Caligula's Horse has Taken the Reins

7/28/2019 Caligula's Horse has Taken the Reins

1/46

a collection of poemsKyler Selby

caligulas horse hastaken the reins


2/46


3/46

But here I stand,Fingers interlocked

Behind my head, gasping.The world holds nowhere

near enough air to llthese depleted sacks of tissue,

But then a slippery, silvery thoughtcomes from the grey:

You just ran a mile and today

No one can touch you

-Jacob Selby


4/46

1st edition, February 2012

Copyright 2012 by Kyler Selby

Cover Design by Kyler Selby

[email protected]

All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be used unless it is for the purpose of

a.) furthering true love or b.) helping a friend come off of a huge

bender. Any other use of this book or its components will be greatly

frowned upon, but most likely ignored as the author has a tendency

to avoid confict like the plague.


5/46

5

scrapsthe bodies have lost their shapeworking in a ower shop is getting to methe musescaligulas horse has taken the reinsbrick and mortarcharlesfuck, i cant even think of titles nowds que

the breezes swing the hammockshidingone or the othervacatejoketo be frankred and blue and brownbeauty is not enough to sustainmiddaycrowto know what work ismissbeans

the humidity gives birth to ies in this roombastards and complexes of bastards25semanticsroad tripthe twentieththe college experience2 am, outsidedistanceit is what it isallan-michael:the reprise45 minutes each waypirahnasfebruary

table of contents

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6/46

6


7/46

7

Driving,Were watching the heat lightningUp in the clouds as we goSouthTo the casino,

And when we get there,As I lose fty bucks nextTo JamiAnd Cheyanne slips pennies into slot machinesWith David and Lesley,And as we sip free drinkAfter free drink,As a mother loses a child,And a father leaves behind his family,As a jaguar starves,And a gazelle runs free,

As Graham smokes cigarettes,And Levi,And Mark,And Matt,And David,And Anna,And Thomas drinks quietly,And as car windows steam up,And cool sheets stretch taught,Wrapping and turning around anxious feetLike seaweed around a sunken chest,

The universe is expanding to innity,And stars are dying,And the clouds are still lighting up,And everything goes onLike everything always goes on.

scraps


8/46

8

How strange to visit a graveyard on Easter,Surrounded by bodies and stones washed clean.

And how strange it is to look for your face,Or your clothes,And nd nothing.

I cant even remember what you smelled like,That box of cigarettes that I knew perfectly replicated itHas gone stale,And your jackets have hung for far too long in the closet,And your voice, what did it sound like?What did you say?What did we talk about?What did you feel like?

Theres a picture on my dresser of us,

Asleep on the green chair,And I think:I wonder if his skin was comfortable, or if his hair wasscratchy, and did he smell like smoke all the time back then,or was he still trying to hide it, and what was he feeling, didhe hurt, was he ne, was he happy, was he ever happy, ordid no one notice that he was tearing himself to pieces andfuck why couldnt he have been alright, why couldnt every-thing have just been alright?

But then I just roll over and face the window,And pull the covers over my head.

the bodies have lost their shape


9/46

9

Today I saw a ladybug and IBid it a cordial hello.But it only mumbled something about being a ladybug.So I asked it to speak up,And it said:I WAS JUST SAYING THAT IM A LADYBUG.

workinginaowershopisgettingtome


10/46

10

A girl once said to me that the word shit doesnt belong in apoem.Theres nothing poetic about it,Its crass,Its ugly,Its worthless,

Its unbearable,Its not art, its just, its just,Its just awful. Its terrible.

And she was right,Why the fuck would someone need to use thatWord

Ever in their entire goddamn lifetime?

Only pricks and bitches use it,

And they abuse it,So why should theCultured,A poet, of all people,Dare to stoop to their level?

Why should a crass, ugly, worthless, unbearable, goddamnpoet,Need to use such a crass, ugly, worthless, unbearable, god-damn word?

