after julio cortázar*

my bourbon

i drink it at a bar, alone

its translucent honey-color is an axolotl's eye
looking into me

and, like a cortázar story,
little by little,
my bourbon axolotl steals my body,
its soul stealing through my eyes to evict me from this
honestly-not-that-well-kept apart
ment

and i feel my bourbon axolotl eye replacing me
as i am drawn out into its glass prison

and i stare up as my bourbon turns me
gently in my glass
as my bourbon raises me to its lips
sips me
no longer winces
or even registers any emotion on a calm-liquid-surface face
eyes wet and flat and blank as a tumbler ******* deep

and i don't know where i'm going or what i'm becoming but
this feeling of spiraling and draining and emptying
is everything that i know

and there is less and less of me as bourbon stares down
cold
unsmiling
neat
and silently consumes me
and i am disappearing
and i am gone

and bourbon stands,
calm, but not serene,
and bourbon walks to my car, each step carefully measured,
and bourbon drives my car to my apartment
and bourbon sleeps in my bed and goes to my job and collects my paycheck
and bourbon falls into habit and routine
and bourbon feels my
empty.

but having a body, a life, is better than being trapped in bottles and glasses
it's probably better, anyway

and bourbon won't go back, won't trade flesh back for silica,
will keep living unfeeling behind glass-eye walls until skin and sinew unknit

and bourbon is so alien and content that
it never wonders if there is anything more,
never despairs for its ending road,
treasures every drop

bourbon calls this body, this life
top shelf

bourbon knows that **** ain't cheap

Little glass axolotl perfect
shades of pink and orange.
Found him at the thrift store
brought him home &
shone him up with some  
windex and a cotton cloth.
Now he sits on the shelf  
and sometimes I pick him  
up to marvel at the smoothness  
of his back, and the perfectly formed gills  
at the sides of his head.
My little glass axolotl  
is one of the things that
pulls me through papers  
with his tiny smile and  
teensy toes. This is love caught in
silica and pigment. Yes this
is what love is.

Yesterday, there was a cloud and the cloud was turning
Today there were more, and the ounce kept burning
Some bar in Hamburg and dreams of punching Atatürk
The sister wasn't ****, no paper, seven X's
It wasn't a good time, it was a shoddy paper bar
The redneck ******* was the one who turned a star
But oh no
An axolotl with the body of a flying serpent
This is urgent, a full body of the color verdant
Learning the choreography of a murderer of burdens
The static and manic idiosyncracy of skin men
The bodies of three legends accounted to ten
But there was no reception or action back then
But who knows?
The calling of a tender serving drinks to no end
Many friends to attend to and mend the hearts
There were children who drank like worrywarts
And the shortened query of lines was eerie
Peering, they're steering like he was hearing
Some sudden tale of questionable origins in there

The fact that it's all the same **** with no name
Makes it the same old hat, the same old game
A dream of millenia ago when there was no fame
The only person booing was some swollen lame

But it's life and life is strange
How do you change the way you change the way you feel
Rotted brains that don't feel no feel, they steal
But time heals, so time equals no wounds and that's why
Why they wish to live forever on a never-ending ******
But then comes Life-ender, the scythe, ember, mender
And it's all over, no one's sober on this Rolls Royce
Range Rover, said Herbert Hoover the awful goober
And now it's all **** and there stood the stooge
A fool made of reed and a tool made of keys
But what for were keys when there's no doors in need
No trusty steed to ask for the **** or mead
Who knew that life would be so hard indeed
It's that two story fall that doesn't ****
It made them fall ill and lie still for a fill
Of this endless bucket made of Kengo's will
There was a silhuetto of a rusted stilleto
It was well kept like Velcro in a safe or the pocket
Of the dog from Kesto, that *******, he pictured it
Some poor animal and made it sit on the cover forever
That made it sever from reality and come back never
But that's a tale for another lever to pull
Or the fool with another drink in their hands
And a bit of food, delightfully canned or a machine
That was manned by a man who was made of sand
All there's left is a question I've always had
What if I was the cloud, and the cloud was dead?