Slender reeds sway gently
in the cool breeze of your passage.
The whispery songs of dusk
carry across the placid waters.
The trembling shadows of clouds
skim lightly
across the liquid mirror of the pond.

A flock of young geese
is pecking hungrily
at the waterlogged and bloated corpse
of your tutor.
The axe wound
in her eyeless skull
gapes darkly
in the dying light
of a perfect summer day.

As you glide back
across the dew-glittered meadow
toward the house,
the first tremulous notes
of the nightly choir of frogs and cicadas
float up into the darkening sky,
blanketing the thin and muffled screams
of the tutor’s daughter.
Her head cracks and implodes,
like a coconut wrapped in a wet towel,
as I lean on the handle
of the big vise
in our toolshed.

Equations and asymptotic curves;
Variables and discontinuities –
I Subtract Thee From The Sum of Humanity…

The eels down at the murky bottoms
will have thoughts for food tonight.

Soupy darkness enfolds
the wilted thornbush of your hands,
steepled plaintively in your ruined lap.

Your moist chin sags in defeat;
the mask of your tired smile
peels crookedly off your face
into the abyss of your leathery cleavage.

Ah, the void of thoughtless grief...
The burning house of your mind
lists limply to the side –
- a stranger’s hands smolder darkly
in the airless cave of your dreams.

The scar remembers the wound;
the wound remembers the pain –
- my flesh forgets your touch too soon,

Is is a sin to yearn for a nail?
Is is a crime to remember
the fleeting caress of your ice pick
on my hairless *****?
Is it a shame to laugh
when you’re hurting me beyond screams?

I remember your tender fists,
as my dog laps the essence of you
off the floor.
The dusk descends
through the flutter of curtains in the breeze.
The bath bath beckons steamily:
My wrist opens invitingly
under the gleaming caress
of my razor.

Cranky from the lack of sleep,
I twist my fin
into a knot of agony
Swoosh!!

The-...     An-...
Aw, the **** with it...

Lately
I’ve been thinking
that all men are cremated
equally crisp.
But my next door neighbor
still smolders darkly
in his backyard grill pit,
his dogs frantic in their drooling lust
to lick his charred flanks.

Dear grieving widow –
would you honor me
by dropping in for a cup of tea?
She wails and moans,
her pelvis slack
and canted downwards.
It will be a chore
to get her to loosen up enough
to hurl a ****
heavenwards.

The specifics of our last conversation
escape me.
But I do remember calling you
an angelic ****
with the personality
of a rabid piranha.

You responded, with a dreamy smile,
“But, my dear Rudolf!
I do select my prey
by their spread and heft!
After all,
I just love to hear
that gristly pop
when they open up
for my sanguine delectation...”


Aurora, CO – May 1995
Derek Bascombe

The wind has stopped,
the woods are still.
Snowflakes are coming down hard –
like shards of white thunder.

My heartbeat is ticking off
the ebb and flow of my life.

I pull the beast of my manhood
out of its lair.
It lies in my hand flaccid and shrivelled –
a stumpy story of self-reduction.

Slice by slice –
- like tiny bricks of flesh and blood –
I build the shrine of my art.
The mortar of pain
binds the days of agony.

Michelangelo and Leonardo
painted joy and beauty
with keen eyes and bristly brushes.

I sculpt torment.
My blade is dull.

Bloodknots of fried pain
coursing through my veins –
a mid-day scouring of hands, of soul.
Ah, the beast whines mournfully...

Many moons ago I chased you
through charred thickets,
through sooty caverns,
under the scalding Sirius,
blue and swollen.
The scents of our past
clung heavy in my mouth.

Then I saw you again,
small and still:
tatters of your pride
hugged your gaunt ***** –
- where my muzzle used to graze and slobber.
I want ta... my... tha... mmMM...
You  cringe there, witless and numb –
and I am upon you now...
Then I wake up,
soundless screams choking me...

I lie shivering,
blinking through stinging sweat:
Oh, your tender throat in my teeth...
Ssssh... rrrww... This mmMM....!

Strands of pure love
bind me to you,
as I gnaw on my cloven hoof
in wordless fury.
I feel your heat.
I smell your fear.
I will drive my fist
into your longings and hopes.

We shall be one again.


Aurora CO – April 1995
COPYRIGHT 1995 Derek Bascombe