Dennis Hinrichsen

[schema geometrica] [W/ELVIS PRESLEY & OTIS BLACKWELL & ARTHUR CRUDDUP & JUNIOR PARKER & ROY BROWN & KOKOMO ARNOLD ET ALIA]

Well I can tell your future before it comes to pass
—Seventh Son, Willie Dixon

—O Elvis you are my apocalypse // my codeine-wrecked
seventh son chorus // the twists in the spikes
in the map of your heart are saying so // so too that place
in your brain that keeps on leaking // poisoning blood
the tissue is so toxic // then poisoning body // —O thievery
& love &/or cruelty // —O impossibly brilliant
ruined future // —there’s a blood-brain barrier everywhere
taking another headshot // patterns that belong to no one
& they keep moving through us like a rhythm or a flu // rewiring
body // altering code // altering oceans // —O Otis Blackwell
forgive him he’s w/the sirens now // the instinct in his brain
still twitching // & if he is just a kid hiding behind Ike Turner’s
piano // West Memphis nightclub // Turner’s hands ablaze // Elvis is
in thrall—high water spilling—bound & gagged by keyboard

 

Dennis Hinrichsen’s recent work is This Is Where I Live I Have Nowhere Else To Go, winner of the 2020 Grid Poetry Prize. New work in The American Journal of Poetry, American Poetry Journal and forthcoming in Canary and Under A Warm Green Linden.