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1.
there was a time when things were simple days were happy and i sat up in my room looking down at the back porch out across the fields wondering what my life would be like in years to come i was to follow in my sister's steps —school in Atlanta— everything was ready the acceptance set i would move in at Georgia State and make it my home for at least a few years but things didn't happen that way the farm is a relic a ruin a bucket full of dirty water tears caught welling up from the pain of this place the pain of hate withered toiling beneath the ground pushing up from graves like skeleton coffins coming back to life i've forgotten what it was like to wake up in those chains i've made amends by leaving behind those last happy days sinking into the earth when i was a boy my father bought a wooden hot tub with planks held together by large rings the wood would swell joined by grooves making a pool to rest the body when dad put together this tub he filled it with water —cold—from the well and i jumped inside eager to swim paddling about soon coming out chilled the tub never worked well and soon fell into disrepair another relic another ruin to sit around and become part of this place the extended landscape of tractors and machines and other broken things left to wither years after i moved away dad cut down the planks and made the tub into a garden bed where mother tends to flowers "where did you plant flowers this spring?" i asked my mother recently "out there in the hot tub," she replied and i could see in her eyes the joy of growing plants and taking old things to make something new i remember a plant in the house with leaves green like watermelon stripes and a single dead strand hanging down the side —sad, dry— a part of life transformed —dying— i thought, "that is me" i thought, "i see myself in that plant" and so i continued: "this is life" "that plant is—everything—" "that plant is god" it seemed odd, as if something had taken hold among the smothering haze of family that there might be something more than what tradition taught once again i thought, "that plant is god" i walked to the mailbox collected a new issue of Rolling Stone flipping through pages of articles and interviews —music, news— all the things teenagers do to find themselves i spread out the magazines across my bedroom floor looking at the Calvin Klein men and wanting more like the time when my best friend spent the night and we wrestled on the bed teenage horseplay teasing my hand reaching for his crotch —i didn't mean any harm— he pulled away in a violent jerk backing into my dresser where an antique glass jug —a relic i had dug up in the barn— came crashing to the floor in a waterfall of pennies and dimes "you'd better not have grabbed me on purpose," he chimed, eyes sharp in defense "i didn't mean to!" i whined though i did not regret the attempt for it was the closest i had ever been to touching another man's cock the jagged jug like an eloquent blade stayed on my dresser until after i moved away and my room became a relic like the rest of the farm i look back on those days before the exile and think about that place how it is part of who i am how—even then—i was looking deeper how the fields and streams —the plants, the trees— —nature's temple— taught me how and who to be it was a time when things were simple days were happy and i sat up in my room looking down at the back porch out across the fields wondering what my life would be like in years to come and here i have traveled far leaving behind the last happy days yet still i remember them
2.
It starts with two ropes tied between two poplar trees / creating a gateway / a portal cutting through the veil I was only then learning to see / imagine me, eight years old with a dull-bladed hunting knife / a hand-me-down with a handle that smelled like car keys or pennies mixed with palm sweat / imagine me, taking off my clothes, folding each item neatly into a pile / black denim, a t shirt, shoes, and socks / I am nothing but underwear and fear / facing the ritual I’ve dreamed into being in order to see the last times of my memory. The last time I was (t)here I buried my dead with uncalloused hands, glovelessly planting my grandfather like a spudding tuber in the Georgia land — nothing but unyielding red clay to cover him in his vault of decay. Where I’m from, we throw dirt on caskets with bare hands. Sometimes we cry and beg at the graveside. Where I’m from the men carry the dead like a burden of honor, as if medals were awarded for pallbearing. We are a people so eager for another life, yet fearful of the possibilities of our own torch lights. I touch the spell / my palm again the invisible wall of air / and seeing my last time of the other side, I recoil / the ripples of my fingerprints cling there / the grooves of my identity, the same as waves / and I’m cold / shivering in skivvies / shaking my blade / what is there for me to find on the other side of time / I see, also, the first time. I was born an explorer: an earthship astronaut ready to take on the world, and at three I took off walking, marching with my little legs, in hopes of finding something new. Perhaps to find the elves and trolls I knew were hiding in the leafy branches and the hollowed stumps and in the tangled briar of blackberry and muscadine — I knew new life was waiting just outside the porch and the dirt road and the mailbox and the driveway. Somewhere in the woods, I’d find another way. But instead, at three, I’m crying. Lost. Lonely. Fearful. I’m waiting, drenched in tears, for my father to save me from the towering trees — the pines that climb the ladder of the sky up so far it obscures heaven. And black limbs against blue, against cotton clouds, I’m in the arms of safety — of my father — and I’m home again, and in that home for the last time. I’m blown back / dirtying the white cotton seat of my ass / it’s all bone and alabaster flesh mixing hard into the dead leaf loam / this, the gift of my portal of rope and tree, showing me more than I had bargained for / somehow me, the history of my weakness / the history of my need / safety and passion mixing with the urge to leave / imagine me again, dusting off my ass and checking the rope for tautness and stability / I pluck it like catgut string / thinking back to another rope and another escape attempt. Once, at