(Hell if I know, little girl,But keep up the good work of tearing the life out of verse,And sewing shut Eratos curved mouth with salted twine.)

themuses


11/46

1

It takes a special kind of personTo take a piss on an entire nationOn an entire socioeconomic group, to be exact,

And it takes a special kind of person,To take a G-D of love and justice,

And turn Him into a G-DOf hate and inequality.

Because what ifG-D is not a trickle-down economist?And what ifG-D is not a jingo?And what ifThose who have chipped away at,Torn fragments from,And completely ignored at times,

That G-D, in an effortTo make Him more like themselves,Are wrong?

And what if we dont nd out until its been 250 years,While the bourgeoisie fuck,And the proletariats get fucked?

Then at least we would have found out in time to cut off thehorses head.

caligulashorsehastakenthereins


12/46

12

It wasnt long agoThat we built this house,Residing quietly within its four walls,Reading, laying, singing.

But then the others came.

They sat at the foot of our bed,And stole the covers.They used all the rooms to their own liking,And ate all the food,And would shit in the toilet,And just leave it there, like animals.

And one day we kicked some of them out.But they all just sat on the door step,And the next time we opened the door,They just came in anyways,

As if this was their house to come in anyways.

But when was it?Just one week ago,That we kicked them all out,For good this time?And shooed them off the porch,Chased them past the fence,And shut the gate,

So thatYou and ICould live quietly together again.

brickandmortar


13/46

13

What was it that De Gaulle said,Just before he died?It hurts,And dont we know it, man.

Its been dark all day, the clouds storing up rain

Like children hoarding their Halloween spoils,But nally it let the torrents fall,And fall they did.

So now I retreat indoors,Typing just to hear my ngers click against the keys,And I understand nowWhy monkeys chitter,And why babies babble,And why those radio broadcastersScream into microphones about who knows what,

(And anyways, who gives a fuck?)

And to me it seems we have not come quite that far at all,Now that I think about it.

But today, it seems like I have found my voice again,And let me tell you:It hurts.

charles


14/46

14

I dont feel veryBeautifulLately orPoeticLately.

I keep sitting around, waiting for some spark of inspirationOr some muses whisper,But nothing comes.

Ive taken to writing down thingsThat I think could be beautiful if onlyThey were seen through the eyes of someoneWho was beautiful,Thinking that maybe someday Ill get around to writingabout them.

But maybe all I need to do isGet off my fucking phoneRead a book, goddamn,Start talking to people again,And maybe then,MaybeI can write that poem about theBox FortOr my car getting broken into.

But for now, Ill just wait,And Ill write about how I cant write untilThe cup gets relled.Because we are always either dead or dying,And the difference between those two is not that great,

At least, not so much that Ive noticed until just now.

fuck,icanteventhinkoftitlesnow


15/46

15

Today I went to see an old friend,You see, shes moving far, far away soon,Just like it seems that most people are movingFar, far away soon.

But this one is different.

While the others will come backBecause of their familyOr because of their friendsOr because they have no idea where else to go besides hereShe will remain in that place that is far, far away.

So I stopped by,You see, she had asked me to stop by,Just like it seems most people will askMe to stop by.

But this one is different.

When I walked in, she smiled,Reached into her bag,Pulled out two books.The rst from her husband, a Moltmann,Perfect in every way,I had looked for that very same book just the other day,And the other from her, a book of poems by Berry,With a note inside the cover,And as I walked out into the hallway,There was nothing left to do but cry.

There are many people I am leaving,But the ones who I know I am not leaving for good,Or who I know are not leaving me for good,Are the hardest to lose.

dsque


16/46

16

So I will not stop crying until the day I have themAll under the same roof once more,And love will pour out of our eyes onto the oor,And singing will ll our ears,Because we have always been in love with everyone,And everyone will be in love with us again.


