[POETRY]

[01/05/26]

I’ve Known Some Ghosts

Four Poems by Romain Schmitz

I’VE LOST SOME WEIGHT BUT I’M STILL HEAVY HEARTED

OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER
AND OVER AGAIN
CRACK MY SKULL AND REMAIN IT OPEN
DEALING
WITH THE SHARP RAZOR'S EDGE
LIFE
IS A JEOPARDY

LA to Paris, Paris to LA

Today I've watched the last three Cronenberg in a row here’s my very serious review in chronological order
haunting
sucks
great/hot

the last one’s called ‘The Shrouds”
an eroto-techno-body-horror thing unfolding slow
quite sleazy and beautiful, synthetic inside
vacuum-bedded in clear plastic shroud
8K Ultra HD fetish for all voyeurs to see

it reminds me of
my morning walk at Père Lachaise Cemetery
right after my daily yoga + wailing session
my very own Parisian Walk of Fame
among the tombstone epitaphs of the greatest

this is not Hollywood this is not even LA
no coral-pink stars but engraved gold letters
and gray palm trees and gray skies
etched marble etched in history
70,000 autographs fixing token junkies

I'm afraid someone saw me
putting down my long black leather gloves
flat on the star of an old diva
crying over a grave is frowned upon
in an idols desecration era

don’t have idols, they say, or be your own one
but a world without idols is like a world without fame
or without narcotics, as Clarice says, it’s hell

listen I want more than fame / hope you feel the same

now I can say proudly I've known some ghosts
some famous ones
and I can prove it
just look in my head
I have hundreds of quartz stones where
they burned their names.

CLOSE UP OF A FACE CLOSE UP OF THE GROUND

I slip from the chair and
lay on the hardwood floor
straight solid oak boards remind me that
my ass is flaccid
Étude in D-Sharp Minor, Op. 8, No. 12: Patetico is playing
and I
play with my dick
porn and classical often remind me that
I feel like 70 at 30

LIFE IS

LIFE IS Billy Wilder’s tombstone epitaph*

LIFE IS a shitty sandwich at the train station

LIFE IS wide-eyed sincerity

LIFE IS what’s the brand of your smell?

LIFE IS sharing a meal, a talk, or a fuck, sometimes the all three, not necessarily in that order

LIFE IS rage and romance

LIFE IS coffee beans hovering above the Espresso Martini

LIFE IS two old gay Asians asking me to crash at their place within a week

LIFE IS no dress code

LIFE IS saturday night fever

LIFE IS merriam-webster.com

LIFE IS bad when one thing becomes two

LIFE IS 17 missed calls

LIFE IS 28,000 blinks per day

LIFE IS writing one word with no context in my notes app

LIFE IS body dysmorphia

LIFE IS an old-fashioned waiting room at my last analysis session

LIFE IS Eileen Myles’ dirty keyboard

LIFE IS sugar detox reels

LIFE IS grotesque

*Google it