the bed is not very big

a sufficient pillow shoveling
her small manure-shaped head

one sheet on which distinctly wags

at times the weary twig
of a neckless ******
(very occasionally budding

a flabby algebraic odour

jigs
        et tout en face
always wiggles the perfectly dead
finger of thitherhithering gas.

clothed with a luminous fur

poilu

        a Jesus sags
in frolicsome wooden agony).

Elephant seals
gross and flabby
ignorant of protocol
ponderously scratch.

Uniformed unicorns
importune
tame peacocks
wearing pink petticoats.

Fluted columns fade
at twilight
into the secrecy
of a passing thought.

Toy soldiers
on parade
fragile, glittering
lost.

1
I sing the body electric,
The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.

Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?
And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul? And if the body
were not the soul, what is the soul?

2
The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself
     balks account,
That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.

The expression of the face balks account,
But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face,
It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of
     his hips and wrists,
It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist
     and knees, dress does not hide him,
The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth,
To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more,
You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side.

The sprawl and fulness of babes, the bosoms and heads of women, the
     folds of their dress, their style as we pass in the street, the
     contour of their shape downwards,
The swimmer naked in the swimming-bath, seen as he swims through
     the transparent green-shine, or lies with his face up and rolls
     silently to and from the heave of the water,
The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boats, the
     horse-man in his saddle,
Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their performances,
The group of laborers seated at noon-time with their open
     dinner-kettles, and their wives waiting,
The female soothing a child, the farmer’s daughter in the garden or
     cow-yard,
The young fellow hosing corn, the sleigh-driver driving his six
     horses through the crowd,
The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown, *****,
     good-natured, native-born, out on the vacant lot at sundown
     after work,
The coats and caps thrown down, the embrace of love and resistance,
The upper-hold and under-hold, the hair rumpled over and blinding the eyes;
The march of firemen in their own costumes, the play of masculine
     muscle through clean-setting trowsers and waist-straps,
The slow return from the fire, the pause when the bell strikes
     suddenly again, and the listening on the alert,
The natural, perfect, varied attitudes, the bent head, the curv’d
     neck and the counting;
Such-like I love—I loosen myself, pass freely, am at the mother’s
     breast with the little child,
Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line with
     the firemen, and pause, listen, count.

3
I knew a man, a common farmer, the father of five sons,
And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons.

This man was a wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person,
The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and
     beard, the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes, the richness
     and breadth of his manners,
These I used to go and visit him to see, he was wise also,
He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old, his sons were
     massive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome,
They and his daughters loved him, all who saw him loved him,
They did not love him by allowance, they loved him with personal
     love,
He drank water only, the blood show’d like scarlet through the
     clear-brown skin of his face,
He was a frequent gunner and fisher, he sail’d his boat himself, he
     had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner, he had
     fowling-pieces presented to him by men that loved him,
When he went with his five sons and many grand-sons to hunt or fish,
     you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of
     the gang,
You would wish long and long to be with him, you would wish to sit
     by him in the boat that you and he might touch each other.

4
I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round
     his or her neck for a moment, what is this then?
I do not ask any more delight, I
     swim in it as in a sea.
There is something in staying close to men and women and looking on them,
     and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well,
All things please the soul, but these please the soul well.

5
This is the female form,
A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,
It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,
I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor,
     all falls aside but myself and it,
Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what
     was expected of heaven or fear’d of hell, are now consumed,
Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response
     likewise ungovernable,
Hair, *****, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all
     diffused, mine too diffused,
Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swelling
     and deliciously aching,
Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of
     love, white-blow and delirious nice,
Bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the
     prostrate dawn,
Undulating into the willing and yielding day,
Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh’d day.

This the nucleus—after the child is born of woman, man is born
     of woman,
This the bath of birth, this the merge of small and large, and the
     outlet again.

Be not ashamed women, your privilege encloses the rest, and is the
     exit of the rest,
You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.

The female contains all qualities and tempers them,
She is in her place and moves with perfect balance,
She is all things duly veil’d, she is both passive and active,
She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as
     daughters.

As I see my soul reflected in Nature,
As I see through a mist, One with inexpressible completeness,
     sanity, beauty,
See the bent head and arms folded over the breast, the Female I see.

