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Oct 2020 · 766
blair, maryland
Coop Lee Oct 2020
hand me down stories
an indian burial ground
figures in the woods
three piles of rocks
the same log
bundle of blood


               i am so, so sorry
Coop Lee Feb 2020
took his bike to the end of the street and disappeared.
he was laughing.

maybe today, just find a way
to bell the bones of magnificent fun.

she thought he was funny. he
took to the day like a wild oat.
took a bullet to the chest, still had long to go.

that old bless of a naked always-stretching lung
     [can we account for nuance?]
took.  took.  took.

holocene compounded, brain aneurism expounded.
he knew the city suffered, city slumbered, never, not ever.

your number? he asked her.
or about some kind of snake wrapped around the heart.

war chest, drum the chest, bone or breast.
twas rhythm, not explosion.
rhythm/blast.

city/socks/electronics.

the humdrum conundrum of ***, thumbs and time.
we are surrounded yet alone.
stone’d yet liquid.
remember the lung?

city/shoes/blood.

he thought she was funny.
stoop, stop to think about a text…
send.
Feb 2020 · 234
was once a wild dog
Coop Lee Feb 2020
was once a wild dog,
reborn a man, for just a brief moment in this billion year odyssey.

was once a demon,
sent to earth to destroy, instead fell in love with the woods and her toys.

was once a frog prince,
tongue-out beside a pond, with his princess to never arrive.

was once a boy,
forgot about time, scuffed knees and chin, to grow old and die.

was once a dreamer,
fell asleep and got lost…

                            [each harsh yet beautiful minute proceeds into the next, time telling its stories of love and death]
Nov 2016 · 1000
america, she
Coop Lee Nov 2016
girls, boys, friends, and words
morning river stones and stoners
water/smoke/gold bits
home known lips
years beautifully dreaming
maybe god
maybe house, and teeth, and stars, and *****
family thinking,
father, children, trees and feet/fort
of blankets
earthy far places/closer in pictures
legs been dancing
lovers been drunk beneath their best thoughts
gone
to air-like warm place, autumn
hand, or
deep fingered fruit and flame
alive to die
to die, is life
truely lived in color and crayola
kids making breathy art of movement, sport
to tongue and run
thinking of leaves, the spirit dog breathes blue
dreaming of big cool animals
he once saw
the meat of wilderness/tenderness
woman, she works the red dust
memories of street ancient holy naked heights
fun nights/fights/***** given
party lost body making ****** form waves, pool
full on tall-tales and books to seed
an empire
a televised endless story of flesh and
remember
a life, survived
passed on to a throng of youth
free spirits/springtime adventures
bottled pink sheets and the american lawn
bone-war in a distant existence
closer seen in pictures
fictions, stories told
retold, father’s factory soaked skull
his spit sweetened up in the mountains
goats we were, ready/ not ready
escaping slaughter
speaking of forests and ritual vengeance
popcorn blunted ghouls envisioned by pungent neighborhood momentum
weekend, high
Mar 2016 · 1.2k
reptilian
Coop Lee Mar 2016
that’s my kind of girl,
with the long and big teeth.
she rolls a joint.
licks it.
complete.

        “dinosaurs ****** **** up,

she says,
and we breathe big clouds,
escape the beetle-wood plague.

shapeshifter kids
thumb through the guts of a dead mammoth
/or mastodon.
i never know which is which.
Feb 2016 · 1.6k
explosives
Coop Lee Feb 2016
she’s out there on the ice again.
holy night &
positioning the gas-tanks just right.

joseph is her father, and his father,
even if not by blood,
raised flame.

foot to throat, brother remains
in the city working.
he is building a rocketship
in the basement of his apartment
complex.

back to town and dying houses.
foreclosures and fences.
lake of fire.

lights: she lingers in lights.
something so true and alive about the revelatory
of color,
of the world when lit and hit by sun
or our artifice.

her lovers: one dead by heavy
lumber, the other rewinding videotapes
in chasms of the library.
she thinks on his lips.

her dog tracks wet prints
across the carpet and floors.

wish list:
        mittens
        huckleberry jam
        iphone solar charger
        explosives
previously published in Midwestern Gothic, Literary Journal
http://midwestgothic.com/2011/01/issue-18-summer-2015/
Nov 2015 · 1.6k
machete theory
Coop Lee Nov 2015
one thousand shards, my crown was built.
not of thorns.
but bubblegum legos, saturday morning stuck
to the carpet
& days gone by.

crept out of fold and gut/   kid living
& watched by trees.
autumn watches us fall like leaves,
born of the belly and the mother.
mom quiet/

dad loud/
  men hid behind blisters and god.
  men hid behind tall towers and the bomb.
  men bled for immortality,
  warred and ****** resource for more, the door
  to an endless life.

dad taught me how the heart and brain behold blood,
& how the body manifests it/    
moves it/
follows the sun.
son follows father follows god follows ghoul.
dad taught me about the machete.
           about how “our fates will dominate us blind.
                               so man dominates the jungle.”
he told me a story of love and more glory.
of poor men and dead men.
machete theories.

he carved wooden chairs.
built a lodge.
fished the river,
    & reeled to forget the war.

harpoon the river gods.
the heart and brain behold blood,
& the body manifests it.
Coop Lee Nov 2015
even teddy said i got the sickest tricks brah.
like my abilities source from some kinda legendary liquid
                                                                ­                      / praise the lord /
monster energy should sponsor me.
a kickflip over the king’s *** hole
& a halfcab for the looky-loos.
i feel so tall when i climb that heap of asphalt trimmings
& see clear from the water tower to the bluffs.
gimme a good day, any day at the bluffs,
bottlerockets & girly birds.

her body brings a swarm of worms.
decomp,
said the f.b.i. men one by one with tweezers.
not quite the homecoming queen, still
wrapped in plastic.

look up.
see that great mess of wires, nest of powerlines and owl bones?
it crackles and croons its electro-spectral purr
all night and day.

new neck tat &
cody spends his paycheck on a crossbow.
we target practice on a bull skull.
wet cigarettes and turpentine-soaked socks for a good huff
in the dry of the roofline as it dumps.

there’s that little boy in a ghost mask again, tap-dancing
in puddles below the streetlamp,
& oversized shoes.
his grandmoms always be watchin’ from the window.
[whispers] she’s teaching him magic.

lucky unit 19: where our young dead damsel once dolled
herself up, you see
men and headlights would roll thru thrice nightly,
maybe more.
& i remember her punch red lips &
big whicker hat; while she weeded and watered her garden of begonias.

the sheriff’s deputy, hart? hicks? hogan? well he loved her a bunch.
stole her clothes in the middle of the night,
& sat beside the river sobbing into clumped fists
of bra and blouse.
i bought ******* from that guy once or twice.
harold? howard?

guess who showed his face today?
josiah, from unit 08.
since the incident with molly’s beagle, he’s been rarely seen.
took a bee line straight for the mailbox.
a package. a prize. a decoder ring/secret map sweepstakes
to be seen and deciphered.
Oct 2015 · 2.2k
ritual
Coop Lee Oct 2015
mom betrays us.
headlights into the night
& up the breakneck boulevard bluff overlooking town and terminus.
she brings his heart in a ziploc bag,
an offering
to that old burnt-out oak.

