TRAVIS GOURÉ - POEMS

Travis Gouré is a young writer living in Atlanta. His work has appeared in Menacing Hedge literary journal and The Sacred Cow magazine. He has interned as a poetry editor for Deep South Magazine, and as a contributor for Rush Hour Daily news. He is currently a student at Kennesaw State University, where he studies English.

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                                   tu étais mienne une fois
 

could you trust?
but I cannot promise
should in the end
I have been
your adversary
what heartlessness
sometimes performed
by men
would not also
make wreckage
of you
 
when I have never loved another
like heroin
 
I have never loved another
at all
 
but without measure
I believe it
and without void
and dance
and light
 
we do not claim
flesh
lip
nail
but we may
seize
 
wild
flower
shaking
strings
of bone
or heart
 
for you were mine once
you were mine
 
yes, yes
for a time
 
camille I do lament for raging fears that shut my teeth
and tore apart like petals all the words inside my mouth
which called you storm
and shadow
and blood
or any place
missing light
 
I cannot return
to someplace
that you are not
 
and if
in violent infatuation this perfect noise inside
is pose
and meek
endearments
just
then I’ll go there along with it
when it burns out of the fold
 
tu étais mienne une fois
but I was cold
 
 
 
                                                    sweeping
 

I’m imagining us
one day with your
body wrapped quietly around mine
descending some stairs
with the first dead
animal we ever
had there between
our shivering chests
as we are singing
as we are carrying it
to be buried
in the cold yard
 
and it’s really,
especially,
remarkably pretty
 
that dull sunlight which comes through fogs on dust through
the window
bearing us
as we sadly fold
down a wooden staircase
into the muted, ghostly peace
of touching tragedy
with you
 
I’m still thinking
I’ll have you there
even as I turn once
more
to leave you
for
a year? who knows
 
sweeping
once more
the absurd
and silent aimlessness
from the tiles
 
my dear
I cannot make my skin remember what it meant
to love
the natural decadence
of being
 
my god of violent nothing
has carried this to you
I am, if nothing else
sorry
for telling you the stories
which kept you
tagging along
 
so
fucking
sorry
 
not unlike
before the gates
of god.
 
 
 
                                                 some do
 

I no longer try to decipher the rhythm
of my dying –
I turn my palms out to winter
kneel – in place of the hydrangea blackened
by our little flame
 
the secret of everything
was in the autumn that came and went
with you
while I in the theater ran a game of shadows
seasons long
over wet carpet
and wood
 
I would have been unperturbed
by god itself
if my room was darkened
in its wingspan
 
the wiry angels of summer
on the streetcorner
kissing
purchasing
glances
 
they know me better than I know myself
 
for to be found out
is to disappear
and then to be
for the very first time
anything
at all
 
by divine theft
they take your stones
 
and it is bitter
like the ache of waking
from a century’s sleep
to a plainer world
than the one you left
 
but you are better
for it
you taste, pray, kiss
differently
 
you watch, fine with being watched
satisfied in mystery’s always being
unfinished
 
and you meet eyes with the intention of the blind to raise the dead
for no benefit of its beauty
but for them
 
. . .
 
good god
to love like that
I can only imagine
some do
 
 
 
                                              fright
 

the pears the lilies the joggers the trees the sun
they ask my intention and I swallow hard
for I have yet to wake from bed
so what brutish jest would break the eyelid
now sits in the offing,
cringing and sweaty, with a face like a rotted orange
 
I try to keep it that way
but the selfsame chorus impresses again as always
the inevitable
that I will awaken to the same candle fire
I left the night before and hoped would die
before the sun’s own furnace
pronounced us all to work
 
the walls the wires the leaf the staircase the bricks
they ask my intention and I simper
I don’t know what it means to be
or in being, am implicit
is something disregarded, impotent
 
a disaster. . .
the divine have all been muted
 
a disaster
the plains of linen in your room
gone hard with sweat
 
what is built today
soon will be artifact
and so I will be a stone
inside a stone
 
carried off
by rain or eagle
 
and let alone
 
 
 
                                               For Scott
 
​
I know
loving, even if it is done
in solitude is not
a lonely business
 
but god damn
it never stops
 
the tendency for breaking glass
to find a neck
 
these are the last of the dread-worn days
these are the passive
the pulled
 
another
yes, another
as always
as a stone
 
tilting from the fringes
reaching up from weeds
fucked up
turned in
as always
 
I know
jesus, I know
how it
feels. . .
tragedy
is a good fuck
and wretchedly elegant
in laying you down
 
I know
I know I know I know
that life is a chapel’s promise
or worse
I know the pale stains of your past laugh back
whenever you try
 
I know to love
without requisition 
is the nearest of god to
this old earth
we’ve got
 
but god damn
it just never
stops
 
the tendency
for breaking glass
to find
a neck