We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

These Are The Days

from Kill Starlings by Christian Drake

/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $1 USD

     

lyrics

My grandfather died not knowing I existed.
His mind, a world atlas
folded in half and half and half again
until it could fit under his tongue.
It was not so much that he slowly disappeared
as we did, the grown grandchildren at the dinner table
mistaken for strangers. Fantasy
grew on his memory like patches on an old coat,
the holes in every story repaired with fictions
until my grandpa's coat was every color, unraveling.

Forgetfulness runs in my family.

Already I've forgotten so much of my childhood
it's like I've lost a twin brother:
I can't name my kindergarten friends, my sweetest nights,
the shape of my grandfather's hands.
So now I live my life the way I'll misremember it
when all sense has left me. We are young now,
but when we are old we will lie to our grandchildren.
These are the days we can still make tomorrow's lies true.

These are the days you will remember:
Your summer dress swings like a screen door in the wind.
These days, a bubble of blood rises in your throat
and burps with laughter, and your skeleton costume
tumbles in the dryer like a child down a grassy hill.
You will remember this wild pair of green shoes,
how you were brave with your hair. The one semester
of metal shop, when you performed surgery
on your bicycle with a plasma torch.
The heat, the orange life. These days,
you experiment with love like a little boy with mercury.
Once, you cupped your hands to the rain until you became a birdbath
reflecting the storm. You leave blue footprints
on the bathroom linoleum from your girlfriend's hair dye.
You drink beer in the morning and watch the rocket ships
leaving in great plumes from your fire escape.

These are the days when you stop at rattlesnake farms
and wade in, and this is how you will remember them:
walking drunk in the middle of the road like a king,
uvula moon vibrating in the night's mouth.
Hummingbirds swoop in to admire your earrings.
This is how you will remember these days: the good autumn.
This is how: the trek across Australia. The flat tire, where
the marriage really began. The Southern cross. These days:
the fancy scarves. The gypsy diseases. You gargle night
like baby oil. The alligators roll over to show their bellies
to your kissing lips. You lose your virginity
again in a trapeze net.

And some of these things will even be true.
But this is how you will remember these days when
you call your granddaughter by your first wife's name.
When the man with the tape recorder comes for your story,
this is your alibi. Cherish these days.
Muddy your face with these dreams
before you break into the hospital like a bandit.
These are the days you will remember when they force you
onto the last rocket ship, when the Earth dwindles
in the black. When you wake up before the sunrise
because there is no sun anymore, and the nurse is still asleep.
My God, the kites I flew! The kites I never forgot to fly!
The stars revolve like a mobile, and you write your life
the way you recall it, an autobiography like a suicide note
so delicious you could never put down the pencil.

credits

from Kill Starlings, released January 26, 2012

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Christian Drake Dhaka Division, Bangladesh

Christian Drake is a six-time National Poetry Slam team member and has performed on three National Poetry Slam Finals stages. Originally from New England, he bas been a host of popular slams, poetry shows and burlesques in San Francisco, CA and Albuquerque, NM. He's best known for his often loud, erotic, and political nature poetry. He currently a science teacher in the New England wilderness. ... more

contact / help

Contact Christian Drake

Streaming and
Download help

Shipping and returns

Report this track or account

If you like Christian Drake, you may also like: