J.R.Pearson

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

MK ULTRA

"Can we get control of an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against fundamental laws of nature, such as self preservation?" -CIA memo January 1952

Interview with Sid Gottlieb at DeepCreek Lake
or a Spiked Bottle of Cointreau
& Cosmos Carried in a Mouthful of Clenched Teeth

No wind in his mouth, heartbeat's
breath in his ears. Said he felt salt-weaved thunder
hammering flesh into string. "If it flys it's lighter than air,
your body chant-changed to feathers
by fingertips in the left-handed dark.
Let's smoke shadows with only our voice
& a candle flckrng in the cold corner of your mind."
Said he found a way dance blooms
into violence. As if we never slit a whisper's throat
after it knelt down to liquid pearls in a snick
of moon. It was an oddity minus rhythm.
The Queen of hearts palmed by the boulevard.
Put the back of his hand to his mouth: 10'000 flame-white
sheets pass thru faces, a hypnotist hand-sign
or lives unlived floating to the surface.
Said he never heard a voice touch the blind crease
curled in an octave the same way again. Tried himself.
It was like June prayed dust thru bars into alley of last
resorts & hail marys; returned to shotgun shells absentia
pulsepoints at the witching hour. Found it there to, face
floating in the night's throat, skull caved in like maze
of mirrors, 13 choruses in g-flat with a 5th of gin & knuckle
of c4 strapped its chest. This was real voice.
Ends where it starts.
In a midnight blue torch-tip pealing flesh from bones. 

 2.

Abramson’s Coal-Mine Canaries in C-Minor

& Operation Midnight Climax at Hotel Pennsylvania

in a Spread-Eagle Manhattan Night

Ever heard a scream hit a man right between the eyes?

Blizzard in one ear, lava out the other?

He held long as he could before giving in to the white-hot irons

pounding in his pupil. Swore his brain was a wicker basket

with a cobra coiled to the breaking point inside. Said rain runs to slow,

slow. Wanted a feeling like thought struck venom split in a thunderhead

sizzling on your fingertips. Hits before it hits.

More a knowing; like we all felt each other in the dark pinned

to the back of another life. Read exit wounds in Braille

dug out of the center of the mind's eye. Read a poem half-

erased & written on a toe-tag.

Read eyes ripped off the sky's orange-oiled back. Said he'd decrypted

rock-chalk mosaics & spit-painted murals of the Tattoo Elders.

Inside-out muttered histories in the susurrus of a suppressed nod.

Thoughts quartered with a ream of steel blinking in the iris

& stashed in catacombs. Wrote it up on parchment -instantaneous mass-life

by perijove- rode a pomace dance backward thru time. Saw Schrodinger read Tzara

to Archimedes. & voila! Antikythera mechanism. None of that matters now.

3.

Lashbrook’s Unsworn Testimony with One Hand on His Gun

& the Other Caught in Time & Space

or Sights Seen Thru a Coma of a Half-Eared Sonnet

It's all predicated on him: blind herder of fireflies

& emperor to the army of bees. Knew there were keys hidden

in oblique places.

Out every window just beyond reach.

Underneath the tongue of an honest liar.

Dead center in the wake of your last step.

Said he found the secret door to slip a voice inside your head

& he'd follow it back with a tether-strand

of golden hair. You'd think he been struck awake

by a just missed echo of deja vu.

In the end he said he'd have to burn a raven's wing

in a dilated mouth of open air, flying phantom limbs

in all out thru a window. Not to worry, said death sings

in flesh-silent trebleclefs behind the third eye.

4.

Church Committee Findings

in Completely Erasable Ink & 

Mantras Sung Upside-Down While

the Bastinado Slings its Sweet Revenge

Said call it bruised sky slapped on the night's open face.

El slips down in a streak of light sewn beneath the eye.

Silent hands behind the first rib & eyes sharp as sunlight strained

thru a cracked window. Handfuls of hocus-pocus

& sheet-stained moonlight breeze the heart's boarded up mineshaft.

Sings soft as radio static in the spine. Lungs empty & sown shut

from the inside. Topaz vein of sky blears the mind, ten pails of flame dropped

from the second story on a frozen-open train of eye. A collapsed vessel

in the law's withered right hand. In our pocket?

This future wan & sickle-slapped American flesh-tone; this rhythm's

epileptic needle lust & fistula leeching real sentences. Karma? Haven't we all carved bullets

with our names & locked them in the last place anyone'll ever look?

A ruby eye trained on the door? Said let's be clear:

a tongue of vacant air is the forgotten sound in thunder that takes prone voice

into the mind. From there it's crystal: sunsets pull silica-wind thru arched

cacti in a ribcage made for two.

Each night, fossil bones march to ungiven orders.

10'000 voices move in one fluid storm.

6.

“Careful What You Do with Death & Frayed Bow Strings”

or Sonnet Found in the Deceased’s Pocket After

Terminal Interrogation & Read Outside the UN

Said voices bricked in behind the wall

found him on two fluid knees. Tried to hold a hymn

in his throat the pitch of tuning forks toned to 99 blown out

whispers. We all know what happens when eggs ride freight trains

& secrets bow-boxed & waiting to be opened.

Maybe you don't know. Never altissimo'd under light-stains

from a motionless blade? Never found your mirrored face

unrecognizable between forked fingers? This is America!

We owe the rising systole of symmetry a hard strike

from a copper-tongued axe & the forward motion of our thoughts.

There was no choice!

Bluffed a blind hand in his mind.

Swore a spit-shake with un-fleshed phalanges

& the skull behind the hood.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

J.R. Pearson played "Jonny B. Goode" in 1st grade with an audience of 15 people.
Once, I seen him eat a whole case of Elmer's Glue. He was terrible at finger painting
but he's proud of these poems. Read his stuff in A Capella Zoo ,Word Riot,
Ghoti, Weave, Boxcar Review, & Tipton. He recently was included in an anthology:Burning Gorgeous: Seven 21st Century Poets.