Natural selection
Now just an impression
A first one
With the mass of one ton
Lowered down onto the tip of my tongue
Flowered through the tip of my handshake

Lick me like a cottonmouth snake
Sweet like lemon cake
Your charm is venom
And I yearn for its death.

The last time you saw me
Was the last time I was alive
Your charm is venom
Now unzip that denim.

Daddy takes me to the greenhouse,
behind our rotted trailer, deep in sovereign backwoods.
Marsh voices, thick like tupelo honey.

The coo of a loon, hiss of a cottonmouth, shiver of a snapping turtle.

The silver of swamp lilies lip the land in wild haze,
a veil of ochre moss tickles my nose like gauzey ginger ale
and soil clings to my ankles like a lonesome hound.

Daddy’s greenhouse is a shed, a haven.
A milieu of magic and fleur-de-cannabis
where pixies pull my curls and gnomes dance
under mushroom parasols.

My hands dip into a hollow of muddy earthworms.
I feel akin to the yellow blood of a butterfly
or pale jade of perplexing geckos.  

Daddy is a shaman.

He trims holy blooms that come from spirits
who sing in the wind like the whippoorwill at dusk.
Snipping sticky bushels, he pads tufts into his pipe,
carved in the shape of a sullen armadillo.

I watch him inhale.

                          His breath
                                               stiff
                            as a braid of mangroves.

                      He exhales a ligneous cough.

                              I don’t mind,
                                                   much.

I have cottonmouth and I'm choking
I miss your hands so I bring them close
I sit you down next to me again in my head
But your hands are full of cotton
You stuff my mouth with cotton
I'm gagging on the cotton
And you're still pretending to be compassionate
Ignoring all my gagging and choking
As you fill my mouth with cotton with a smile
Your new love sitting right on the other side
She is smiling too

On thirsty days
I curse the sun,
kick up dirt and
beat my drums
and call the rain

(it always comes.)

Oh, come on you black-eyed
***** Night. Spite me
with sleep. Strike me, like
a cottonmouth. Sing me
your dark song, like a footfall 
in my hallway, like a night watch-
man dropping his lantern,
a last turn of the fan, a whisper
of a mystery, a kiss with wisteria
and moonshine on your breath.

Pan whispered something in my ear
a secret mumbling i couldn’t understand

maybe a message of love or hate. couldn’t imagine anything else

sometimes it’s hard for us to talk out loud
things we want to say but keep inside
a desire to share but not offend

mumbling whispers might just be
the best compromise we have

For since I do not have you,
I must remember best I can,
The days like this past Monday,
When a spliff was in my hand.

I found myself searching
For that feeling in my mouth,
The one that make saliva smack,
And had me heading south.

Down to the Circle-K of course,
Since water could not cure--
And gum could not be found,
Up the isle, I saw, obscured.

Gatorade!--Amongst the chips and chocolate,
I wandered through that maze,
Oh cottonmouth, you waited so patiently,
In that silly haze.

Snakes won't cross a braided rope,
so I take the leads up from around my bed.
I remember her face-
bright and
smiling beside mine
white as if she had just shed a skin
and the dunes grow now over the urchin barrens,
a desert in the sea.
I can peer beneath the 3rd lid
my heart claws at my throat,
allergy tight from the judging shade of
green.
The 3rd lid opens over the Taklamakan,
Tibetan horns sound so old -
ancient vagus nerve endings in my throat but my heart claws them away.
Snakes won't cross a braided rope but
her eyes are green and we lay a
cottonmouth skin across her womb.
All I see are diamonds on the ring fingers.

They don't bite their brother.
Cottonmouth.
Scales sliding over toes, smelling rotten rose
Water hose and purple prose and sage burning
World turning, big organic meatgrinder, composting bones
Two tones of being alone, two bones split out your shin
Living in this big plastic garbage pile
Been doing it a while, **** down that rage
Neutron star explodes and ends the golden age, not even a story on a page

Stuck in my ways things can never change,
I should have more but the days turn strange,
I'm hittin a low spending hard earned dough to roll with satisfaction,
To hand it off making stupid transactions,
It's a standoff against myself
I have great potential that is in a developmental stage
it could lead to wealth
It's hard for me to believe in self
I have many guides but no one to truly follow
I'm losing my head Sleepyhollow
Of course I'll make the choice to have cottonmouth which makes life so hard to swallow
I need my drink of water to wash away everything I did
I'm glad I'm not a father I'm not ready for any kids
**** I haven't found my left rib I know hurt more than anything
I guess pain is the coolest
Time ***** as a Band-Aid
I need a doctor cause I'm wounded
I rather have stitches
than hang around ignorant *******
I need to find a lamp with a genie to grant all of my wishes
**** I took it back to Aladdin but you know what that's not gonna happen
Look my eyes call them red either I'm high or either from the tears I shed
It could be both but there is one I do the most
Not really trying to brag not really trying to boast
Things seem easy cause my reality is on coast
I'm trying to learn the ropes before it all gets tangled
I hate this climb to the top only cuz of the angle
There is a long journey ahead I'll pack light and try to save bread
Cuz a ***** got to eat or a ***** will end up dead.

-V.v.V. Ds