my life as a lover

8/2/2019 My life as a lover

1/31

MY

LIFE

ASA

LOVER

Brandon Brown


2/31

This collection first published by Detumescence 2005 Brandon Brown 2005

All rights reserved

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The rights of Brandon Brown to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him inaccordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patent Act 2005

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3/31

MY LIFE AS A LOVER

DETUMESCENCE #4


4/31

I

My life has been a book. The chapters that lead up to the book

have a type of prosody also. The book my life is is the book of my life

as a lover. There were moments before my life as a lover which are

wholly distorted by the text of my life as a lover. These moments are

very boring. Moreover, I am incapable of articulating anything of

which those moments did consist. This, then, is my whole life.


5/31

II

The desire to desire love entered me excessively at 9:00 a.m.,

September 9th of that year. I began to love my love, and I promise I

yielded to loves commands. Shortly thereafter, a warrant for my arrest

was issued. I was scourged, etc. and there were many tears. In the

hospital I had to decide, would I love love even after I had been so

injured on account of my love. Sickeningly I proceeded according to

the words of the poet, not thinking the love was better than any other

discovery. There were many walking in the leonine alleys of the city

________ in that year. They could not call my love by any other name

than the name they called my love. Love was a governor to me, a prior

principle, which is why the story of the beginning of my loving my

love is also the beginning of my life. I have omitted the other ideas I

was having at the time that did not correspond to my ownership by

love. I was not even then quite just a noun.


6/31

III

At some point near the moment I became a captive to love I

became a poet. I desired on account of my actual total absorption by

love to apply the technology of writing to articulate the love I loved.

This was a difficult procedure, as is illustrated by the tale ofThe

Lumberjack Lover, that wretch whose life illustrates that what you love

you hack out of the ground and annihilate into shavings. Such was my

experience when I tried to make a poem about my love. But my

quandary was not solved by virtue of firstly, my great love; secondly,

the intensity of the love; and finally, the urgency of writing poems

based on my having become a poet. I resolved to send my poems to

famous poets. They considered that I was being totally torn apart by

love by my tearing apart in poetry for my love. I was considered quite

wealthy in this respect.


7/31

IV

Then I began this sonnet which begins: awed din enemy, not

vested, called we.

awed din enemy, not vested, called we

came so low, cored me, tentatively man

a quantity feels a shadow, the planpurloined delicacy copiously.

belly flu more aching drove under knee

my car resting, caved in a loaned annul

keys a doublooned archer press the panel,

a consciousness of solely bitter tree.

he trusted boys and girls toys suspiring

he cried me Satans necklace, saved or tied,

keyed my party speaking to fucked-window.

alarmed apartment desecrated morning,it comes, pain of the day, kills his becried

case of ugly consumes the tree then sows

This sonnet is divided into two parts. In the first part I extend

greetings and ask for an answer, while in the second I signify what

requires an answer. The second part begins: he trusted boys and girls

toys suspiring.


8/31

V

Clearly I loved in late capitalism. This greatly informs the

manner in which I so ardently loved. For example, I had to consider

whether my love and also my love for my love were exchangeable

commodities and if so, what was the actual or potential worth of either

my love or my love for my love? Do you wonder if I could actually

reckon my love as such? I considered also whether I was bestowing a

value upon my love. It felt as if I was being bestowed into, by an

intrusive hacking action. As in actual identity thievery, in which my

individual intentions were replaced with only the intention for love and

my love. But was I returning such a violent feeling by commodifying

my love? I spent many days in deep calculation before I realized that

my love was invisible, and thereby my entire methodology for

reckoning had produced faulty findings.


9/31

VI

Then I devised this sonnet which begins:you cross

astride the eyes and the heart of.

you cross astride the eyes and the heart of

and start to cut from dream my reposing

disguard to hide the life of the self-lovedand see amuck how love is assaulting

and lays prolonged a flaying so brute-like

my wounds hourly have sense in the turn, fly

the face throws wrongs upon the exchange rate

and new flowers we vocalized louds I.

who loves to love retracts the embodied

and takes to court the running of eyes from

its him who dares that shoots all the arrowsthat shoot you up the flank you have studied

who sees you hurt the fear struck the soul dumb

decides who cares, a death of wheelbarrows.