                     [husband\father\corpse]

front porch blood trails forever. she
claims self-defense and the camera-eyes caramelize her
fame & fortune & stepdaddies & book deals & ziploc pb&js & dead dog omens.
when did the heartache begin?

heir\son\brother\body
racing car ****** and fluxed up the boulevard in a ritual reach for daddy and the oak.
the girls are waiting. one two three, seeds.
brakes sabotaged. he
bursts into death, a molten ball of mazda.
father and son laugh there on the brim of here and hereafter.
apparitions uncoiled.

                    [home movies]

where mercury avenue ends
the woods begin.
& those woods are evil, an eldritch place, she laughs.
even the indians wouldn’t bury their dead there.

america.
caught between the whir of spokes and windshields reflecting
sky and skin, the blue hue
of television flickering on the hands of a family.

grandsons conjure grandmaster demons
on the ply of their treefort high.
the heart of grandma in a ziploc bag.
jupiter and saturn are in conjunction,
twelve past midnight on a tuesday in september.
a school night.

            [the babysitter brings over an unlabeled video tape, says its scary]

the children watch.
slumber party screams and pb&js.
ghouls blunted by pungent neighborhood inertia.
son, a ghost returned in rhythm and electronics,
hungry for pizza and pure vengeance.
previously published in Deluge Magazine, by Radioactive Moat Press http://www.radioactivemoat.com/deluge-issue-three.html
Oct 2015 · 3.5k
mercury ave.
Coop Lee Oct 2015
ghosts of slumber parties past.
just a haunted betamax & a stack of oreo sandwiches.
sisters braiding eachother’s hair far past the witching hour,
contemplating life without supervision.

blue house. yellow lawn.
silverback gorilla in one garage.
two garage: empty.
three garage: a woman entombed in exhaust.

          [her bloated tongue]

a gang of bmx boys pizza-fed and friday-high,
hopped up on mountain dew and trading card collectible rituals ‘n rhythmics.
they conjure a demon just to **** and dismember it.
     for funsies.
     for keepsies.

a fang for the shrine at the foot of the old oak tree.
history on the skin, long history, long thoughts, long in the nod like a calm dead frog.
bubbled, boiled, toiled, and troubled.

the woods aren’t haunted.
you   are haunted.
you   are the conduit through which the darkness displays its vivid colors.

          [treefort aflame]

the seasons furrow/
                               / the leaves fall.
little plots of land etched out – subdivision and sprawl.
on the avenue, heaven
& hell made tame and tangible.
built, re-built, and refurbished – a lawn and a lantern.
a mortgaged glory of sparkle and decay.

          [dead cat is a new cat is the old cat ran away]

pictograms of morning light display on mom’s face
as she instructs us on the gusts of love       [scrambed eggs]
& teaches us the truth of nettles sprung
from violent pine.
                                      [toast with raspberry jam]
the television.
the microwave.
the blender beverages.
hymnals of an electric kingdom.
one mom dances, the other expires.

          [restless armless girls in orange sunsets]

girl with a gun at the edge of her lawn and selling lemonade.
girl in an old wicker chair.
save her horror story for another day.

boy with a bent frame bicycle limps his way home
from one end of the avenue to the other.
his pockets full of sparkly rocks found in the lime quarry pit.
one boy in a long line of lost planets.
the driveway.
the refrigerator.
the hum of a saturday night commercial-free cassette.
where’s dad?

                         the glow of an eerie crystal
                                                                     (continued…)
previously published in Gobbet Magazine
https://gobbetmag.wordpress.com/2014/10/08/coop-lee-one-poem/
Oct 2015 · 1.8k
altered beast
Coop Lee Oct 2015
dad is in the garage.
days into spark-light and piles of polyethylene
etched.
soon, he says.
as grandaddy laughs,
rattling the icebox for more beer.

dad’s homemade android:
  the thing.
like a doll polished
& grinning, it
dances for us in the kitchen.

the dog barks, chained in the backyard.

the thing,
do-si-dos for a laugh, catches a glimpse
of the trees beyond the yard,
overheats,
circuits popping into a limp heap of pieces.
  dead.
left to mold-over in the garage.

the days.
the rain.
the cats tiptoeing along the edge of fences
across the street.
the dog barking, chained, &
snapped.
  dead
beneath a truck.

dad is in hysterics.
dad is in the garage,
weeks in and his soaked red knuckles.
mom is drinking with grandaddy.
they rattle the icebox.
  the dog.

the dog dances for us in the kitchen,
reboots and sits.
it digs a pit all night and buries three cats there.
it sleeps on the mound.
it never barks.
it waits there in the backyard, still
& staring into the trees.
  the trees.
previously published in Paper Darts Lit. Mag.
http://www.paperdarts.org/poetry/moses.html
Oct 2015 · 2.4k
blueberry nights
Coop Lee Oct 2015
earth boy.
air conditioned and living.
/or
following the light of something far from home.
begin:

old town and lovely she.
loved she.
love she like there is no other she.
the one and only she.
she dumps him.
finds a new he.
has *** with the new he in a far corner apartment complex peak
beyond the tracks. train.
troubles;
like screeching howls of love spit and ****, city
at midnight.

he buries his hopes and face in pie
at the café
volta.

new her,
wiping the counter calm yet tired yet cute and soon to close shop.
she tells him -
about the keys of lost lovers.
the doors to remain open for the sake of dreams and all possibility.
she tells him -
of the pies at the end of the night.
the cheesecake and the apple pie
/entirely gone.
the peach cobbler and the chocolate mousse
/almost gone.
but the blueberry pie, always
/untouched.

he’ll have that.
some sort of broken in the heart have that/love that/eat that/pie.
they talk for hours.
he rests his head on the counter and sleeps
icecream on his lips.
she almost kisses him right there.

and she remembers him.
attempts to call him while he’s in memphis
/or
some other southern city.
he's on somekind of journey.
he works kitchens for more money to motion further west.
westward sweat and burgers. see/saw.
little money, little love, little city
and onto the next.

she remembers him.
attempts to call him while he’s deeper into the glowing desert dome
/or vegas.
/or, you see the stars above?

she writes him letters.
and he writes her back, and in return, they fall
toward a thought, a light, a lit-up little idea of life full
on good something.

return.
to new york and old scents. old town.
corner apartment complex peak window and memories of a once-was
girl.
beyond the tracks. train.
troubles no more.
return/
to pie.

to café and concept
of sweet-tooth, sweet real something, sweet blueberry nights
and icecream.
and there she is.
with warmer winter/spring smiles than even dreamt.
and her words for hours.
she almost kisses him, but kisses him.

something perpetual
is love.
Sep 2015 · 2.0k
algorithm of love
Coop Lee Sep 2015
bottlerocket,
ski click &
shoot.

