Macerate a few herbs aromatic
fennel, thyme, cardamom
inside the fifties housewife’s head scarf
before she stows away on the back of
an air force drone
to the old country
where her mother’s
slaughtering a goat with a
broken Coke bottle
and her father’s learning how
to dog proof the Christmas tree
No one’s taken off their boots in months
and when she passes them the shoe horn
it’s all over as soon as the landlord says
“Please, no ethnic cooking”
and you foolishly reply
“It’s just hard boiled eggs”
Oct 14, 2016
Oct 14, 2016 at 9:10 PM UTC
There’s a road sign that
one sometimes passes
on the country roads of Quebec
a child lying still on his side
next to the road
And the words read
“This child could be your own”
though of course
they are written in French
But you’d rather add brine
to an overabundance of peas
peppers and zucchinis
stuff them safely away
in a dark spot
in the kitchen cabinet
in a mason jar and
wait
for the lactic acid tang
to bring out
the pickle
These pickles
are living things
you know
and you can
almost taste them
with their garlic
and dill
But instead
you think about
snake *****
and how it
might smell
The child will be fine you say
he’ll grow up to be an insurance broker
get a divorce at 43
and when he’s eighty-four
his toes will be like gherkins
his nails infected with fungus
and he’ll remember
that day
when he
played dead.
Oct 14, 2016
Oct 14, 2016 at 6:53 PM UTC
descendant of
those kids
who signed up
to take a
one-way trip
to Mars
inside the
10 x 12 metal shelter
that separates me
from the atmosphere
that would boil
a man’s blood
in the 6 month darkness
of a Martian winter
i think about what you
said about
the smell of flowers
newly mown
grass
and the moths
that fly up
the window at night
and beat
against the glass
sometimes
you think about us
up there and
wonder
if we are happy
in our world
because you
are not
in your’s
tired
of waiting to hear
about the birth of
another royal baby
another global flood
and how that
last strawberry
was sold for $150,000
to a man with
yellowing toenails
i know it’s
only a few weeks now
before an edge
of sunlight
breaks across
the far hills
and that soon
the aluminum-walled
gardens
will yield again
their greens
my lover
died a year ago
of the Disease
and her mummy
is just a Martian stone’s
throw away
sure i still
gaze through the telescope
at your world
and watch
the last flickering lights
of your cities
but there is
more to do
here
yesterday
a new breed was born
all mole-like
and pink
she was more comfortable
outside thrashing about in the
red soil
so we left her there
and when we returned
she waved her lobster claw
in a playful gesture
back at
the Earth
Oct 13, 2016
Oct 13, 2016 at 7:59 PM UTC
i've been out digging
in the Davis Creek
for clay deposits
so thick and grey
it coats the hands
and fingernails
and soothes the mind
with its softness
with my feet
in the cool water
and my *****
i pull out handfuls
and place them
into a sack
that later
i'll empty
onto a board
in a few days
it will harden and
i'll pulverize the clods
with a mallet
screen out the
roots and pebbles
and mix the powder
with water
into a slurry
i don't know
but it seems as if
i've been playing
in the dirt since
i was a boy and
this process
still calms me
makes me feel
that maybe i have
more time left
Oct 10, 2016
Oct 10, 2016 at 10:18 AM UTC
i’ve left
bean pods
on the plants
to dry
tiger lily
capsules to mature
achenes on the lettuce
tomato and pepper
fruits in the sun
the frosts will arrive
next week
but the freezer
is full now
and the seeds
will sit in jars
resting
the work of
so many before me
i will never be able
to repay them
Oct 9, 2016
Oct 9, 2016 at 12:25 PM UTC
the dentist
sets his drill
a-spinning
into the pupil
of your right eye
liquor
a fountain of it
spurts
such
a thin stream
don’t you know that
when you hold
the coca cola juice
in your mouth like that
your teeth
will dissolve
right
down
to the pulpy center?
now they’re walking past
your open
incision
and
they each place
a small
dumpling
into it
the gases
rise up
like the chicken meat
you left
in the fridge
for too long
and you live for that moment
Oct 6, 2016
Oct 6, 2016 at 8:07 PM UTC
inside Elvis’
digital pompadour
there’s a
constitutional oligarchy
and a harelip
and
you watch
from the corner of
your eye
as he scratches
deep inside there
and sniffs at his
fingertips
and
turns to his
girl and says
how it’s
oh so redolent
of the eggs
of silverfish
and that Evel Knievel’s
cologne
was never
so sweet
Oct 5, 2016
Oct 5, 2016 at 9:54 PM UTC
i came across
an unknown tribe
in a forest of steel
and cinder blocks
they drank parsnip soup
from police helmets
raised chickens
and purple hollyhocks
they taught me that
the cockroach emits
a piercing scream
and when Ghenhis Khan’s
head appears
not to lose my self esteem
together
we split apart
the vacuum cleaner bag
reaped the dust
for our tortilla flour
and suppressed the urge
to gag
but those odd souls
they’re gone for good
spineless yes-men
now roam the Earth
pumping blood
into the Linzer torte
hawking neck cheese
and afterbirth
they argue
about the walrus
how his horn’s not
bony after all
but instead encased
in leathery skin
like a salami
or a football
they snap it off
watch and wait
soft liver spills
into their boots
rotten pears appear
and then burst open
inside their birthday suits
their senators
and corporate fish
have all but stopped evolving
they secrete universal acid
no bottle can hold it
and the earth
is slowly dissolving
Oct 4, 2016
Oct 4, 2016 at 7:21 PM UTC
we spent the
weekend
taser-gunning
the cows
Billy rigged up
a bathtub
in the pasture
where we heated
the water to a boil
and gently
placed them in
their soft smiles
thanked us
and a foamy grey film
bled out as they
sunk below
the surface
Billy retched
and I told him
to be calm
it’s just
the final essence of
their kindness rising
I said
their inner milkiness
then a ruby-throat
came to draw in
the nectar from a
cluster of bee balm flowers
immortalized in mid-air
and still more cows
wandered forward
in their smoky flatulence
we found
alphas and deltas
that we arranged
into formulas
on a tarnished
silver plate
and as the campfire embers
glowed deep red and
our sleeping sacks
beckoned to us
we drank down the
final gulps of
hot miner’s tea
and Billy pronounced it
“more of the stuff
that made Rome great”
Oct 3, 2016
Oct 3, 2016 at 8:39 PM UTC
a silverfish once
crawled
into the side
of my mouth
when I was asleep
the eggs she laid there
glistening
and plentiful
her children filled
my body cavities
invaded organs
turned them
to black tar
and hot maroon
liquid
and still I
move forward
zombie-like
not caring
Oct 2, 2016
Oct 2, 2016 at 2:13 PM UTC