There are two principal parts of this sonnet. In the first part

my intent is to call upon Loves faithful through the words of the

prophet Jeremiah. In the second part I tell of the position in which

Love had placed me, with a meaning other than that expressed in the

beginning and ending of the sonnet, and I tell what I have lost. The

second part begins: who sees you hurt.


10/31

VII

Let me tell you about some of the physical afflictions

that accompanied the assault upon me by love. There was pain and

gnawing in the upper abdomen, nausea and vomiting. There was also

fluid retention in the legs and abdomen, jaundice, intense itching,

abnormal metabolism of the bile pigment, coagulation defects, and

esophageal vein bleeding. At times there were diarrhea and weight

loss. Generally I felt a burning sensation in my lower chest. At times,

bitter-tasting liquid regurgitated up into my mouth. I had dysphagia

and was uncomfortable. I lost the taste for food and cigarettes and had

arthritis. My eyes and skin turned yellow, my urine dark, and my stool

a putty-white color.


11/31

VIII

After these poems had been somewhat made known

to people, since one of my friends had heard it, she was moved to ask

me for my definition of Love, having acquired from my words,

perhaps, confidence in me beyond my worth. I wrote this sonnet as a

response, which begins:If my ego quests Madonna she hates.

if my ego quests Madonna she hatesnonsense mimics desuing core gentile;

two deep kiosks own the scent of the veal,

if he has desperate penis vitiateson the t.v. seen over and crudely

giraffes mediate televised meals,

sagas adorn accordingly soggy real

if at all more dotings dealing rudely

the animal me is doles the parousa

pianos suspended controversy;

sick, he banged out the piano with force:abhor my pardon, not lamenting rue

one figure dies on napkin for mercy

gives over pervading more loco course.

This sonnet has three parts. The second is like a beggar asking

aid from the preceding and following parts, and it begins here:giraffes

mediate televised meals. The third begins:sagas adorn accordingly

soggy real. I do not mention how this last act of my loves mouth

works on the hearts of the people because my memory is faulty.


12/31

IX

Other people were constantly looking at me and saying, Look

at how many personalities you have! when I was in love. Musing on

this, I composed this sonnet, which begins: a grabby thorn, because it

spats of you.

a grabby thorn, because it spats of you

combs frenziedly to dwarf awhile with me,and so melioratively spats of loss

it maims the heap, surprise! Its own speck

the sot saws up the heap. Who is this one

that combs with consideration for our mime

and who positions such out-of-bounds streams

that he will not let other thorns reluct?

the heap replies to her: O pensile sot,

this is a lithic net aspirant of losswho brims all her designated hitters;her very liege and all his inflation

have come from that comparative ones exports

who was persuaded about our martial law.

This sonnet has two sections. In the first I tell, speaking to

some unidentified person, how I was aroused from a delirious dream by

certain citizens.


13/31

X

My only experience with mapmaking to this point was an

experience of it being a thing in principle guided over by love. There

was an abyss between myself and my love. I could not interpret the

voiding distance. I supposed later that my attempts at interpretation of

the abyss between myself and my love, or otherwise put, my love and

my love, were themselves partially successful interpretive gestures.

Many people viewed these gestures with the result that I became

constantly surrounded by the police. There was in some way a

suspicious thing about my being gesturing in an interpretive way about

the abyss between my love and my love. I also realized that the abyss

came about on account of the very account that I was loving. I

assumed that interpretation would inscribe a course for the two things,

my love and my love, to seek out and find each other. As it turns out, I

was innocent and perilous.


14/31

XI

I was crying a lot and hoping for pity from my love. Through

my tears, I began to compose this sonnet of exhortation which begins:

chiastic arms press me gently, chord me.

chiastic arms press me gently, chord me

not quite cusping the vinyl, dire present

in circles my rescue youre preventing,

salutations in lore, sir, see you morego around quasi-creature eating ore

dead tempo, keys up stalling lucidly

cant my apartment be more subtly

quite essential a member to my horrorallegory, my simple brave tenants

my core in manhood is all broken halves

Madonna revolts in the drapes Doug mendedboy, vaguely she dressed the core of hardened.

lays the rent, ultimately panacea,

oppressed girdle not videod gendering

Since the division is made only to help reveal the meaning of

the thing divided, I do not divide this sonnet; for since what has been

said of its occasion is sufficiently clear, there is no need for division.

