both
are wonderful. Versatile. Small.


In Chile they got the Magellan. 

The name is so wonderful.

I will go there. Look @ those

Three fools. White wonderful their
tops rolling, open to the stars, combing
combining light. It’s grate. 

Notes for later: 

Observing nights – 1,000 plus

WCNSF
wounded child no surviving family. 

Check.

Eileen Myles is a poet, novelist and art journalist whose practice of vernacular first person writing has made them one of the most recognized writers of their generation. Their last books are a "Working Life" and Pathetic Literature. They live in Marfa TX & New York City.