you have me running in
dangerous circles (round and round and round and)

or is it you that circles me ---
                  the helpless prey
                  ?

                  ((well, all the helpless can do is pray))


those alien teeth, they
close around my jugular, only slightly
i forget what (wheeze) air is for

she's are no declawed cat!,
scream my back and cheek and neck and arm and mind
                  [that's gonna sting like a ***** in the morning, warn-growls she,
                  predator woman
                  (chimaera, monster she, sphinx)]


just ******* let me go and let's
(make this mess)
get this done
i can feel the words shriveling off before reaching my tongue

[i know the chase to you is foreplay but]



                              mercy! mercy! timeout!



                  --- has no one told you that it's ugly to play with your food?

She feeds on Fear.

Feeds on past insults and old rotten words.
Feeds on what ifs?
and “what can I get away with?”

Oh, she’s a clever one.
She can be a dragon and a terror,
but more often than not,
she’ll make herself real small,
like a tiny kitten.

Nibble away at all that is Good
without me noticing.

[Just call them love bites.]

Meows:
“play with me,
play with me,
I need the attention
and you aren’t doing anything

Important

right now

If you love me,
play with me.

Make me purr.
Sure I scratch
but you don’t really
want me to leave.

Make me purr.
Sure I scratch
but no one will know the
difference.”

Get her purring
and I am no longer
myself.

She is satisfied,
temporarily.
[Always temporarily.
She’s always hungry].

And me?
Who knows what I am,
when she’s in control,
except convinced
that I love poisoned claws
digging into my soul.

I’m used to her,
I love her,
I swear.

[I’m used to her.]


The thing about
Monsters
is that they can
shape shift.

This is no Disney movie,
no horror story,
no evil step-mother
to contend with
and vanquish.

A simple battle
between Good and Evil.

Monsters are not
black and white.

It’s all a mess of colors,
you see.

-
Maybe the monsters within
are not even truly
Bad.

Only:
afraid,
hurt,
wounded
abandoned.

Trauma’­s
last defense
against all that
accumulated Hurt.

Maybe
the monster within
can be

tamed
disarmed,
declawed.

Turned back into
a kitten again.

Tough,
playful,
protective.

But not Destructive.

Not a Terror.

Not Deadly.

-
Don’t say for sure
that there are no monsters
lurking within you.

Mine are loud.
Yours might just be
dormant.

-
[Tell me about your monsters within.]

Tangled in yarn, he purred.
Like a kilowatt humming through the extension cord.
When he wasn't a blue cat, he was gray.
When he wasn't being played with, he was stray.
But his attitude made all the difference.
A rule of thumb for his mere existence.
"I think it's almost golden, no I know it's almost golden."
Color blind it was his silver lining.

I am the Consumer
Not one of goods, not one of gold
Nor one of flesh and blood, but souls
I drink fear like water, engorge sorrow whole
We’ll see who’s the stronger one when that bell tolls
I betray Trust, blood splatters to rust
Beauty's a thing you call cinders and dust
I’ll build my shrine with hatred and time
Still alive in the muck, your spirit is mine


And I will eat until I’m complete
A satiated unstoppable beast
You do the math, there’s no going back-
To this world that we love once I’m on the attack
Money, my brainchild, nations, my stars-
In our fun little system of bites, wounds and scars
The borders they draw, like a hunter declawed-
Let me pacify them while they hem and they haw
Wealth’s worth more than life, how very sad
Death is encroaching, this earth has gone mad
And I am its true god, inside all of you
Division and pride, I am nothing new
Most fail to realize my myriad forms
Skin pigments, religions, when torment’s the norm
Strings for my show, your weak human traits-
Are the vectors of my blight while I sit and wait


I don’t want extinction, I’m full of love
I want global completion, I'm the eye above-
Pyramids of dead bodies and blank staring heads
The ideas behind them, they keep me well fed
No, I don't want death, my pleasure's your pain-
I'm insidious in dark parts of your brain-
Empathy is the whetstone, savage my blade
I am the tragedy where peace could have been made-
But the will of proud men wont let your hearts accrete
I am greed, but not greedy, I'm just trying to eat


This vision, my foe, I don't want you to think-
Apathy helps me forge my chain of endless links-
That will constrict this world till the fire or ice
Your whimpering fades while I steal paradise
Drugged minds that yet live drown in my river Lethe-
Dare to resist, you'll be crushed underneath me
But I'll keep you alive by a single hair's breadth
While poor dogs in the streets gnaw on themselves to death
And no, I'm not evil, there are worse than I-
My tools sold me this world as they watched children die
They’re the malicious, they gave their hearts to me
Counting the coins in which they put their beliefs
It could be anyone who thinks they are blessed
Because you're all the same, I have you fooled
Your children will be next
For I will eat
And eat
And eat

"So you'll be in tonight? Wonderful, sweetie.
It's been far too long. Are you bringing Mattie?
Oh, I see. Are Todd's parent's good to her?
Alright, well, I love you and I'll see you at six.
Sorry seven...okay, sevenish."