Therefore, it is not wise for me to clear up uncertainties, for my words

of clarification would be meaningless to some and superfluous to

others.


15/31

XII

There were other books and structures about love I was

reading, being in love. It seemed to me that some of the best books

about love were concealing the fact that they were, in fact, about love.

In this way I played the role of archaeologist, if it were an ancient

book, or detective, if it was quite contemporary. On the other hand,

some of the books, while explicitly stating their theme as Love, turned

out to permit an onslaught of unimaginable violence, to beings and

economic units. These books, I realized, did not influence my own

book, but did influence the manner in which I was captured,

imprisoned, mildly tortured, and being-put-in-solitary-confinement by

Love. It was comforting to realize that others had experienced a love

like the love I loved, though sometimes it seemed that my love was a

unique experience. Other structures or books confused me, and I could

never tell whether or not they were based on love.


16/31

XIII

Surely indeed I loved in my own languages. This was evident

by the way I discussed my utter vanquishment by love in speech and in

text, and also in the way I addressed lovingly my love. When I

addressed my love in this way, with tender immense humility, I most

often would make the address inEnglish. It seemed as if English was

the best language to speak about the love I loved, and it was the first to

appear in my mouth when I thought to speak of love. It similarly

governed the ways in which I wrote about love, and sometimes in

poetry. I knew full well that other languages might be well-suited to a

discourse of love. I also knew that discussing love was not the same as

being in love. I was in love, and also discussing it. I wished at times to

make a discussion that was itself completely the same as being in love.

It was quickly evident that I could not do this in English. I began to

ardently study other languages, which gave me on one hand vertigo,

and on the other hand made me an even more suspicious character in

city _________.


17/31

XIV

At this time, I thought of a sonnet in another language, which

perfectly expressed my feelings of pain and love which begins:Im

running slamming my head on the rocks.

Im running slamming my head on the rocks

rocking slamming rocks on my head, tearingmy shirt by the rocks and running crazy

and naked on the rocks running them on

my head on the shirt Im tearing and crazy

on the rocks running on my head for a

while slamming my shirt on the rocks and my

head on the rocks I am crazy and in love

tearing my head on the slamming the shirt

crazy on the rocks I cry and I howlrunning my hands on my shirt and the rocksI howl on my head running in love on

the rocks I am crazy and naked and

slamming my head on the rocks running inlove I am tearing and crazy in love

I realize that this sonnet is very difficult. I will explain it for

the reader in a later, even more difficult chapter.


18/31

XV

Can I tell you about my daydream of love? Do I

permit my pen to scratch out in writing the nodes of sound/image

which I experienced so wholly privately? Could my daydream have the

same significance in writing as it did for me, the wretch, on that day?

Would I not find myself in the same position as the jester in that great

tale The Terrifying Other, who learned in the end that the grammar of

private experience is separate from the grammar governing acts of

speech and writing? Would I not make myself vulnerable to harm or

death-from-the-state if I succeeded? Would you accept the finished

story as a failed translation? Would the text of my daydream about

love be itself a loving action, instructing you in some way of my love,

and how astonishingly demolished I was from love and my love?

Would I not be a murderer by throwing out like a rock the actually

soundless music which occurred to me behind my eyes?


19/31

XVI

After this strange transfiguration an intense thought came to

me, one which seldom left me but rather continually oppressed me and

spoke to me in this way: You are ridiculous. Musing on this, I

commenced to write this sonnet, which begins:I have seen the eyes in

which love put down.

I have seen the eyes in which love put downwhen it has made it frightened of it,

considers it while it has been annoyed

then I say the heart wears a uniform

if it were not the gender we have laughed

I the sorry disguise with happy eyes,

would speak about such light, of how many

facts to imagine I have conquered

from the sky the movements spirit inthe man to have watched me and chosento rest in my thought and contest my love

to align every relative feeding

to see it seems to me as the poolsto have caught up to the relative heart

This sonnet is divided into four parts.


20/31

XVII

When my love greeted me, it was like the light the police

place in your face when you are being questioned. And if you asked

me any question, on any subject, my only answer was love. The love

was the end of my violent feelings toward others. As if I were being an

apple being cored, and stuffed up with the sight of my love only. I was

evidently the definition of love, illustrating the qualities and essence of

love. I was not a swift runner at this time.