6
The male is not less the soul nor more, he too is in his place,
He too is all qualities, he is action and power,
The flush of the known universe is in him,
Scorn becomes him well, and appetite and defiance become him well,
The wildest largest passions, bliss that is utmost, sorrow that is
     utmost become him well, pride is for him,
The full-spread pride of man is calming and excellent to the soul,
Knowledge becomes him, he likes it always, he brings every thing to
     the test of himself,
Whatever the survey, whatever the sea and the sail he strikes
     soundings at last only here,
(Where else does he strike soundings except here?)

The man’s body is sacred and the woman’s body is sacred,
No matter who it is, it is sacred—is it the meanest one in the
     laborers’ gang?
Is it one of the dull-faced immigrants just landed on the wharf?
Each belongs here or anywhere just as much as the well-off, just as
     much as you,
Each has his or her place in the procession.

(All is a procession,
The universe is a procession with measured and perfect motion.)

Do you know so much yourself that you call the meanest ignorant?
Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight, and he or she has
     no right to a sight?
Do you think matter has cohered together from its diffuse float, and
     the soil is on the surface, and water runs and vegetation sprouts,
For you only, and not for him and her?

7
A man’s body at auction,
(For before the war I often go to the slave-mart and watch the sale,)
I help the auctioneer, the sloven does not half know his business.

Gentlemen look on this wonder,
Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for it,
For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one animal or plant,
For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily roll’d.

In this head the all-baffling brain,
In it and below it the makings of heroes.

Examine these limbs, red, black, or white, they are cunning in tendon and nerve,
They shall be stript that you may see them.
Exquisite senses, life-lit eyes, pluck, volition,
Flakes of breast-muscle, pliant backbone and neck, flesh not flabby, good-sized
     arms and legs,
And wonders within there yet.

Within there runs blood,
The same old blood! the same red-running blood!
There swells and jets a heart, there all passions, desires, reachings,
     aspirations,
(Do you think they are not there because they are not express’d in
     parlors and lecture-rooms?)

This is not only one man, this the father of those who shall be fathers
     in their turns,
In him the start of populous states and rich republics,
Of him countless immortal lives with countless embodiments and enjoyments.

How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring
     through the centuries?
(Who might you find you have come from yourself, if you could trace
     back through the centuries?)

8
A woman’s body at auction,
She too is not only herself, she is the teeming mother of mothers,
She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates to the mothers.

Have you ever loved the body of a woman?
Have you ever loved the body of a man?
Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all nations and
     times all over the earth?

If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred,
And the glory and sweet of a man is the token of manhood untainted,
And in man or woman a clean, strong, firm-fibred body, is more beautiful
     than the most beautiful face.
Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body? or the fool
     that corrupted her own live body?
For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves.

9
O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women,
     nor the likes of the parts of you,
I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the
     soul, (and that they are the soul,)
I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems, and
     that they are my poems,
Man’s, woman’s, child, youth’s, wife’s, husband’s, mother’s,
     father’s, young man’s, young woman’s poems,
Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears,
Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking or
     sleeping of the lids,
Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the
     jaw-hinges,
Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition,
Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck-slue,
Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders, and the
    ample side-round of the chest,
Upper-arm, armpit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-bones,
Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger,
     finger-joints, finger-nails,
Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-side,
Ribs, belly, backbone, joints of the backbone,
Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward round, man-*****, man-root,
Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above,
Leg-fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under-leg,
Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel;
All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your body
     or of any one’s body, male or female,
The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean,
The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame,
Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity,
Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes from woman,
The womb, the teats, *******, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping,
     love-looks, love-perturbations and risings,
The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud,
Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,
Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and
     tightening,
The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes,
The skin, the sunburnt shade, freckles, hair,
The curious sympathy one feels when feeling with the hand the naked
     meat of the body,
The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out,
The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward
     toward the knees,
The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the
     marrow in the bones,
The exquisite realization of health;
O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of
     the soul,
O I say now these are the soul!

ah, christ, what a CREW:
more
poetry, always more
P O E T R Y .

if it doesn't come, coax it out with a
laxative. get your name in LIGHTS,
get it up there in
8 1/2 x 11 mimeo.

keep it coming like a miracle.

ah christ, writers are the most sickening
of all the louts!
yellow-toothed, slump-shouldered,
gutless, flea-bitten and
obvious . . . in tinker-toy rooms
with their flabby hearts
they tell us
what's wrong with the world-
as if we didn't know that a cop's club
can crack the head
and that war is a dirtier game than
marriage . . .
or down in a basement bar
hiding from a wife who doesn't appreciate him
and children he doesn't
want
he tells us that his heart is drowning in
*****. hell, all our hearts are drowning in *****,
in pork salt, in bad verse, in soggy
love.
but he thinks he's alone and
he thinks he's special and he thinks he's Rimbaud
and he thinks he's
Pound.