         [empress impressed.]

petrol souls drift the skin & aetherous
of our holy mother lake midday.
by alpine,
lymph node,
spine of glimmering fish;
i never truly thought that love could destroy.

       [to display the paradise boon and boom salute.]

her knife atop the stump.

*

yon machines construct art-form of reservoir (yon being short for yonder),
knee-boarder-boy wake to wake, he wags his tail when he dreams.

        [lakeside.]

tribal the beach: a family drunk on juiceboxes.
rolling rocks. tall boys
& boulders/ bountiful canyon kids
with their beautiful gasping dogs.
****** knee **** and gallop at the foot of a mountain/mound &
sugar ants stomped, longing to empire.

mom bunches her fists into sand
of stolen crag, listening closely for her childhood in the whistle
of a casio conch.
margaritaville will do.

          [to **** or kiss beetles.]

kiss;
the bitty prince.
maintain a steady alliance with all lifeforms and flora.
life is programmed as thus;
algorithm of love.

bright honeydew soaked slabs of wood,
or plank, tabletop treatise.
wet pile of seeds.

young small birds hoard seeds for winter;
teeter into spring;
& upon summer find solace in swift slip-n-slide daylights.
Sep 2015 · 2.1k
loki, dog
Coop Lee Sep 2015
montana yellow dress, the highway looked bitter sunday fit.
she knew the land given,
land taken,
thunder walking west.
met a friend. stopped to talk.
he was a holy kid or dog, both songs of kindness.
trickster cool mountain calf
waiting for the water promenade.
deep creek good old boy swimming smiles,
rose up
and shot like bang with the buzzard sioux feathers.
truth is low clouds flashing, dreams burst
in the earth room.
doused sheets of chaparral and canyon grass
a pretty laughing bird.
wet things watch the water-log, and a frog spits whiskey.
charter bus barefoot leather and a father says kids, smell the hammer,
see the hammer touch its words into the world.
work-tale living, fools bled.
river gal cut, oh
fishing.
Sep 2015 · 1.6k
honeydew
Coop Lee Sep 2015
those outtakes after dusk.
those you & me girl / high on the distillation of living trees.

we balance our bodies
over the edge of a creek
******* for minerals
&/or wet peels of gold.

fruit of pine
& animal fat for flavor,
you jump stumps &
stretch lungs to worship.
Sep 2015 · 2.3k
weed priest
Coop Lee Sep 2015
/or my *** dealer.
man alight with gemstone glands &
sticky at the tips.
each finger
pressing wet pampas cure.

the touch and study of
high-fi royal matter. (rose galactic)

savannah, hand
& fleshing meat in the heat of mother cradle.
africa man, tell me how was it?

details: the nature of today
& of tomorrow,
of pleasure kid.

t-shirt, he
prepares an atomic roll of autumn magic and smile, friends
or simply just
a spliffy belief in holy hallelujah man.
wild this.
tree of knowledge of good and evil and all in between.
tree of

the modern mystic noon
& in it is energy/vision/like midnight
but throated in such
humming beautiful light.

the sky breathes endless love,
said sun and fun,
marooning us onto an all-day sigh.
Sep 2015 · 1.3k
god of the sea
Coop Lee Sep 2015
horse aligned coil/roll of wave.
the bearded heat of sun unto birds, land **.
poseidon’s son was a bird,
out there/

                /there was a molten breach in the fissures deep.
it breathed an ooze of mother blood orange and hissing.
the coral lords photosynthesize cities from out of reef material.
where tree the family of fish, diverse and good people.
good dancers of the primordial dip.

tri-tipped dip of chips.
trident tugged zippers.
wetsuit squishy skin released.

the violent stories of men and ships.
the men and lumber treading dawn with prawns and lime.
island boys, as
big show trapeze lovers flung,
no,
as trapped monsters singing jingles
in jungles
in june.

           or july.

           the theory of hopeless elements is crushing/
           water: or currents unending.
           all above.
           all below.
Sep 2015 · 1.3k
man of the river
Coop Lee Sep 2015
i mine as well be wearing flip-flops forever
in this godforsaken century.

lonely man/me/or him sits at the edge of a river.
at the edge of a town,
on the edge of a rock round and called mama
/earth.
he is contemplating jazz,
no,
madness/women/& spontaneous combustion.
he leans the sun forward to touch his forehead/combust.
the man is homeless,
  or this is his home,
  or that van parked over there and smiling.

he balances boulders in the water,
peaked on schlitz,
contemplating birds,
no,
the blood of old age and some sort of ex-girlfriend/witch’s brew.
a malt-gut sediment.
chikee hut nap
& dreams.

this is how it is for the man/me/or him raised-up
in a single-wide or on the riverside,
with the ghost of grandaddy
& his theories on complex-costume-parties.
Sep 2015 · 2.7k
achilles says burn
Coop Lee Sep 2015
boy coils in the lawn
& early air.
grass touching him wet,
smoke crawls from his lips,

into the blue awoken,
or sky before his face.
there it dances like wild life lived
& falls away with breezy.

dearly herb to glossy reds,
he purses, thus to inhale.
sparked ember, spark clench, fist to fist.
life given to life encapsulated.

the sense of it goes steady,
goes patent cool.
he exhales, and looks to the south,
where his legs once were.
Aug 2015 · 2.1k
lagoon nebula
Coop Lee Aug 2015
she lay next to him at night
dreaming of a ghostly icon, gold
little-headed monkey god on an island nigh the cape of bone marrow.
& now
she bounds into humble years, house cat, domesticated
little smiles, little daughters, little
flowers at the supermarket.
good morning.

pull her hair, as if to tree
& family. seed shoved down her throat
& diamonds.
she remembers the jewel runners, their chunks of wet rock.
& birds
slipstreaming away their days above africa.
slug to the chest &

she awakens in a hyundai
under the beaming heat of a vacant strip-mall sun.
gravity feels soft
in this lesser pungent life.
dreamt only, of choking temp and humid archipelago nights,
the gibbons & the thieves.
the treasure chest lairs of chieftains and tribal nobodies.
war profiteers.
men of fang island fantasy.

fake it.
p.t.a. and butter spread it, to toast and/or corn.
the sun is rising
& falling
& truly just travelling ‘round.

       marinated artichoke hearts.