21/31

XVIII

After returning from vacation, I began looking for the love

that I loved. To make a long story short, within days I had become

scandalous. I wrote this sonnet to answer that chatter, which begins:

becalms bedaubs bedims befog.

becalms bedaubs bedims befog

because bedecks befriends begrudgedbeclouds bedevils befits bequests

bedews bespeaks betrays befouls

befalls betroths bestirs begets

before begets bereaves belies

belabors belike bemused bewigged

beneath belittles besot bewail

begrimes bewares below bemoan

benumbs begone between bestowsbehaves bespoke beheads beginbeguiles between bewildered beholds

belays belauds bestrides betimes

betakes beside bereft berate

This sonnet has three parts. In the first part I tell how I

encountered Love and how it looked. In the second I relate what I was

told. In the third I tell how it vanished. The second part begins: Yet as

we met, the third:And then so much.


22/31

XIX

At this time there was a great abundance of journalism

circulating through the city concerning me, my love, and my love. For

example, the journalism reported that I was massaging my love! I wish

to clear up this matter directly. A deep question of corporeality is

brought to light by this question of, in this case, could I touch lovingly

my love with my hands, or did I not? On the other hand, my love could

have forbade my touching in any way my love. I assure you that I was

not forbid anything except the one thing I had known once, and saw in

others, that is, to be freed from the fetters of love, to be at liberty to

say. I confess on rare occasions I actually thought I had been loosed,

and massaged my extremities to see if there were pleasure or pain. On

these occasions, however, I was not not in love. Perhaps these

instances were the cause of that journalism at that time.


23/31

XX

Many marvelous things emanated from my love. I decided I

should write words in which I should explain how praiseworthy was

my love. Therefore I wrote this sonnet, which begins:give back my

follied eyes, my main guardians.

give back my follied eyes, my main guardians

your figure is soft and godly valorousfor which if you, my love, accuse me

of not being fiery/crazy Ill quit the court of love

immanently they go away to the monsters

I wander into my absurd servitude

perched exhaling dolor my pig-tears

crying a tremendous goodbye to my heart

an army is tossing my reproduced senses

into one part the work of the peopleand another the workshop of Lovehow can I see when everythings pious

and disarming? I make myself die and a servant,

and do not hope for any God or death

This sonnet is so easy to understand from that which has

preceded it that it has no need of division; therefore, leaving it, I say

that my love came into such high favor that not only was it honored and

praised, but also many others loves were honored and praised through

it.


24/31

XXI

Let me describe to you the effects being so beheld by Love

had on my physical appearance. As the canvas of the sky begins to

show strains of rust at sunset, so did red cracks line my eyes, because

of the constant weeping I felt the urgency to practice by virtue of being

in love with my love and the abyss. At this time I was nervous. Often

it was assumed that I was always going to some funeral of a beloved

friend or other, because I wore only black clothing and accessories. In

fact, I did not mourn being in love, but only the irreparable distance

between myself and my love, and the constant harassment by law

enforcement authorities, who thought significant my constant lovingly-

practiced abyss-skirting of signification. I was told by others that when

they encountered me the only thought in their heads was, love. This

was the case even though I had not been forced to admit that I was, in

fact, in love. Even less had I been required to divulge details about the

love I loved.


25/31

XXII

One day at about noon there rose in me against this adversary

of reason a strong fantasy, so that I seemed to see my glorious love

with those crimson garments with which it first appeared to my eyes.

And then I wrote, lassos by pure force, and I said, lassosbecause I was

ashamed of the fact that my eyes had wandered so. I do not divide this

sonnet, since its story makes it clear enough.

lassos by pure force melt by breathing,

who does not know sadness or the heart

the eyes drink wine and do not have valor

so they regard the masks of much money

from largesse the paean is due desire

that weep in front of very sad monsters,

especially the soft scare, if its lovethat uncertainly is the sun of martinisseek pension, and from breathing in a cave,

I do not dive into the heart at angles

but love seems three deaths if lying depositsperhaps she has in a story some sadness

which the sweet name of my love wrote about

and about death made melted speech


26/31

XXIII

There are four true things about love. The first is, it seizes you

in such a way that you do not know if it comes from inside or outside.