and death! how about death? did you know
that we all have to die? even Keats died, even
Milton!
and D. Thomas-THEY KILLED HIM, of course.
Thomas didn't want all those free drinks
all that free *****-
they . . . FORCED IT ON HIM
when they should have left him alone so he could
write write WRITE!

poets.

and there's another
type. I've met them at their country
places (don't ask me what I was doing there because
I don't know).

they were born with money and
they don't have to ***** their hands in
slaughterhouses or washing
dishes in grease joints or
driving cabs or pimping or selling ***.

this gives them time to understand
Life.

they walk in with their cocktail glass
held about heart high
and when they drink they just
sip.

you are drinking green beer which you
brought with you
because you have found out through the years
that rich ******* are tight-
they use 5 cent stamps instead of airmail
they promise to have all sorts of goodies ready
upon your arrival
from gallons of whisky to
50 cent cigars. but it's never
there.
and they HIDE their women from you-
their wives, x-wives, daughters, maids, so forth,
because they've read your poems and
figure all you want to do is **** everybody and
everything. which once might have been
true but is no longer quite
true.

and-
he WRITES TOO.
POETRY, of
course. everybody
writes
poetry.

he has plenty of time and a
postoffice box in town
and he drives there 3 or 4 times a day
looking and hoping for accepted
poems.

he thinks that poverty is a weakness of the
soul.

he thinks your mind is ill because you are
drunk all the time and have to work in a
factory 10 or 12 hours a
night.

he brings his wife in, a beauty, stolen from a
poorer rich
man.
he lets you gaze for 30 seconds
then hustles her
out. she has been crying for some
reason.

you've got 3 or 4 days to linger in the
guesthouse he says,
"come on over to dinner
sometime."
but he doesn't say when or
where. and then you find out that you are not even
IN HIS HOUSE.

you are in
ONE of his houses but
his house is somewhere
else-
you don't know
where.

he even has x-wives in some of his
houses.

his main concern is to keep his x-wives away from
you. he doesn't want to give up a
**** thing. and you can't blame him:
his x-wives are all young, stolen, kept,
talented, well-dressed, schooled, with
varying French-German accents.

and!: they
WRITE POETRY TOO. or
PAINT. or
****.

but his big problem is to get down to that mail
box in town to get back his
rejected poems
and to keep his eye on all the other mail boxes
in all his other
houses.

meanwhile, the starving Indians
sell beads and baskets in the streets of the small desert
town.

the Indians are not allowed in his houses
not so much because they are a ****-threat
but because they are
***** and
ignorant. *****? I look down at my shirt
with the beerstain on the front.
ignorant? I light a 6 cent cigar and
forget about
it.

he or they or somebody was supposed to meet me at
the
train station.

of course, they weren't
there. "We'll be there to meet the great
Poet!"

well, I looked around and didn't see any
great poet. besides it was 7 a.m. and
40 degrees. those things
happen. the trouble was there were no
bars open. nothing open. not even a
jail.

he's a poet.
he's also a doctor, a head-shrinker.
no blood involved that
way. he won't tell me whether I am crazy or
not-I don't have the
money.

he walks out with his cocktail glass
disappears for 2 hours, 3 hours,
then suddenly comes walking back in
unannounced
with the same cocktail glass
to make sure I haven't gotten hold of
something more precious than
Life itself.

my cheap green beer is killing
me. he shows heart (hurrah) and
gives me a little pill that stops my
gagging.
but nothing decent to
drink.

he'd bought a small 6 pack
for my arrival but that was gone in an
hour and 15
minutes.

"I'll buy you barrels of beer," he had
said.

I used his phone (one of his phones)
to get deliveries of beer and
cheap whisky. the town was ten miles away,
downhill. I peeled my poor dollars from my poor
roll. and the boy needed a tip, of
course.

the way it was shaping up I could see that I was
hardly Dylan Thomas yet, not even
Robert Creeley. certainly Creeley wouldn't have
had beerstains on his
shirt.

anyhow, when I finally got hold of one of his
x-wives I was too drunk to
make it.

scared too. sure, I imagined him peering
through the window-
he didn't want to give up a **** thing-
and
leveling the luger while I was
working
while "The March to the Gallows" was playing over
the Muzak
and shooting me in the *** first and
my poor brain
later.

