John Bradley

Self-Portrait with Burst of Black Ink Across the Face, 1976

[If we remove the black ink, we lose the particularities of the face.]

[If we lose the unknown face, we see only the particularities of the ink.]

[If we preserve the black ink, we abandon the identity of the faceless face.]

[If we abandon the unseen face, we’re left with only the burst of black ink.]

[Thus, due to the imposition of the black ink, we cannot with any confidence

identify whose self-portrait this may be.  We believe this may well have been

intended by the installation of the black ink (applied across the face when

the paint was still wet, whether by the painter or by an unknown party)]. 

[Final recommendation of the Committee on Restoration and Recovery:

Leave Self-Portrait with Burst of Black Ink Across the Face as is.]

Wash Away the Fingerprints

Your letters, you ask if I burned them in the rain barrel

under the back gutter.  If I breathe your name ninety-nine times,

I could not erase you. 

Late at night, do I still hear the bells of goats wandering

the broken hills?  Do you still wash your hair with marigolds

and threaded starlight? 

Where is the red silk scarf you stuffed in your mouth

when we made love in the sacristy?  If they open the coffin that held

Edna St. Vincent Millay, they’ll find only black rose petals.

What happened to that photo of a throbbing heart atop

a mound of murmuring ice?   I have not yet learned how

to wash away fingerprints scalded by the moon.

Do I remember when you levitated in the elevator, eyes

rolled back, arms out at your sides?   I could sleep inside the word

yarrow and never wake.

Late at night, unable to sleep, do you sip pinot gris

in the bathtub?  Listen, I can give you only one more teaspoon

of granulated solace. 

More than that we wouldn’t survive.

Why I Read Franz Kafka (Even as It Rains Unpunctuated Iron Flecks, Slightly Rising as They Fall)

I once saw in a gas station restroom in Nebraska. 

I tried to gather the shape that sibilant messenger

cast beside me.  My hand grew so large I feared

it was pregnant.  It said: If you should ever make

a drawing of a rat, there are two rules: It must look

nothing like a rat.  And never allow the rat to slip

into the drawing.  I have studied heron and toad.

But their eyes would never sway away from the sun

I swallowed in Pompeii.  You may use tweezers

and a toothbrush to gather those you have lost.  But

remember: Each grain travelled 62 million light years

to appear in the hair of those around you in the Silver Grill.

A dermatologist once told me, You look like

you could use a long nap, as she examined my skin

as if I were a mechanical drawing.

The Firefly Syndrome

When I married an olive tree in Spain, I didn’t yet know

her name.  Not that it mattered.  When you have a firefly

caught in your ankle, you grow a bit distracted.  I ate old

telephone directories that I found at yard sales—cheap

and filling.  I sign all my waste, before I toss it into the trash,

along with the date and location, so future archeologists

can construct an accurate picture of our gods.  After

John Glenn orbited the Earth and returned home, he often

got lost in the grocery store.  You won’t remember this,

so it’s safe telling you—I once sang a lullaby to a restive

wolf and it tried to bite me, after I fell asleep in the snow. 

But the wolf was only trying to wake me, I’m sure.

The Dogs of Chernobyl

Q. Have you ever been bitten by or tried to bite a Chernobyl dog?

A. There are regions in the brain where you find nothing but hardware stores.

Q. Have you ever told a dirty joke to a Chernobyl dog?

A. Whatever happens now has nothing to do with now.

Q. Have you ever sung a lullaby to a Chernobyl dog?

A. Too many clouds are now cluttered with endless plumbing.

Q. Have you ever told a lie to a Chernobyl dog?

A. Each time someone places a blue bowl on my head, a hummingbird dies.

Q. Have you ever spooned with a Chernobyl dog?

A. In spite of everything, with love and malice the rain still snows, the snow still rains.

Q. Have you ever had ayahuasca with a Chernobyl dog?

A. When Edna St. Vincent Millay first heard a recording of her own voice, she said: Quite lovely, isn’t it?

John Bradley's most recent books are Hotel Montparnasse: Letters to Cesar Vallejo, Dear Morpheus, The Glue That Is You, and As Blood Is the Fruit of the Heart (all from Dos Madres Press). He feels certain he will one day run into a poet named Bradley John.