[baby dreams] of waves
on shore and handshake, of altered mother moons, she
is hidden in reflection
& time.
happy with the furniture.
plentiful on extra lunch meat.
Aug 2015 · 3.2k
weekend, love
Coop Lee Aug 2015
there is a camping trip planned and preserved
on the reservation of our hopes and dreams and summer sweet nothings. we
retreat upon an open-toed weekend, cooler gemmed
& ready.

there is a place in the mountains
& on that wooded ridge it is waiting to be seen and witnessed. lived
upon, lit upon,
seedling.

sure, i love you.
& sure, i’ll die. and that is forever.
& forever is -
no worry. no bluffs. no sweat.
because this life is right, and right now is everything.
yolk.
to become a bloom of love more than just words and digits and plays of
time. this time
is ours.

is good beer. great beer. &
the heat. the her. her soothes and sovereigns
on this land in which we live with the whole tribe and fun days.
we are our own dreams.
good dreams.

meet her on the shore of a river.
& she is listening and speaking and sung.
with an urge
to love and let begin.
take precedent. take my nettled little heart
and crackle like fire from it the nutrient of lonesome ode.
& from the strum of that
we begin.

we end.
we cog back into the existence of small time
small town nobodies. worked little we.
service and cinema.

thus
busting gut toward town and more weekends and more movement.
there is motion to this curve of time, kids.
curve of pages expressed
& exposed here in wayward traveled poems.
truths of some sort or hallucination. here
we daydream.
Aug 2015 · 1.9k
cannabacchanalia
Coop Lee Aug 2015
[sweet pungent synthesis]
always with dank hysterical women demonstrating the distilled liquid elixir of their many years in isolation.
they are the nitrogen-rich followers of an ultraviolet shrine, such is
a photosynthetic life-form, reacting/enacting/enhancing.
they reach for holes in the moon &
on four-legged fumes carbonize seeds into sons and daughters. birth/
life.
all flowers ache forth to display color and/or
their varietals of hairy oil content.
to dip psychotropics, thus the worship of brain frequency and light.
fresh progress,
the sugar crystal compounds impacting, intact, and swollen.
trichomes, like huddled little masses of grandbabies bowed upon the ridge.
she drips
in dance and derives her form from properties plucked by time,
by moms, and pops.
to discover is to find purity in a moment.
pure travel/ pure
death.
this growing force,
this apparition of sound within me. organics.
organisms bound by great beauty and failure.
sense not the vivid panic, or the shock of last black, but hold true
to an inner joyous/outer motionous, tessellation that is, this
fluttering of us.
us suit of hearts.
suit of leaves.
the fusion of two bodies far beyond substantial pressure.
Aug 2015 · 1.4k
sawtooth
Coop Lee Aug 2015
there is a fire, somewhere.
the sun/sun making mad love to the mother earth like hey.
hey to the water,
hey to the waves,
           & all bits below.

            endless mad love.

& electric, sing the youth.
swung the tooth of photosynthetic children trickling like tributaries
into/onto/toward all worldly tufts.
prisoners of the wild.
prisoners of the city, yet swords of something like the heart.
           like an amber ale popped spare
& nowhere but up,
baby.

old cassette-tape
as bottleneck netting. this is
stellar
fishing.

            who’s wet khakis?

mine.

visitors from the great stars and lush.
tall nettle, tall tent-
city &
popping sap campfires. acid-
dropped and cooler cocked.
rekindle this
                bliss,
                cosmos.
Jul 2015 · 1.6k
mammalian
Coop Lee Jul 2015
i watched the slow death of MTV.
the music palace impaled and heaved
onto a coal-hot pyre of cool kid consumer trash.
pregnant teens, range rover birthday bonnets,
& ***** jungle-sweat challenges.

smoke the spirits of stolen leaves.
traverse the cineplex stairs and exits
glowing. mammoth screens,
with their long shadows, long teeth, long
celluloidal gods.
death to this too.

set a heap of old chairs and furniture on fire
in the backyard, hoping neighbors will gather
to drink and laugh. or at least one of them to yell
and grab you by the collar,
violently whistling.
wait and bleed.
recently published in The Bayou Review
Jul 2015 · 2.2k
cetacean
Coop Lee Jul 2015
the sea is cold,
but the sea contains the hottest blood of all.*

             killer transients.
             people and whales.

             he needed to see his son smile
             & he did.
             a blue-trucked boy, hometown hero.

             he loved to fight
             & he fought to love.

             died in afghanistan for the pentagon boys.
            
             blame them. bomb them.
             submerge your vestigial limbs in days and home
             & simple mammalian living.
             wage and pray.
             little hours.
             little sweet nothings.

             people and whales fall older.
             think. write. ferment.
             the good deep.

             the hottest blood of all.
recently published in The Bayou Review
Jul 2015 · 2.5k
subdivision
Coop Lee Jul 2015
hammock and a stack of playboys.
first emerged,
boy.

feature trees and teens and punch drunk lovers.
chalk murals,
girl.

into the quiet density of love.
quiet city.
dance party, usa.

we end up making movies about our fathers
whether we know it or not.
home videos.

we double down on arcade tickets
& spin for a kite to tangle.
climb the town hill and bury our warmth.

kiss to forget or remember this bliss
& strange language.
strange sprawl of lights seen.

the homeowner’s association melt a pile of plastic flamingos
into an idol osiris.
dead god.
& wait,
wait for halloween.

our parentals diligently sweat.
they are conjurors of snacks and supper.
they are creatures of the ritual routine.

we ritual.
we homework.
we breathe easy, waiting for nothing.

