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.

All mountain chains are
their origins in movements

Now North America has movement
that has
ridges, the cordilleras

simple as this makes it sound,
there is more to it:
a crumbling effect

America was drifting
against the Old World,
some Atlantic detritus
that came away
with parted company,
its origins in the encounter

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.

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.

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.

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

fly me to the moon
and let me play among the stars?
no, frank,
how about you put me in a spaceship
and launch me to the ******* end of this universe
but make sure the ship falls apart
like make sure it’s not constructed nicely
because i want to be destroyed
by the galaxies
i want my skin to tear off
while flying by massive stars
i want to be incinerated
and made to dust
i want to disappear

I look at the stain
My period has left on my favorite *******
And hold them in my hand
As I contemplate what to do with them.
I can try to get the blood out
But the stain will still linger
A reminder that I am only human
And ******* is natural but -
“Dont talk about that,
Thats so nasty.
Maybe that's why
You've been such a *****.
Typical FEMALES”
I am gross for being a woman?
Men worship my *****
But the moment I bleed
It's as disgusting as curdled milk.
Society wants to see me
As something unhuman
An object to worship
A ******, mindless creature
That does what she's told
A FEMALE.
But I am a WOMAN
I have ideas, morals, and input.
My thoughts and opinions that matter.
I can make jokes,
And drink beer,
And read,
And play video games,
And be a musician,
And speak my mind,
And bleed.
Like a FEMALE human.
Or,
Like a woman.

My mother washed potatoes
one by one while my father
went carousing with his
favorite gun; I dragged sticks
through dusty gravel while
I watched it all unravel,
wondering what to make of
such an ugly thing as love.