maybe six or seven, I wanted to fly and took my father’s old ratty ropes and made a spiderweb in my jungle gym. I thought, not even knowing the word, that if I could find my center of gravity and tie a rope there, I’d balance in midair. I knew in the logic of my childhood that my top was heavier than my hips, so I looped one rope around my waist and another around my neck — then leapt into nothing with swift bare feet that couldn’t feel the aluminum bar I’d stood on. And for a moment I dangled between summer blue sky and spring green grass, the sun, a warm friend greeting my back — until the rope around my middle snapped and I hung instead by my chin, groping and gasping as the tallest of the blades tickled the tips of my big toes. Somehow I had the breath to yell so I yelled — my mother running down hill with the look of a Valkyrie, lifting me, and giving me breath for the last time. These portals are made of wishing and memory — they go as far forward as they go back / once in high school / my face in sweat-stinking pillows / adolescent / ear buds and discman lulling me / I saw a future me — no ropes needed, and no trees / but this me / naked me / forest magic creature communing with the creeks / I collected one of each / maple leaf oak leaf / poplar blossom / a branch with twenty eight pine needles / and two sprigs of hemlock / because time magic is most powerful in evergreens / I wished to see and to be / and the portal between the trees opened for me. Packing boxes with as much dust as stuff — half the weight of every book I pack is memories, or at best just simply dirt. But I have to pack lightly. People in New York have so little — my adolescent vision didn’t tell me that: it just whispered “New York” in my ear and showed me walking, the omniscient view of god, a good head of hair and a mosaic marble compass inlayed on the street, me checking my wrist for the time, in a hurry to be some place. Ten years later, filling boxes, I wonder if I’ll find such a space in my wanderings of the new place. I arranged sigils in the river rock / a preparatory step / necessary for aligning time / one on the creek bank / another on the tiny island / and a last in the fork of two nameless waterways / I left myself a pebble breadcrumb trail back to my home / following the curves of the old logging road / in case I wanted to go back / but I’d rather look forward. It is the last night I will sleep in my parent’s house, as my parent’s child, in the bed of my youth. It is the last night I will close my eyes under this roof. It is my last summer of dragonflies and tiger lilies and elephant ears and lightening bugs, my last summer of sweet tea and kudzu and mountains the shape of children playing under green-brown braided rugs. The last time I see every quarry cave and pig farm, every hay barn and baptist church, every apple tree and rain-muddied river as somehow mine. A reflection appears / a final image / another version of myself / equally naked / equally vulnerable / however, I’m grown / a man / hair on my knuckles and shoulder blades / staring back through the portal / his movements mimic my own / a perfect mirror / his right hand following my left only two feet taller / tracing something invisible / his ropes are tied between the alley walls / between two buildings / his background, one of bricks, not trees / his feet on trash and cement, not dead leaves / and me here me now presses my palm against that of me then me there / everything is one thing / I am as much here as I am there.
3.
i have tough feet from growing up in the country climbing trees winding down gravel roads barefoot and walking to the creek after i moved to New York i walked down Christopher Street to hang out at the piers jutting into the Hudson a place where queers met for sex and sunning   it was an in-between time before the river park filled with bikes and rollerblades it was the glory days when the city was new and my heart leapt watching sunset over Jersey New York sunsets are worthy and of special note where reflections bounce off glass towers like monolith stones in memory of our ancestors like the tombstones scattered across the hills of my youth we come from somewhere else most all of us, Americans country of immigrant dreamers bankers, doctors, farmers, cleaners the whole lot of us exiles, expatriates, and slaves my ancestors came across the sea generations ago and settled in an Appalachian valley among Cherokee hills and old growth forests planting fields of cotton and sowing hay the memory of red clay caked between my toes seems far removed from city sidewalks i now tread where i cannot even go down to the river to wash my feet or seek forgiveness and baptism the Village is lined with brownstones homes dating back over a century holding memories and stories like Georgia barns hide secrets hanging in the loft and country churches string them up dangling from the steeple by a noose the Marlton House was built in 1900 turn of the century SRO where my poet comrades stayed from Kerouac to Millay pre-war apartment buildings pile upon modern streets the sculpture of Rock Center the lounges of Radio City this glory, this decadence is the epitome of New York style the excess of jazz and deco and bop the Titanic sank in 1912 and her survivors were brought to the Jane Hotel by the river my grandmother was born in 1913 on the family plantation in the Appalachian foothills i can trace a thread between here and there from this isle of Manhattan to that Georgian valley for my life is in these places and i am of them equally i ascend from the subway pull the hood of my jacket over my head to protect against the wind cracking the skin of my lips hardened from the bleeding winter tough skin from head to toe when the sun sets behind those darkened hills where i walked barefoot through the trees i will remember those long shadows like the World Trade Center towering over this island as i look south down 6th Avenue from Greenwich Village and know i am home
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released November 20, 2022

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luke kurtis New York

luke kurtis is an interdisciplinary artist making experimental music Ideas are the root of his work, forgoing any signature style in favor of conceptually-driven aesthetics and design.

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