   (except for more holidays)
recently published in The Bayou Review


//
Jul 2015 · 1.3k
grapefruit
Coop Lee Jul 2015
new summer, spoken then lived.
new letter, spelled in crayola crème.

you were the love of
my life.
plucked my heart like
squishy fruit.

we once turned the night
into paintings and poems,
particulates of
a golden time gone by.
Coop Lee Jun 2015
the sun,
the moon,
the both of us.*

portland to portland,
we are genocide: america.
we are teen murders & horror sitcoms.
globally tuneforked sacrifices,
with commercial breaks.
   land of the plumed serpent.
built on the burial grounds of chieftains tall,
but dead men.
public access: watch the tallest towers fall.
in them, men of manifest.
a beast shook.
   land of the war artifact.
our birth.
our thousand tongues.
our endless hovering demons/drones/droids of the bomb.
of the eye always watching.

destroyer.
a solar born son of aquarian blood.
prince of the death cult prestigious.
skull & ***** & throned with the boom-button ready.
aligned to die for great glory and bury the dragon one hundred thousand light-years into the dark rift.
heart of milky her.

history favors the bomb.
flavors the chip
dipped.

there was that death of the last cowboy.
his dreams returned to the stars.
his planet returned to chaos,
&/or love.
but both.
Mar 2015 · 909
cascadia
Coop Lee Mar 2015
.               her **** sprinkled spine.
                her blackened fingertips from a day cleaning and smoking in
                the pre-spring heat.
                her knife atop the stump.

memory is the root of mankind’s trouble.

                  lullabies  
                  her mother used to sang,
                  as the fish gasped and to the bone.
                  
wilderness, a strange enchanted girl.
              
            her bioluminescent tent.
            her blackened beans and tortilla-leaves and peelings of cheese.
            her knife to whittle a twig.

her moments grow like gardens left alone to ghost-over.
to sample the city wilderness
& then slip further away into a rearview idea.
new republic.

                  paradise. she’s up that trail there.
Mar 2015 · 2.7k
the wilderness
Coop Lee Mar 2015
there in the wilderness
all things go to live
and all things go to die.

she stole my shirt and hatchet
and took to the woods.
                           hacked out the heart.

traded one wilderness for another. city into
trees.
she needed to breathe
and wring wet socks, relax, and study the mycelium songs underfoot.

she she she, like a marvelous
new love.
the grass and green stuff woven.
canteen replete with wheat nectar
         or half-batch whiskey.

needs nutrient,
the seed so new.
needs space,
the daughter as she grew.

what tempest breaks the trees and old heads
of mother timber?
         perhaps deep-winter,
         to test the fiber of a florescent forest fleek.

she built a chikee from fallen arms of a sprucewood soul,
drank water from a clay-thrown bowl
and granola to heat her bones.

new fish.
the river is cold on glacier blood.
new day,
driven beyond the random access roads & cobalt blast-holes stretching
gulches bloomed in chaparral.
up they crawl along monumental spine and shoulder,
giants sleeping.

she she she, live a marvelous new love.

the wonder is seen.
the wilderness lived and remembered
by girl or elk bugling their high-decibel poems
when ready.
Feb 2015 · 2.0k
savage young man
Coop Lee Feb 2015
.                     i was ******* when the earthquake hit.
                      i’d say it was the best ****** i ever had.

an animal!
a multicellular eukaryotic organism of the kingdom ingesting other organisms to progress!
a well-organized kid of chaos strutting his stuff and puffing his puff.
rifle, duffel, falafel, phil.
fully blessed and stressed to strum forward for the sun, or fun
and fandango.

we are the people,
and the people are merely material,
and the material breathed and breached the darkness, for more.
we are man and woman and dog,
beasts screeching in a field over nothing, over everything, over ant-mounds and the sounds
of seasons meeting.
we think.

eat, drink, wine, woman, song.

he thinks
of nothing but her.
and so in the name of her, he acts, he reacts, he attacks the momentum of weekends into weekends into rhythm. he rolls
out and the words roll off and the days roll by, but this is the unfolding of life,
right?
strife upon strife upon struggle to eat,
and repeat,
and eat her *****.

he was a well-spoken yet savage young buck,
evolving to confide and subside with these friends or enemies and imbibe the night away.
repeat/
he was a rise and shine early type with a mug of hot brew.
or the dream and shine late type with a bottle of cold cider.
repeat/
his blind date is a troll woman digging through the dumpster across the street.
he is a goblin boy gritting his fangs toward a girl, on a dancefloor, in a club, and bubble go the texts.
his texts are long and resolute.
she doesn’t respond.
she does respond.
she is seeing someone else. others
from a tall tree or lineage of men with strength and material.
a tall line of men and misters and teachers and tongues, all men obsessed with death &/or glory.
and by rite i obsess with death &/or glory.
and the dog, i want the dog there with me.
and the girl.
Feb 2015 · 1.5k
woodwork
Coop Lee Feb 2015
like swirling colors, we begin at a party.
at a school
in a town
and a time on earth with the people and the streets and the trees.
tv’s/

like swirling oil of holy alignment. we begin
as a glob  (or embryo)
tiny little me/you/each
   (organic ******).

as children, involved and wearing warm hats,
we wait
on furniture.

the home stretch is free
unto college,
unto seasons, moss or mold, to bud new spells.
boy dunked in the river/
baptized.
transformed into horror.
(summer slash winter)

little brother,
little baby orb of water / air / mountain(s).
fish.
my son becomes a stoner.
he puts a giant-squid on his head
& dances the cha-cha.

star ghoul &
star-calc, skull of light/
bits of she beaming through and known only as the sky at night.
charted;
astro-logically.

in goatsblood.
& the mathematic sacraments of babylon.
meat and feast on forests of tall city steel beasts in beams; towers;
with the blood of men to raise them;
molochi.
(the consumed one)
(consumers)
swallowing dreams and family force nutrients for more and more and
more; as said to sustain.
for life is to devour.
previously published in Deluge Mag. by Radioactive Moat Press
http://issuu.com/radioactivemoat/docs/deluge_issue_three/69?e=2514487/9385958
Feb 2015 · 1.7k
nights when we were young
Coop Lee Feb 2015
truck-bedded teens smoke leaves above the tree branch cathedral;
treefort,
& fumes from her lips. her lips/
crush me oh my.
climb down to the street.
snap into a slim jim.
smash into a television.

            skateboard kids:
blackboy bent into dust and old motel.
whiteboy with fireworks spitting modern mallrat jazz.
girls of stuffed tiger and bottles shattered,
by blood
by beer
by now. she dreams
of the coast henceforth
& grips glass to imagine it like good futures.
    /****-hit.
    /swallow the pizza.

into the arcade ******,
like denim jackets and the mohawked-heads of foul foolish boys.
like little sister vanished into the music.
she presents her flesh before needled ink in the neon-rung afterlife.
she tongues flame.
she thumbs for fame and a highway to california.
she speaks in tongues to win enough tickets for the big panda bear.
her boyfriends punch faces in parking lots.

their generations gather at the apricot tree.
they pull at the seams of eachother’s tricky slips,
& watch hyenas tear through the trash
in the lawn across the street.

old factory:
old shrine of sky & night & bottles & bottlerockets
& her hair & us.
take the bus, or
walk the paths of backyards, home.
sneak thru the window,
cracked lip and shower.
to appear,
in a sunday dress.
Coop Lee Feb 2015
i dream of a coven of witches quaaluding through the night to kidnap me and fly me away as an object of their seasonal *** magick ritual, to conjure a 5th dimensional being, who will possess me when the ***** & planets are aligned just right.
the cult of drunk chicks laughs on butterscotch and blood, born in the early 90s, they are mtv-obsessed, twitter/tumblr toned, disney-raised and disney-praised and trained in the ways of camping and conjuring and makeup and volleyball, or soccer, or both. they have killer legs.