"an intruder," I could hear him telling them,
"ravishing one of my helpless x-wives."

I see him published in some of the magazines
now. not very good stuff.

a poem about me
too: the ******.

the ****** whines too much. the ****** whines about his
country, other countries, all countries, the ******
works overtime in a factory like a fool, among other
fools with "pre-drained spirits."
the ****** drinks seas of green beer
full of acid. the ****** has an ulcerated
hemorrhoid. the ****** picks on ****
"fragile ****." the ****** hates his
wife, hates his daughter. his daughter will become
an alcoholic, a *******. the ****** has an
"obese burned out wife." the ****** has a
spastic gut. the ****** has a
"****** brain."

thank you, Doctor (and poet). any charge for
this? I know I still owe you for the
pill.

Your poem is not too good
but at least I got your starch up.
most of your stuff is about as lively as a
wet and deflated
beachball. but it is your round, you've won a round.
going to invite me out this
Summer? I might scrape up
trainfare. got an Indian friend who'd like to meet
you and yours. he swears he's got the biggest
pecker in the state of California.

and guess what?
he writes
POETRY
too!

Botox on the high street
A jab for flabby jowls.
Is it any wonder people
Exist only in their heads?

Social media selfies taken
From above in unnatural light.
Is it still shocking people
Hate the boring everyday?

It's not easy to like yourself
In a world obsessed with image.

I used to take the back off
the telephone and stuff it with rags
and when somebody knocked
I wouldn't answer and if they persisted
I'd tell them in terms ******
to vanish.

just another old crank
with wings of gold
flabby white belly
plus
eyes to knock out
the sun.

Do you need a new ****?
Will yours just not do?
Well honey
I've got the store for you!
A gallery for butts
Come one, come all!
There's all kinds of butts
Both big and small

We've got butts that are big
Butts that are round
We've got butts that make
A tiny "toot" sound
Butts that are flat
And butts super small
Butts on short people
Butts for people who are tall

We've got butts that are firm
Hard in your grasp
Butts that are flabby
But nice ones at that
Butts so big
They cover the seat
And butts that are tiny
Cute and petite

We've got baby butts
With the softest of skin
Old ones that show
How old, where they've been
Butts that are fake
so plump and new
Butts that are real
Which are far in few

But what's this?
A **** we don't know?
Yes it's your ****!
And just look at it glow!
It's so very unique
It's one-of-a-kind!
Yes that trunk back there
Is quite some behind!

You don't need a new ****
Why yours is so you!
Who would wear it
If it wasn't on you?
Show off that **** girl!
Because it's got class
You'll have everyone saying
"What an amazing * * *"

How I describe myself.

Back fat.
Muffin top.
Flabby arms.
Thunder thighs.
Double chin.
Ugly.
Four rolls.
Worthless.
Jelly belly.
Gross.
FAT.

How others describe me.*

Funny.
Outgoing.
Warm.
Comforting.
FUN.

The list isn't nearly as long, now is it?

a porcelain grizzly bear is on my desk table
I stole it from a gas station in Oklahoma
driving 100 miles per hour
in the hope for something hopeful
a tiny minuet grasp of freedom of the road
of the cigarette endlessly burning
endlessly producing knowledge
imagination
little scroll stories that flash through the mind like rain drops or
shooting stars at night
or the clock on the microwave turning from 4:00
to 4:01

A subconscious journey
a path
a walkway
a minor walkway into the many hallway'd mind
perhaps there are no doors
no official room or building
simply hallways binding into one another like ******* eye lashes on a woman of 47
and in these hallways there are rats that like to chew on the soles of your high heeled boots
leaving you
bare foot
then the hallway floors turn into your stomach
flabby
filled with chicken skin and peanuts
A subconscious dilemma
dementia
the dogs got loose
I'll trace them by the foot prints left in the desert like snow

“Ah” my money brother told me
a snow storm
I cover my eyes only to see that I am starving from the wind
and food is scarce in my belly
everyone is dying of hunger
but the poet eats on his fingernails and the poems he abortions through the vaginal mind imagination that creates in his skull made up of glue metal objects and pizza boxes left out on side streets for hounds cats and old serial killer'd military men have left the war only to find trash on the side street and windows with yellow lanterns flaming up in the night like a forest fire
or a **** girl of 16 running through the city streets high on methamphetamines
I called the doctor he's drunk on something I made up in my mind
and Beethoven is on the bathroom shooting up ****** which isn't mine
where is the poem heading
only the humming bird and and ant on the wall will because they do not care
I am hiding something beneath the crevasses of my fingernails of 5
of 10
of 20
of 15
“there's nothing to whisper about” I told her sleeping ear in the midst of drunk A.M. night with nothing to do but make love smoke cigarettes and comment on the noises outside city of sirens that do not attract but chase the negros of criminal car thieves and the drug dealers of KCMO