17/46

17

And if that damn house is burning again then whose fault isit?Is it mine or yours or summers lustful breeze, sweepingthrough the trees,Like invisible birds that y so silently, shaking the leaves?And Im not sorry to say that the night is cool like your skin,

Or that the moon shines like your eyes as you look up at me,and ImSo thankful to that Most High G-D that I get to hold you inmy arms.And the air was so still that night as I walked outside,At three in the morning, only to nd myself a self that is notmyself,But in fact, another self that seems to have been crucied,Splayed like a madman, gasping for airAnd my air is no match for the way that you are so innitelyself-aware.

All my breaths saved up cant what youve built touchBut I will smash my sts against it, andHopefully Ill knock a brick out or two or three or four or, Idont know.

I just know that you are the weather, and you are the wind,And I swear to that Most High G-D that you cannot be heldin my hand,And I will never try to make you t.But I will hold you if you will be held,And I will sing in your ear, and every day I will tellOf all that I see, and I all that I know,So that I can tear down that calf that you have enthroned.

thebreezesswingthehammocks


18/46

18

For the past two weeks,Ive done nothing but sweep the cement at work,Picking up the little shits of all those owers,Like a father, or a caretaker.

Actually, probably more like a caretaker,

Because those fuckers are big enough to know better.

hiding


19/46


20/46

20

A week spent with a mother and father of aHusbandOf a sisterOf Cheyannes,In upstate New York,Straddling the fourth of July.

So we drive,And we listen to a jazz band play by the beach,And kids dig holes in the sand to throw reworks intoTo explode in a haze of gritty glory,And we sit in the sun,Look at the stars.

I know that this poem is not the best Ive ever written,Maybe its close to the worst, but thats okay.

I cannot write here;Im too happy here.

vacate


21/46

2

Im sick of poetryAnd Im sick of poems,And maybe its because its 2:30 in the morning,But the simple fact isRight now I feel like I could go the rest of my lifeWithout writing another

Fucking poemAnd I would be happy.

I am no poet;I never was.

The tides have turned to follow the moon,Just like I have turned and turned and turned,And who is reading?If a poet cuts his wrists in a forest,Who gets the publishing rights?

Better yet:If a poet screams at a tree,Does it make it beautiful?The answer:Only if he sells more than 10,000 copies.(Ha ha!)

I write all of this to say:Who complains about poetry in verse?

joke


22/46

22

On the drive to lunchWith my mother and grandmother,The topic of the workers revolutionPops up.And from there we speak of the transition to theAbolition of currency entirely,

Alongside the state,Resulting in the implementationOf autonomous anarcho-communist communities.

And I think,How the fuck are we talking about this?Only to answer myself that

Perhaps we all believe in anarchy or socialismAs the highest good,And those who say it out loud are just

More accepting of our nature.

And perhaps we are allCompassionate towards the needs of ourselves and others.

(But there now,I repeat myself.)

Or perhaps we are allLike the trees whoReach above the others for the most sunlight,Blocking out the plants below that cannot reach so high,

Or we are the plants that die in the shadeFor lack of light.

to be frank


23/46

23

At night we dyed her hairAnd her brothers,That day she had told her mother thatWed be getting married soon,And the next morning I told my parents as well.

And at rst youd think Id told my motherThat Id been thinking aboutShoving school kids down stair wells,Or something completely uncalled for like that.But we talked,With her, and my father,And my hands under the table,Squeezing Cheyannes ngers.I was so dizzy,But she was so strong.

And she spoke for us when I could not,And I did the same,Only it was a little less coherent.

But the fact is:When December comes,I will be complete.

Because she will be mine, and I will be hers,And the world will be ours.Or at least it will feel like ours.

redandblueandbrown


24/46

24

All I wantIs to live quietly,That everyone else may go on their way,In humble bliss, ignorant of theMan in their midst.

Because the louder I am,The more obvious it is,That Im the boy who ranWho pushed,Who begged,Who talked,And the more obvious it is,How we met,

(Oh yeah! I had forgotten he was Megans friend.Wait, wasnt he the little prick who)

Or how we used to not really be that good of friendsAt all.