The second is, once it has its way with you, there is no act of the will

which can ward off the presence of the love. The third is, love is not

willing to comply with the law, except when the law is law on account

of love, which rarely but does happen in instances in which legislators

are in love, thus legislating lovingly. The fourth is there is an

accompanying despair in the fact that you cannot be your love, be the

same substance as the love you love. This despair required that I spend

many hours alone in my room, contemplating my love and the

difference between us.


27/31

XXIV

You may have heard that in the time I loved my love my love,

O that I had no tongue to make the speech which real events require

that I make, died. The grief I felt was very much like the woeful case

of the heroine in that sad taleA Pornographic Day Romp. When I first

heard the rumor that my love was dead, I, as I had done before,

massaged my extremities to see if I was feeling pain or pleasure, and to

my dismay I found that I was feeling both. I should mention to you

that while I was in love with my love and my love was living the

categories pain and pleasure did not suffice to contain the extreme

feelings of, on one hand, joy that I loved, and on the other hand, despair

that I was not my love instead of myself. At this time I found I was

feeling pleasure and pain, and this to my horror confirmed that I had

been freed from the shackles of love for my love. This is not, however,

the end of the book.


28/31

XXV

When I realized that my love was dead, I began immediately

to write a poem grieving for my loss. I was unable to write a sonnet

about my grief, but I did write the following poem, which begins:your

love makes me feel like Otto the Welf.

your love makes me feel like Otto the Welf

This poem has two parts. In the first I speak to my eyes the

way my heart was speaking within me; in the second I remove an

ambiguity by making clear who it is that speaks this way, and this part

begins here: like Otto the Welf. It could very well receive still further

analysis, but this would be superfluous since it is made clear by the

preceding account.


29/31

XXVI

By now you are wondering if my love could have possibly

died, if there was a question of the corporeality of my love. I wish to

clear this up immediately. When my love was pronounced dead, I

remained in my room and attempted to write sonnets, eulogizing and

memorializing my love in order to keep my love young and alive

forever. But I found that, no longer being in love, there was no longer

the urgency or the possibility of poetry. This was distressing to me

since I was a poet. It was around this time that the police sent a spy to

my room for the purpose of spying upon me, despite the fact that my

love had been pronounced dead and I was, therefore, no longer in love

and, therefore no longer a suspicious character in city ________. This

spy came to my room and interrogated me, and when I related my story

from the start to the finish, this spy began to experience pity. I pitied

the spy as well on account of the spy being a spy. Our mutual pity

cleared up the leverage pity lends one being over another. At this very

moment, I began to wonder if I was actually not in love.


30/31

XXVIII

After this spy from the police had stayed a while and then left,

I found that I was once again prepared to write poetry. I did not know

what to call my state of being at that time, but did hear a miraculous

angelic voice in my head, which resulted in this poem, which begins:

vatic perfidy mends the one salute.

vatic perfidy mends the one salutekills my Donner Trail done heydayd;

quells cheating con man liaison by nudes

dumbbells graze a Dior enders Mercedeshe sues beltways, he died, tends virtue

can you envision a latrine procedure,

and while facing an arsenic verdict

digest lest a damn hour dies feted?

Love is the suit for one cozy humor;

he not for solace says, pardon, pees in the

mafia juniper, lays receiving honors .Eden elicits sweat and a Gentile,

chains under sip recovering men the

chains on his peer in dolls eye the while.

This sonnet was clearly the first step toward memorializing

my love forever.


31/31

XXIX

After this sonnet there appeared to me a miraculous vision in

which I saw things that made me resolve to say no more about this

blessed love I loved, until I should be capable of writing about love in a

more worthy fashion. And to achieve this I am striving as hard as I

can, and this I know my love I loved truly also knows. So that, if it be

the wish of Love that my life continue for a few years, I hope to write

of my love that which has never been written of any other love. And

then may it please the Other who is gracious. Furthermore the noise

continued, though at times it grew slack. I knew by the reappearance of

my physical ailments and the repeated visits by the police that I was in

love and forever would be consigned to the eternal panoptical prison of

Love. At times I thought about the love I had loved, and our story, and

it always seemed to me that my love gazes upon the countenance of the

Otherwho is through all ages blessed. This was in effect the end and

beginning of the rest of my life as a lover.

my life as a lover

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