she took off her dress
something glowed in her eyes
on her belly
in her *******
her legs that grew like plants in a swamp
or in a pond where the deer feed and drink
I kissed her lightly
I saw the moon shake in jealousy
so I left the room through the window
I crawled on my highheeled knees onto the roof and sang
I sang
I sang a song that didn't make sense  and I puked up tiny words of
misleading information to the past of my life
van
desert city Michigan land of
rusting
rusted
old broken toyed up frozen over
antiques
the pond is frozen over
winter won't leave me alone
poking at my eyes
the wind plays a sad song
I miss the tree of life
I want to taste the forbidden apple
but I burnt my tongue on a hot iron
or was it boiling whiskey that I drank from the oven

I took a step into a hole
the subconscious mind began the breath like a young man that crashed in a blue volvo in 1963 on a street next to a ***** house and the lights were loud and the women were thin with
thin
thin
thin
thin
and their ******* pointed
and there eyes shifted only to God
only to 1 dollar bills and the 1 whiskey and 1 more pill of the serene night
of that
hope of finding beauty in a high
but the Trees burn
and the soil is over used
bare no child dirt
the children are deaf and blind and cant run up a mountain
reach the stars
reach the ravens
reach for the
violin
that corrodes the mind like lice
like bleach on the bathroom floor
like termites in the basement
chewing on a sound
gnawing on the night's temple
this may be a problem
painting you
I'm out of oils
and the fridge is warm
that is where I keep my pistol
turn the heat on
turn the water off
lets go out dancing
lets make love
lets ****
lets kiss
lets talk about the sky
as we sit
on our bellies
drinking wine
drinking the dogs breath
drinking the hands sweat
drinking the intellectual thoughts of a book
the book is dead
Savio stands with a sword and cuts his own throat
yet nothing pours out
what is next
where does the Van go from here
where is the next highway thought
the next Used Car Dealer Ship
where is aluminium bathroom
the dishwasher with no dishes
the light bulb that dangles like a child's loose tooth in his molding to man mouth

Look over there
child
mother
indian man with no hair
old?
80?
50 probably
look over there God
look over there
look over there
behind those strange purple white blue trees
I think I see myself
standing in water
with toes
with fingers and fish circling my ankles
look over there
a deer spine
a dogs leash
an unwashed sweater that cost 50 dollars

all my pants have holes in them
all the paintings in my house are fake

her bodied was patina'd
by a kiss of lipstick

soothing
the ride back home
a swig of alcohol
as the city night ***** dominated
quietly burns
where is the loud jazz?
bursting like ******* through windows
where is the passion?
where is the drooling for a womans touch?
where is the television with a baseball in it's skull?

where is the wisdom?
I can only hold onto this rope for so long
my hands are soft
and sore
and this hole is deep
this hole smells like New Mexico
this place stinks of dog and a man who cannot wake up from a dream
because the woman he loves
is in an ocean
and he's chasing her
his eyes are strong and wide
his mouth is full of salt water
and as he looks up
there is snow
there is snow and the water freezes over
and his lover is far
she is on the other side of the shore
she is beautiful in the snow
and his eyes grasp onto that beauty
before he is frozen still


a seagull in winter flies with the crows
what a beautiful sight
I once met an ant
on a leaf of a tomato garden
the ant didn't say much
I complemented him on his life span of a day
I asked him if he ever contemplated suicide
but I guess he never got the chance
the garden dies
the tomatoes grew ill colored
and the stems
that were once straight
like young women in sun dresses
now bends
like an old man reaching for his glasses on the pavement in a sand storm of pain
he hollers out in his used up antique washed out voice of time and too many cigarettes too many women's lips and too much coffee at 5 Am
cursing death
to come
cursing god
to reveal himself
like *******
and the Garden begins to decompose
like that of a squirrel in a suburb street
or a mouse in the cats feline belly
the garden descends bent-wardly to death
to the ground
to the origin of life
of  seed.

A journey into a subconscious mind
or maybe the glance through a dying man's eye glasses.

I can hear it slicing through my brain,
like a sharp, stray tune of imperfect melody.
It tampers with desolate whimpers
A cry for attention
My contoured skin is peeled away
by those words

"Never will I be,
Pretty."

