I Love You Is Back

By Derrick Brown

I Love You Is Back is the second collection of work from this internationally celebrated poet, spanning 2004-2006. It includes such popular works such as ‘The Victory Explosions,†“All Distortion, All the Time,†“St. Marks,†and “The Last Poem about Anne Sexton.â€

I love Derrick Brown for the surprise of one word waking up next to another. One moment tender, funny or romantic, the next, visceral, ironic and revelatory - here is the full chaos of life. An amazing talent. -Janet Fitch, Author of White Oleander

A wit as sharp as Sedaris, a sensibility as poignant as Sexton, Brown manages to blur the lines between poet and cult writer with remarkable ease and grace. - Anthem Magazine

Derrick Brown is one of the greatest contemporary poets. Done. I always keep him on my radar. -Sage Francis, Hip-Hop Artist

• Language: English
• Publisher: Write Bloody Publishing
• Release date: Aug 13, 2010
• ISBN: 9781935904359

Derrick Brown

DERRICK c. BROWN is the winner of the 2013 Texas Book of The Year award for Poetry. He is a former paratrooper for the 82nd airborne and is the president of one of what Forbes and Filter Magazine call "...one of the best independent presses in the country", Write Bloody Publishing. He is the author of four books of poetry

Book preview

I Love You Is Back

a collection of poems 2004 - 2006

by Derrick C. Brown

Write Bloody Publishing

America’s Independent Press

Long Beach, CA

writebloody.com

Copyright © Derrick C. Brown 2006, 2012

No part of this book may be used or performed without written consent from the author, if living, except for critical articles or reviews.

Brown, Derrick C.

2nd edition.

ISBN:978-1-935904-35-9

Interior Layout by Lea C. Deschenes

Cover Designed by Matt Maust

Type set in Bergamo from www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com

Printed in Tennessee, USA

Write Bloody Publishing

Long Beach, CA

Support Independent Presses

writebloody.com

To contact the author, send an email to [e-mail]

MADE IN THE USA

Other Books by Derrick C. Brown

Strange Light

Workin’ Mime to Five

Scandalabra

I Love You Is Back

Born in the Year of the Butterfly Knife

Amalgamation (with Blaine Fontana)

Children’s Books

Valentine The Porcupine Dances Funny

I Looooove You, Whale!

Hot Hands and Ralph in... The Weirdo Winter

To all the ones wondering if they are actually writers,

the wondering says you already are.

The details you noticed say you always were.

Rewriting, questioning and kicking in doors means

you’ll be good.

—D

I Love You Is Back

One must pass through

life, red or blue, quite

naked, with the music

of the subtle sinner,

at all times ready to

party.

Only those who contemplate

the constellations

can still move us.

—Francis Picabia

Author’s Note

I was walking through a late New York City weeknight with acclaimed poet Mike McGee. We had been dancing ridiculously with the brilliant poets of the Bowery Poetry Club and The Louder Arts lushes from Bar 13. We were in the mood. You know that feeling, when no one leaves the party early, no wallflowers are blooming, the wild dancing that escalates into prime morning conversation embarrassment.

Mike and I began officially wandering the streets after the sweat-fest. I love wandering…when I have money to get home. That night I had some. I think we were in the Lower East Side. We found some graffiti. We stared at it until booze tears welled up a little. He took a photo of it. It became the title of this book. You should make someones day by posting the phrase somewhere.

Here’s to not getting caught, here’s to writing like you’re possessed, here’s to you being nuts.

—D.

All Distortion, All the Time

Someone plug my lungs back into the guitar amps!

I want to live

on all distortion, all the time.

More overdrive!

Aren’t you sick of being appraised as just wholesale?

Aren’t you sick of sailing on listing ships?

Aren’t you weary from playing cellos with ex-lover’s bones?

I want the butterfly brigade to grant me a year

with no stomach problems.

I want to affix the word un-blame in the dictionary.

I want a piano that will not warp outdoors

when the rain demands slow dancing.

I want to skew the difference between Tai Chi and Chai tea,

and end up drinking a tall glass of your graceful force.

I want to lick my hands after I touch someone that has just become

razzle dazzled.

I want birds to come close enough to hear them speak Aviation Spanish.

Abierto, abierto.

I want your record collection in my throat,

and my thumb in the electric ass of this all night jukebox.

I want my shoulder blades mounted

in the museum of beautiful knives.

I want church in a bar and a bar in every church.

I want to pass out and hear you say Amen with your body.

I want a skeleton night light in the closet.

I want your wow in my now so we become NWOW.

I want free shit to not cost anything.

I want you to feel like a disco ball of fish hooks

so you can hang on my words and I can spin in your small miracles of light.

I want my kitchen to be a Brazilian dance floor

with a pot of your sweat in the oven

and a fridge stocked with booty lust.

I want new sheets. Everyday.

I want your silver muscles cut into a quilt. Let me sleep under your strength.

I want more pony lamps. No reason.

I want to sing this into all tail pipes until I’m exhausted of puns.

I want to smell the everything.

I want to remember that the sky is so gorgeously large,

I feel stranded beneath it.

When I gasp beneath it,

I only want to gasp

for more.

Saint Mark’s

The telephone wires must be down.

You still haven’t called this winter.

I decide to go to the church,

the empty one

that looks like it was struck by meteors.

I see it from Highway 31, off the road a little bit.

The roof has blown off of the Tennessee Assembly of God,

formerly known as Saint Mark’s.

I go in with a camera.

I hope to replace some dated photographs in my home.

The backdoor is unlocked and the carpets are flooded.

Grass is clawing through the floorboards.

Red plastic flowers on their side.

There is a sycamore in the parking lot

whose leaves will not let go.

Fake stained glass decals and pews broken by axes of wind.

Hymnals warped.

There is a dove design

on the hymnal. I once saw it on a shotgun barrel.

There is a song in here calling for that lightning bolt,

the one that is still trying to land on my fork.

The window, there is a field, with no one to run to on the other side

and no reason to return to the start.

Above