& i fall asleep for 1000 years to penumbra.
the demon has my body, and he worships their legs. and they worship his wars. and his money. and his twinkly brass knuckle conference calls. they worship his ability to peel the spines from culture and countries and cook-off the clinging meat-bits left on the bone in a broth or stew or gruel of hopeful has-beens and dreamers of love.

awaken.
to the apocalypse so long and wrought and beautiful as the novels and films and serials proposed.
the bomb was loved, and the love mushroomed, and the mushrooms were plucked and ****** upon by gleeful young savages for nutritional values.
and those values grow.
and the growth is seen as succulent fruit hanging from trees in gardens in groves and the groves are in troves where they blanket and blush.
the world is made right again,
by seedlings and the green.
Jan 2015 · 1.6k
mlk
Coop Lee Jan 2015
mlk
he was a man
no taller than an ox.
he was a galactic, well-tongued to express
love

         & liberty.
         by blood naked hopes.
         he sat shackled back and dreaming,  
         chanting for smooth justice.

                   i have come, today!
                   we have come, all days!
          
                          brothers and sisters and people before the storm
                          this you must realize…

                                   your freedom
                                   is inextricably bound
                                   to our freedom.
                                   we cannot

                                               walk alone.
Dec 2014 · 2.4k
construct
Coop Lee Dec 2014
the men end lunch with strands of glowing spit
webbed to the tips of their boots.
they huddle and coagulate, chanting as one,
then bloom with loud whispers into
heat and steel beam ******* meat to the city grid.

my father once stepped on a nail.
he turned yellow
& his leg disintegrated.
Dec 2014 · 4.0k
reefer
Coop Lee Dec 2014
eloquence in this. kiss
& cough.

from dirt to
light to
love.

days begin
with dreamcoast, cast, and chase the air,
or rhythm of rain.

raygun.
& flashpoint to ember.
to knuckle.
to cortex.

she smells fantastic.
she she she
like, a
sweet kind of thing.
like, a
nice incense.

& i feel today is a holy day of the week.
Dec 2014 · 1.4k
great white buffalo
Coop Lee Dec 2014
you approach the house in zebra-print pants, wet matches and ice’d driveway,
you stumble to ignite.
spark to flame to enchant the neighborhood with midnight light.
you of the timeless once-was,
of grass or great oak,
you held the family together.
you tried to scotch-tape a butterfly’s pulled-wings back on.

                 [the momentum of love.]

teen boys breakdown in vacant lots
thinking of what you were to them. they
drag girls up and down the hillside, thru holes of the old factory fence,
attempting the ritual of you.
the aluminum hum if wind and night,
of highway lights on the distance.
*** on a tomb of plastic curlings.

you appear in pixels and dark bars,
face painted clown-like.
hydros in your palm, knife in your hip.
you were that girl lost between city sprawl
& old woodwork,
old wooden chairs carved upon and passed back and forth from *** to ***
class to class.

bell.
pizza delivery boy.
grease-ring soaked box and to touch his knees.
the channel changes, and he holds his breath for years,
in the wake of you.
Dec 2014 · 5.2k
zodiac
Coop Lee Dec 2014
she’s the girl who sets a room on fire with laughs or real flame,
         and she stands in that same flame; ranting about herself
         with blissful intention:
                        aries.
she’s the girl who mows the lawn all day to throw a memorable party
          on perfectly pitched grass; but then spends the entire party
          with that one guy on that one roof, just the two of them:
                        taurus.
she’s the girl who ***** you fiercest only to then display sudden and
          crippling bouts of madness; she’s one of a kind, or two of a kind,
          and she means some kind of love:
                        gemini.
she’s the girl who you fall for so easily, and she falls for you so easily,
          and everything is a dream; but a dream transforms, seasons transform,
          and the peopled cities with them:
                        cancer.
she’s the girl who steals the show every time, and she leans on you
          when  she’s tired and lonely; she reads science fiction books
          and tells you all the endings, strange planets fixtured in her dreams:
                        leo.
she’s the girl who thinks too much, drinks too much, and weighs you for all
           your words; but words are her demise as she digs her arms deeper
           into the dirt to catch that feeling:
                        virgo.
she’s the girl who piles a shrine of shiny occult objects and spools through
          men like shiny other objects; she has a beautiful heart, holy or not,
          but without a doubt, entirely stylish:
                        libra.
she’s the girl who doesn't believe a ******* thing you say but kisses you
          harder when you say it; she takes you up the hill to her folks
          and they sacrifice you for blood mana:
                        scorpio.
she’s the girl who knows you best and knows even better she’s far beyond
         the depths of your league; she has deafening dreams, with or without
         you in them; for ruins she will climb or create:
                        sagittarius.
she’s the girl who buys the popcorn and eats the popcorn and sulks on
         the couch while tonguing kernels out of her teeth; she will never
         truly love you, just the idea of you:
                        capricorn.
she’s the girl who saves your life with a tracheotomy when you nearly die
         on that plum street seed; she will leave you for a another man, a man
         with a good rifle and a warm little tent:
                        aquarius.
she’s the girl who sees synchronicity in all things, all life, all dreams
         and emanations; she will love you until the smell of mexico drags her
         away upon a neverending weekend:
                        pisces.
Nov 2014 · 10.3k
avian
Coop Lee Nov 2014
no weapons, no drugs.
he had the eyeballs of an aztlan prince.
touches water.
touches hot-grill to meat /repeat/
/replete with cerveza.
                to roil in love of sun said lights, all things lovely.
                to return by city driven lights, lake to shore to shoulder.

[to sleep.]