(He was a real fuck wasnt he?)

All of that is to say that,I aspire to not let anyone remember who I was,

Who I am is not much better,But at least now I am much more careful.

beautyisnotenoughtosustain


25/46

25

A ghost,There in the hallway,

Calling my name.

Midday


26/46

26

To see a girl who,Like the crow in the parking lot,That was not quite black,As it was a shining, shimmeringBlue,Like the deepest end of the pond thats hidden

In the trees,In the middle of the night,

Thinks herself the color of night.

And know that she is in fact,Radiant,

Is the very denitionOf vexing.

crow


27/46

27

My rst job was in a metal box,Taking fuckers money to watch their kids play softball.I listened to Catholic talk radioUntil I recited the Our Father in my sleep.

Then I worked in a ower shop

With Cheyanne,And I lost my mind for a while,Talked to owers and bugsSwept the cement,And made just over minimum wage.

So heres where we are today:Still, it can fairly be said that I do not know what work is.

As holding a mother together at her sons funeral is notwork.

Fielding the midnight calls, sobs on the other end of the line,Asking if she was to blame, thats not work.

Reading my brothers poemsAnd listening to his musicAnd reading the books on his shelf,Writing line after line to create somethingThat can make the death of a 22 year-old seem moreWorth it,You see, this is not considered work.

My hands have no calluses, and my skin is not leather,Because as anyone who knows what work is will tell you,

Work makes you hard,

And I had never worked a day in my life.

But I have become hard.I am stone.

to know what work is


28/46

I have worked for the past two years,Gripping the darkness that kills rmly in my hands,And tearing it out of my veins piece by piece.

And that remainder ferments and boilsAnd turns my blood to poison,

But still I let it run out of me every day of my life.And the scars on Zach, and on my mother, and on myfather,I see them anew every morning when I wakeAnd every night when I sleep.

And every day I weep for them,I weep for me,I weep for the work that is unto death,The work that is known by few and seen by fewer.

I weep for nothing more than wanting to work nomore, and rest.

28


29/46

29

Inserting myself intoSituations and relationshipsFriendships with strangersWho I hardly know,Who Ive never seen,

And how am I disappointedWhen the conversations stop?

Because theyre all destined to stop,Arent they?Like fruit rolling away from the tree,Bruised and split and slowing down,That is, being slowed down,

As there is no such thing as an active fruit.

Interjected like an unnecessary comma,Like a sentence over someone elses story,Blurted out,And taken back,

And how am I disappointedWhen everything keeps turning,Though I have been three steps removedFor far longer than I ever cared to realize?

miss


30/46

30

Every one of our friendshipsIs a new life within our own life.Theyre planted, they sprout,They blossom, and then they die,From neglect,Or otherwise from natural causes.

And with each of these tiny deaths,We are set free a little bit moreTo nally die ourselves,WithoutFearOf leaving behind these monuments of sadness,

Who visit graves, or dont,

Or slosh out beer, or dont,

Or lay in bed all day, or dont.

So perhaps the trick to dying is toFirst die many times,

So that you dont kill anyone elseIn the process.

beans


31/46

3

I know a poet, a woman,Who says that all of her poetry is about either:

LoveorFruit.

The conversations are less than infrequent,And most revolve around her boyfriendAnd whats happening in their relationship,But sometimes not relationship,But most of the times relationship.

And I can see why that is,The fruit thing, that is.

The bruises,

The critiques in supermarket aisles,The cutting,Slurping,And discarding,

(And to think I couldnt tell why it all seemed so familiar,When I wrote of active fruit,ha!)

She calls herself a peach,Split into two,And I call her lucky to beSplit at all,

As life is a mistress as particularAs any mother of four could ever be,When it comes to who it chooses to beTaken home to the feeding frenzy.

thehumiditygivesbirthtoiesinthisroom


32/46

It seems that now I have becomeOne of the sculptors of the calf,One of the enemiesThat I have fought for so long.

