Category: Christopher Kennedy

by Christopher Kennedy

If I stab you with the crescent moon, you can’t be mad at me. You can be surprised, but not angry. No one can admonish me for using the moon as a weapon. In the unimaginable world, a moon stabbing is perfectly acceptable. I know this type of romance takes patience. I’m busy in so many realms, I’m not always available. I sleep with my eyes open so I can keep you amused.

If I smother you with a rain cloud, it’s just another illusion. Don’t hold it against me. None of it’s real. I’m throwing stars at you, but you don’t even feel it. I’ve crushed you three times today with a mountain, and you go on as if nothing happened. I rose from the dead just to see what’s for dinner. I slipped though the silk membrane of time so you wouldn’t have to sleep alone tonight. I’m body and blood. I’m the good with the bad. I’m not what you think when you think you’re thinking about love.

from Ennui ProphetFind it in the library

Copyright © BOA Editions, Ltd 2011
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of BOA Editions LTD.

by Christopher Kennedy

I’m heavier than some animals, lighter than others. Also, I’m more threatening than most animals, less threatening than a few; faster than some, slower than most. I don’t bite, though, unless provoked by desire. What I want to say is: I still measure distance in years. And swans mate for life. At least that’s what I believe. I want a pair of somethings to refer to when I’m trying to make a point. The point is this: I’m an animal who knows where he stands among other animals. I can outrun a snail and threaten a housefly. I can conquer an anthill and mate for life. But the fact remains: My favorite dog has bitten the entire neighborhood. Here, boy, I say, but he ignores me, intent on running down another frightened child on a bicycle. He’s mangy, too. His collar’s too tight, and there’s no quenching his thirst. Raw meat’s the answer, but I’m too lazy to go to the store. This is the story of a boy and his dog. Though as far as I can tell, the dog ran off a long time ago.

from Ennui ProphetFind it in the library

Copyright © BOA Editions, Ltd 2011
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of BOA Editions LTD.

by Christopher Kennedy

I’m sick of them arriving on the backs of rogue elephants, and I tire of their stories of aborigines. I burrow in my basement while they traverse oceans. When I visit them, I sit in chairs made of rare bamboo and mispronounce, while they speak fluent Cantonese, a rare dialect, spoken only by a cohort of twenty on a remote, exotic plateau that can only be reached on foot.

Dishwashers are a type of marsupial, I’ve decided. So I carry several photographs of my own to show at their dinner parties. They feign interest and project their slides of an ancient fertility ritual, involving the pregnant bellies of black widow spiders they say improved their sex lives yet again.

Their papaya sorbet tastes like dung, but I’m forced to smile and watch them hula across the living room in authentic Hawaiian garb. If only their skin were a different shade of umber; if only I weren’t reduced to tears by the stories told by their bodies’ sway and the graceful movement of their pertinacious, birdlike hands.

from Ennui ProphetFind it in the library

Copyright © BOA Editions, Ltd 2011
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of BOA Editions LTD.