[to dream.]

dad is on the grill, cookin’ up something scorched.
swill is on the lake, skiin’ up something else.
sweat &
stretching lungs, the sun busting gut.
unseen, bikini pink
& green sauce.
pass the tortillas.

winterous: awake.
ice-fish and stoke the pipes of flash and holy hash.
ice-fish our favorite frozen mass.
we all grow beards,
untrusting of men who wobble blades to their faces on the daily.

spring sprung and spigot. we
return to blushing shores of wet rocks
& girlfriends.
girl bands exploding amps from atop houseboats
in styles of the highly drunk and tameless.
plucked in memory
of the ******* to come before them.
Oct 2014 · 1.5k
the quarry
Coop Lee Oct 2014
rotting horse carcass.
green glowing filament by moonlight ******
& mistrust us.
radioactive drums of waste &/or dreams.
boys swimming.

fistfights at night
by headlight & tooth crackle. (spit) then bonfire pallets
lit & danced upon.
plumes
of gas-can outcries.

the days & abuelitas
& ghosts
pinched cheek - pinched cooler - grandaddy
on the grill.
his gasping yellow dogs.

judy is in the underbrush with a walkie-talkie
& a p.b.j.
desmond leaps from high rocks; he
descends into another world by way of molecular-mishap.
dove deep.
riding the portal boar.

wasps hover above spilt wine
& declare war upon brothers with b.b. guns
& firecrackers
& spf 50+. the saturday/sunday sagas
between beams of heat laughter breakdowns
to knees, to bees,
honey.

homecoming queen dead & wrapped
in plastic.
body found with
turtle bites.
fungi.
the slabs of granite.
old iron tractors bent & held by tree wives.
toast.
jam hewn hwedges of crisped bread.
previously published in Deluge Magazine by Radioactive Moat Press
http://www.radioactivemoat.com/deluge-issue-three.html
Oct 2014 · 2.1k
night terror
Coop Lee Oct 2014
the skull and spine of seventy seven men, extracted.
retribution far past putrefaction.
a pile of bones in the center of town, at the corner of washington
& rochambeau.
gather around.

           do you believe in the boogeyman?

a glitch in the darkness.
an echo of rage, high chroma bacteriophage.
every faithless father,
every sister spared,
every ritual sung just right, a brief blackout,
reconfigured pixels of outer night.

                     [bobby’s sega genesis awakens on its own]

thirty three years to the day, he
died on that suncrest boulevard, returned today just to say “hey.”

graveyard family tree and the moon.
first as a manifestation of electromagnetic phenomena
            in a videogame’s cpu. 1993.
second as a fully-fledged entity materialized via videocassette,
            hungry for pizza and pure vengeance. 2001.
third from beneath bedrock, the quarry belly baste,
            a body buried thrice, undead toxic tumescence,    
            a walking corpse heaving black plasma. 2020.

the sequel.
the son.
the spectral chosen one, he
rips out a throat or two, quite fashionably so,
a man about town throttled and disemboweled,
as friends and neighbors stumble and sprint to escape with their own godforsaken skin.
let the bone collection begin.
emerged in afterschool hallways to **** old classmates turned teachers.
emerged in afterhours offices to devour old buddies turned bankers.
emerged in the quiet dark homes of neighborhood flesh and folk.
blood soaked socks.

why? you ask, must all these people die?
vengeance?    no.
that was a lie.
he killed those people for a laugh
& that’s that.
Oct 2014 · 1.3k
the ghost of johnny moon
Coop Lee Oct 2014
meet me in the morning.
tell me this is real,
old friend.

ruins.
fallen old bricks just like people.
like the reincarnation of a dead boy
into a living boy.
zombie johnny.
bought and paid for,
brujería.

naked son &
jungle stone heads.
in the olmec valley
is the lizard and the spirit and the pupae.
particle cellular fabrication/ or retrogenesis from within
a million points of light.
skeleton witch.

& with eclipse
he is the night.
he is the city skull and steel.
an electro-flesh apparition, bloodletting the living for fun
&/or nostalgia.

some ghosts desire vengeance.
some ghosts luminate from the dark,
& emerge as a needle of near perfect retribution.

the riches and gems and towering
years later.
the families of men who buried johnny moon alive
in a box in mexico.
death to them.
like retro-teen laughs in the horror movie exploratorium.
rituals.
Coop Lee Oct 2014
they emerge from the wooded neighborhood ridge and fringe at dusk
into breadth of lawn
& limb.
witchy chicks
casting banter n bitchcraft.
teenage dead end dreamers tipped in black magick lip gloss
& glitter, their
genderfluid familiars &/or wayward boyfriends apparate
in the street pink cloud spinning wheel,
& hawking bile.
****** stella smile.
swallow a hex, send a snap, tongue along his neck
promising to fold bodies before sunrise.
the effervescent gasp
of post-ritual clarity.

in the house,
is a kid.
a gig.
the devil with a younger grip.
& the kid thrills on a bit of the ol’
         u l t r a v i o l e n c e.
****** videogames, ****** anime, ****** mayhem n melodic music.
he is a conduit of dark energy.
a pure blooded offering of the stone age/video age,
mind in a kind of kaleidoscopic way.
he is me.
bred on televised bucket slime ceremonials.

she checks her purse.
drugs & snacks & juul & a pretty dead bird.
a daughter of delphi watching your kid.
tending to him.
trending him.
popcorn smelling him, the texas chainsaw massacre on vhs just before bed.
palace of teeth n twigs.
just a short walk to the edge and then its bath time.

             the demon version is grisly and cruel.
             the angel version is starry-eyed and adventurous.

to conjure some
  thing,
at the cliff jumping.
it was fun.
previously published in BlazeVOXMagazine
http://www.blazevox.org/BX%20Covers/BXspring14/Coop%20Lee%20-%20Spring%2014.pdf
Oct 2014 · 1.3k
the constellations earned
Coop Lee Oct 2014
.                     this is an ode to moody summers; to beautiful girls who paint our lives and cruise the streets thumping sound from their cars; colors transfigured upon pattern-diffused lifescapes and brushed off; to fabricated memories of retro teen hackers and their stylish computer labs buried deep within the garages of time; to television boardroom execs gnarling their teeth like new world warlords or shepherds of glamorous violence; & plastic; to new life; new life experienced most vividly through microsoft encyclo- tropics, and tasty lazers. hefty love we heave.

for love,
configure this:
                           you sweet my urge /
                           you float my pulse unending /
                           you you you
                                                  inspire /
                                                                ­   so simply.
                           you are as they say /
                                                                ­   the substance of life.

somewhere…
in the hopelessness of our moments is an energy like none-other.
           could say it rules me…                          …like the moon rules deep.
                                                           ­                      like the way we move/speak/****/

our molecular this,
                                    is
                                         drifting

                                   & found
                                      beyond far away waters,
                                      beyond folded trees
& elephant burial grounds.
earth hewn is the extract of earth grown. skin husked
or the liquid mint of mind.
                                            [alleged consciousness]

      
         life proceeds into a stunning mandala of moments.
acts of love      &
acts of death.
smoldering bodies
                        &              cradled belly.