And no matter how many poems I write

Or songs I sing,Or compliments I give,There will always be thisMemory of a careless paragraphHanging over our heads,Like smoke in the casinoWhere we went on prom night,

Or like the music that blared in our earsIn the arcade that Valentines Day.

And I cant help but feelThat the drive home providedAmple opportunityFor me to make things right

By way of a ditch or pole or red light.

Yet I am selsh once more,And beg for one more chance to notCompletely ruin everything.

Selsh once more,Like the dog that promises not to eatThe last scraps of bread for the week,Again.

And I wonder,How I expect to keep a roof over your head,Whenever I cant even keep words inside of mine,

bastardsandcomplexesofbastards

32


33/46

Words fueled by fear,Or apprehension,Or whatever the fuck it was that led me to the pointWhere Im sitting on the green chairNext to you,Managing to not only cripple you once more,But to stop my tongue for months to come,

For fear of what I might do next.

33


34/46

This is the twenty-fth poemSince the second editionOf the rst book,And Im sitting here thinking about howItll be another year before I can haveEnough material to not be embarrassed

By putting out another book the size ofA weekend calculus packet.

The ninth lineOf the twenty-fth poem,And I say:

There is nothing more terrifyingThan failure;There is nothing more eetingThan success.

25

34


35/46

Tomorrow he will be gone,But its actually more likeGone again,And whats so bad about that, am I right?

Thats terrifying.

To think that gone can stop being this impenetrableWall,And start being likened to running for the groceriesOr stopping by the gas station on the way home from work.

So soon Ill have two brothers gone,Albeit, gone in two very different senses,One close, but not much of a talker anymore,The other far, and still not much of a talker,But at least hes still alive and here and I can still

Smell him or hear him or look over and see him in the livingroom.

For gone to mean anything less thanUnignorably absentIs a tragedy and a shame.

I will miss you every day.

road trip

35


36/46

Reading Appolinaire,Je me souviens de votre voix,

And Im looking at that damn votre and thinkingOf how much you tried to hide,How much of yourself you tried to keep

In yourself,So that I wouldnt have to see.

And I dont even know if I can remember your voice now,A forgery of a forgery,I hear you when I speak,I smell you on my hands,And I think--

Why is there a goddamn votre there,Why is there a goddamn votre there?

semantics

36


37/46

A spectacular nothingSits in my chestA resounding silence,Letting me know

That nothing is really wrong,

Because nothing has been right for so long.

So the truths we speak,We speak out of spite for the conditionsWe were brought intoAnd which we will one day leave.

But that day cannot come untilWe are willing to listen to thatResounding silence in our veinsThat says:

Nothing at all.

And we dont cringe in the slightest,Just breathe and sleep and wakeAnd breathe and sleep and wake and breathe.

the twentieth

37


38/46

Damocles swordWas not nearly as sharp,Nor as heavy,As debt.

thecollegeexperience

38


39/46

Stepping out onto the front porch,I remember how you used to hate smoking alone.

You would always take a book out thereTo keep you company,Or ask me or Zach or Felts or someone to

Step outside with you.

So many of the conversations that I can recallWere conducted with a cigarette hanging from your lips.

And as I watch the embers creep closer and closer to myngers,Towards that little blue camel,I look out down the length of this slightly crushed cigaretteTowards our lawn,Slowly coming back to life,

The yellow only lying in patches.

Being back in this house,The house where I knew you,The house where you slept,The house where we both slept,

I take one last drag,Bringing the lter between my lips,Only to realize that theEmber has already fallen off.

2am,outside

39


40/46

I move in 7 hours,And Im sitting on the front porch,

Smelling my hands,Checking my phone,Flicking open my lighter,

And shutting it,Checking my phone,(No returned calls)Smelling my hands,

And it starts to rain,So I move inside.