If I could just cut it off
like excess skin
like layers of flabby fats

If there's a liposuction
for dark thoughts
If I can tuck it
away from my tummy

I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Ewww
Look at you
You disgusting little girl
Your hair’s a mess
Greasy; pimply; ugly
Teeth not white enough
Eyebrows too thin
Makeup done wrong
Just give up already
Walk to the mirror, tubby
Your thighs too large
Your arms flabby
They say your skinny
Who believes them?
You don’t eat some days
You say you’re not hungry
Plus, it’s too “mainstream”
You love food
That’s your problem
Think back on today *****
You yell at them
You think your life is so hard
You make theirs miserable
Ruin what little happiness they have
Worst sister ever
Why should they ever love you?
You don’t even know what love is!
You think you do
You don’t

You ruined another friendship
You thought you were in love. Ha!
You ruin everything
You’ve ruined yourself
Arms out
Wrists up
Examine the scars
Anger and hurt
Permanently displayed
Scars; burns; signs
The world can see
Just another ******* statistic
You like that, hipster?
Didn’t think so

Oh the labels
Do you want to be classified?
Hipster; depressed; hippie; cutter
How do those even go together?
You confuse people
You don’t even know what you are
What you want
What you want to be
You wear your heart on your sleeve
You dress like a freak
Outrageous clothes
Stupid hair
Trying to make an impression?
Make people remember you?
It’s working
And not in a good way

Are you crying?
Wipe the tears from your eyes, you baby
You cry over everything
The last 48 hours
And yet you smile
You disgust me
You hide it
All too well
Are you faking the tears for attention?
Or are you just plain manipulative?
Manipulative of yourself
Your thoughts; feelings
Disgusting

Oh, stop crying over him!
It’s your fault
Remember?
You broke his heart
Like a twig
The day you broke up with him
You gave up
You quitter
You were scared of his love
Scared of your feelings
They weren’t perfect
So you ran
You’re so messed up
You ruin the good things
The ONLY good things you have
Do you think he’ll want you back?

Then another
He was a great friend
You were scared of him
Of the things that made him him
You cancelled
Again
Lies and blames followed
Mad at each other
You said good bye
And because you’re a stubborn ***
Don’t apologize
Erase him from your memories
Cry over what you had
And lost
You ******* baby

Go “escape”
You dreamer
Escape your reality
Dream big
Then give up
You can’t make it
Isn’t that what you always do?
Blame him; I see
It’s not his fault
You just can’t remember
You have no motivation
No goals
You quit too early
I can’t stand to look at you
You disgust me completely
You’re the leftovers
The flaws no one had room for
ALL wrapped up in you instead
You want to be too many things
Everything you’re not
Can’t just be happy, can you?
You want to be the good girl
Want approval
You want to be the bad girl
Drinking
Smoking
*******
You want to be crazy
Not a care in the world
You want acceptance
You don’t even know
You’re greedy
Jealous
Foolish
You clown
Stop embarrassing yourself
Don’t be proud
It’s not nearly good enough
Stop trying
Maybe one day you’ll get it
We hate you
We all secretly hate
But we hide it because we’re good people
There you go
Just go cry sweetie
Act like everything’s ok
You fake
You poser
You loathful creature
I’d hate to be you
Oh, wait
I am...

First, I spotted the gaggle sagging innocently enough,
One might say blissfully reflected in the laptop screen.
Then out of nowhere came the phrase, "whodunit?”
And from the hanging sag, a sly, silky, voice whispered,
"Ahhh, don't stop before the good part."

Clearly a few clues were left behind, wispy hair strands,
Scattered age spots, skin tags, a few moles, posed upon a
Pale listless, crinkly, lightly pimpled, surface, and from a
Wrinkly, shallow crevasse a voice teased,
"Ahhh, don't stop before the good part."

Totally hooked, curiosity piqued, southward I spied,
A once upon a time perky, treasure chest, half hidden,
Now two solemn, empty grain sacks laid east to west,
And close to death but not quite, lazily they muttered,
"Ahhh, don't stop before the good part."

The final chapter, an ancient, untold mystery solved,
No crime, no villain, nothing stolen, only flesh alchemy,
Where a plateau of supple, touchable, skin once resided,
A lumpy, bumpy, flabby flesh pillow lolled, and it murmured,
“Ahhh, Boston cream pie, a quick nap, that's the ticket."