              [beautiful is just one word.]
              [love.]
              [one word.]

for life,
configure this:
      savor this,
                this beautiful thing that is, this elusive thing that is,
us gusting.

owls know.
owls somewhere in the backyard.
         they tell us of our kaleidoscope colors.
         show us, of our sons & fathers & mothers.
         inform us of our mysteries.
our plots beyond white fencies/subdivisions.
sundays & sunrays & somedays we’ll glisten.

by beer.
by shelter.
by daughter most precious. long walk.
                         a father watches his baby crawl into a patch of pumpkins.
                         pink little baby hands
                         and the orange gourde field of fruit.

                                           a young man dreams this.
                                           thinks this.

journey far you way-far-man.
importune to that force from within and pursue humanity’s best shapes of goodness.
me & you & everyone we know.
forever persistent in the etchings we make.

we are illusion movements.
librettos far flung from what love might want to be.
                      [the universe heaves in the corner.]
                      [it throttles on the edge and beyond.]
                      [begging for starry dynamos to impact.]
                      [and blossom.]

us
together
by mere pinging, ponging, bonging.
vibrations and hurled bits.
she/you.
girl beside me.
girl who speaks in verse and words and thoughts nothing short of realization.
she harpoons the meat of inner-me.
& from then on in
& into the tones of our children,
i brunt nothing but to want her poetry.
Sep 2014 · 861
the red mill
Coop Lee Sep 2014
it begins on a typewriter.
one year of movement.
teen spirit
and the danced rhythm of night. soon
to be in love with her.

new dream like tonight, like
hot and in paris tropics.
real elephant confessions.
he is writing a love song into the play,
with the ending
on the streets below.

for her to run away with he.
to fall deep
& suddenly find themselves
disguised and in return.

come what may,
to the love that will live forever.
Aug 2014 · 4.5k
pear
Coop Lee Aug 2014
somehow all neighborhood tribes & tribe lords love you.
somehow you beat my score on the nickelcade spaced invaders.

we leap fences
in escape of party befouled
cops. crusaders
of mustache & veiny hate.

you rip your jeans
& lose your artifacts in the creek. into
convenience store warm lights
& makeout mixtapes.
previously published in Specter Magazine
http://www.spectermagazine.com/twenty-five/lee/
Jul 2014 · 6.1k
future primitive
Coop Lee Jul 2014
in the year 2462 those with nails protruding from their palms
will talk in ancient tongues
& sway the tribes of men to eternal love,
& endless ammunition
of the soul.

spiritus.
kin, galactic
& the golden fire.
throb the saga of man,
into hip ****** illusions and combustive color schematas.
we bury our dead in flower clippings
or skull bits.

        [skateboarding rises as the highest form of intellectual sport]

thrum and plum-*** the sewers of electric babylon.
hive city reaching past gasp and wasteland,
her lips ruinous.
cement slabs and coils of fault with
vast artistic possibilities.
these skate-lords from their heaps, their clans, augmenting
& rattling bone masks
grinding themselves into meat-bit heroics
& death.
their teeth are yellowy awoken.

this is all seen globally,
via tele-cast-com-core-mind-warp-tech.
or video.

dreams impact reality
impact dreams
in such
that the cathode cortex filter, invented circa 2222,
evolves into a demi-god, a solar charged demon of unlimited knowledge.
& it mutates the psychosphere  of our mainstream public mind
with countless projected memories.
        [streamed alternate realities]
fills the belly and the brain,
but all those unhooked are skating.
sweet meat market.
ghost harddrives.

poor leftovers called children of the once-was-men
& their poolside parties.
they leap the rubble of centuries old plastic icons,
their boards, their weapons, their seeds and spit.
they hang chains from their necks
& spew black flame from their sunshaded boot-click
lickings.
they drink from large bottlesof elixer distilled
on old flowers
& worship archaic cassettes.

cults of cyborg women with gem-tipped-blade-additions
carve wooden planks from
groves of great oaks.
great oaken powers.
their creators chew gummies and bend time
to uphold
a proposed history of perfection.
they master pong from their crystalline towers,
& hire mathematicians to write
conceptual skate-deck algorithms,
solely for fun.
non-profit.
Jul 2014 · 1.5k
tazer dream
Coop Lee Jul 2014
prepare for the high gates to fall.
for the great bowl of us
to submerge under stolen soul waves
& atomic guts.

the seven year tribes; or
fissure of statehoods and broods and brother against brother.
end drenched in whisky blood,
& desperado cheese.
fungus.

[the rebellion kids] with their drums and sling-shots,
get their throats cut in the open street sweet heat
& blitzkrieg.
all first-born hearts plucked
from atop the great pyramid, preserved, and in
frosted time-capsules.

yet the leopards remain healthy.
while cities plunge into putrefaction &/or
radioactive ****.
from **** to corner to tomahawk
in skull death note.

beaten back to the parking-lot of a best western;
in the battle of sacramento;
is an ammo-less infantry drummer,
& a bleeding medic.
they laugh and snap morphine tips
in the revelry of their final formations.

moon crescent
slows and all the woods liven with flocks of small children.
they live on plant sugars, wild
mushroom and boiled water.
they hide in caves of ancient etch;
old time-gone man & woman & buffalo.

they hunt owls with homemade crossbows
& cook the meat on holy spits.
grinding the little bones
into tincture rubbed beneath their eyes.
this, to exhume an astral essence.
previously published in BlazeVOX Magazine
http://www.blazevox.org/BX%20Covers/BXspring14/Coop%20Lee%20-%20Spring%2014.pdf
Jul 2014 · 908
the wars
Coop Lee Jul 2014
the love and romance.
the years lit by artillery.
the wars.

the men did these wild things. these great grand expressions of love and survival.
they’d damage themselves, bleed while moving furniture.
wood splinters better painted red wet warmth.
they’d notch together plum-cut bricks into
crenulations or walls or cathedrals.
home built.

the women: of an ancient woven fiber
and/or old energy, they’d battle serpents into dark and drunk loneliness.
she conspired for a happy life.

death by the meadow.
old woman remembering young woman and
young man,
now old man approaching.
the world forgets, but we will always have eachother.

remember us youths in proto-revolution.
we didn’t believe in what we did.
we lived a lie.
all america.
dreaming and soap opera.
daytime television blastulas.

the wars are fought early, and fierce.
the wars are won and lost on highschool dancefloors.
highschool blacktops. blackboards. breathy
kissing.
spectral codes of light.

and we bloom outward into livelihoods and
incomes.
timelines.
trenches to crawl from shell-shocked and screaming ****** ******.
or not.
but yes -

the world is built on blisters and scar tissue.
nothing is untouched.
nothing is unwounded.
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