no pretty language please
i would like to combust

how does one recover from failure?
how does one not let it consume them?

wikihow then.

for Susan O'Neill Roe

What a thrill ----
My thumb instead of an onion.
The top quite gone
Except for a sort of hinge

Of skin,
A flap like a hat,
Dead white.
Then that red plush.

Little pilgrim,
The Indian's axed your scalp.
Your turkey wattle
Carpet rolls

Straight from the heart.
I step on it,
Clutching my bottle
Of pink fizz. A celebration, this is.
Out of a gap
A million soldiers run,
Redcoats, every one.

Whose side are they one?
O my
Homunculus, I am ill.
I have taken a pill to ****

The thin
Papery feeling.
Saboteur,
Kamikaze man ----

The stain on your
Gauze Ku Klux ****
Babushka
Darkens and tarnishes and when
The balled
Pulp of your heart
Confronts its small
Mill of silence

How you jump ----
Trepanned veteran,
***** girl,
Thumb stump.

Strand by strand
Tying up the last loose ends

Headlines
An avid public, clamoring
For more
A beautiful wife allegedly
Unfaithful & now
Dead

Emotions & prejudices virtually nonexistent
Motionless, twelve talesman
No women
A dry somewhat pedantic gesture
“Is the prosecution agreeable?”
No loophole for escape
“It was never in dispute”

Smile
A twist of compassion.
Humble & beseeching

Give me.
Never.

smoke whirling out of our mouths
we listened to each other
sharing the same breath,
hearts beating together,

using places up
dangling from that balcony over the water,
sharing a confined space for an eternity.

dormant leaves unfold
as spring bursts them into life
                 "lead me to a grove
                   in celestial light"

This is to say
I have not eaten
Williams' plums
in the icebox

Nor have I seen
the stiff curl
of the wildcarrot leaf

Wordsworth's waters
on a starry night

Forgive me
for I do lack
what it means
to truly
write