But there is nothing to be found there.

Everyone is so far away, and perhaps this is what I wanted.

Putting distance between myself and everyone else,That scent that hangs in the air around every conversation,And perhaps this is what I wanted,

But right now, it is not.

So I smell my hands,Check my phone,Smell my hands,Check my phone,And somewhere along the line I forget how to spell the wordsmell,Apparently,So I cant even type this goddamn poem withoutHaving to backspace twenty fucking times.

Perhaps this is what I always wanted,But for now, it is not.For now, it is to not have to leave anyone behind.

distance

40


41/46

4

Even the ghts,Even the regrets,

And at this pointI dont think I even know what is I wanted.But I can say for sure,This is not it.


42/46

Crammed in a postage stampMoving fromOne side of the roomTo the other,Trying to see something new,I wait.

And Im waiting for what?The weekends are a bust,The weeknights, a chore,Maybe just waiting for something to actually happen,So I can write a fucking song about it,Or maybe a poem.

And just as music was made unapproachableBy Rosenstock,Poetry was made to be held

By Bukowski.

Because I can look at thisPerfect song and say,That, that is it. You cannot touch that.But when I look at thatImperfect verse, I sayThat, that can be mine.

But she will never be mine;As the typewriter keys stick,I am reminded of how ckle a mistress she can be.

it is what it is

42


43/46

god, hes the best poet Ive ever known.These e-mails come inNines and tens,And I dont know if hes justEfcientOr a goddamn genius.

allan-michael:thereprise

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44/46

It should be a crimeTo drive with the windows up on aNight like this.

So I stop at the seedy shell on FloodTo buy a pack of Turkish Royals,

And light it outside of the car, lingering for one more secondBefore I sit down in this box of isolation.

But as I drive towards Boyd a red car ashes its lights,And I see the cop pull around the corner,

Coming fast towards me.

So I wave out the window at the red car,And the cop waves back unknowingly,

Driving with his windows down.

45minuteseachway

44


45/46

Its days like this, when you need a hat or hood,And the cold bites your ngertips like little sh,It never really hurts, but you notice that its there,

As you pick up a letter from your uncles houseAnd you remember the time your brother set his pants on

reIn front of this very garage,And then you drive into town,Get gas,Get cigarettes,Go to the cemetery,And the gates are closed because its eleven oclock at night,So you jump the fence,Walk slowly towards that plot to nd him again,Double back thinking you missed it,But then you nd it after a minute,

Only to nd that hes not there.Its just a stupid fucking grave,With salt shakers strewn about,Alongside unsmoked cigarettes and half-empty bottles,And a picture of him on the headstone.

You talk out loud about how youve been forgetting himlately,You say,I hear you when I laugh,I smell you when I smoke,I just dont know if any of it is real.Then a spotlight hits you,And the security guard tells you that you need to leave,That hes sorry, but you need to leaveSo you stand up and walk out the gate that he opens for youWith a sad smile on his face,

And you go to Davids house to watch a movie,And Cheyannes there and she holds your head while youcry in the car,

And you cant breathe,But then you can breathe,And you stop crying,And you go inside,And it never really hurts, but you notice that its there.

pirahnas

45


46/46

Fuck February,Fuck this month and what it brings,

And I hate what happens to me,I hate who I am,And I hate that you didnt see my wedding,

Or even know that I came to the University of Oklahoma,I hate that youre not going to see my apartment,Or the house,Or the infoshop,Or the kids.

But in all of this,I love you,Despite all my hate for what happened.

But cest la vie, no?

And I want to end this book already,Not much bigger than the last,But maybe Ill stick it out to the twentieth,Waiting for that divine inspiration,

You know, the muse,The muse you fought for,That line you sought,In friends, in family,In me?

I can only hope you found it.And that we can all nd it,One of these god-forsaken days.

february

Caligula's Horse has Taken the Reins

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