The Prine place smelled of rich
lemon cleaner.
Not a cobweb could be found,
nor ***** dish, nor glass smudge.

Margaret Prine applied her blood red
lipstick--the final touch before school.

Mrs. Prine arrived thirty minutes before
anyone else, started the coffeepot in
the teacher's lounge, and wrapped up some
lesson plans.

The starting bell sounded,
she headed for her room.
Principal Hughes said,
"Good morning! Madam Margaret!"
as he always did.
Mrs. Prine, nodded cooly, grinned
lightly at the corners of her blood
red lips, and said nothing--as she always did.

At forty-five, she could turn more heads
than any head cheerleader,
and she was well aware
that beauty's power reigns
absolute.

Two young lovers draining saliva
stood outside her classroom door
dressed in matching yellow t-shirts.

"Excuse me, canaries.
Showboat your love out in nature.
Not outside my room," Mrs. Prine snipped,
calm like a seasoned surgeon.

"We're sorry--" Harvey's eyes met Mrs. Prine's.
Mrs. Prine felt a strange transfusion take hold.
The blackness started at her spine
and snaked to her skull.
Old jealousy, been awhile.

"Kaitlyn, Harvey, get to class."
Kaitlyn Mullens barely existed.
Pencil thin, thought little, and spoke less.
Kaitlyn just happened to be in Mrs. Prine's
literature class.
Mrs. Prine followed her into the room--
sizing up her shoulders, ***, and cheapshit heels
with a keen eye.

"Alright, everyone as you know, your analysis
on Catcher in the Rye motifs is due today.
No excuses."

During her lecture she couldn't keep her eyes
off Kaitlyn. The way she fidgeted incessantly;
shifted her gaze with each question asked.
Her idiot face somehow held a superior wisdom.
The dark jealousy coupled itself with
a wicked wandering mind.
A mind journeying into
the mad middle stage,
when a prime lioness
becomes declawed by calendars
and withering mirrors.

When the class left,
Mrs. Prine could not recall a single thing
she had lectured over.
She rubbed her head, sighed a low growl,
and began siphoning through the homework.
"Ah, there you are."
She grabbed a bleeding red ink pen,
then proceeded to massacre the essay.
"Plagiarism, plagiarism. Lazy, lazy."

this must be how a tiger feels
declawed
staring through the glass of a cage
at children
pointing
and mothers
scolding
and lovers walking
handinhand
do they revel in their sadness
because i imagine
they sleep all day
for the same reasons that i do
because staring at people watching you
bask in your own misery is
tiring.
but i am not a tiger.
i am a sad sad girl
addicted to misery
eating her yogurt
imagining herself a predator
while wanting a doughnut

She was a barefoot singer
Her toes sliding
through the fine, cool earth
It was how she drew
from the spring of nature
She never could hit that high C
while wearing shoes
Their soles are blacker than ours
she used to say
Those ugly boots are cutting you off
she used to tell me
You'll never hit a high C

She sang and I played
I wore my shoes
And I let my hair grow long
My savage war paint
Smeared across my chest
under my shirt
Unknown to everyone but me
And her, she saw it too

We only played outside
The earth on her soles
The wind in my hair
The tortured animus of song
How those nights conspired against us
The natural warmth of audience and music
Our blighted bond, tenuous at best
Soared strong on those nights
A wind over the mountains
A wind that promised rain

Her voice was fragile
But also eerie in its gravitas
It commanded the respect
of the dead soldiers and sailors that came out for us
It made her younger
It declawed and dulled her fangs
I would sometimes cry
when she hit that high C

On our very last number
On the very last page
The fire would kick up
and my fingers would dance
And we both believed in the other
She in her naked earth
Me with my jaguar soul
Oh, how those nights
conspired against us

I’m always glad to hear your ***** is doing well. Their temperament is, as always, forever hard to tell. I heard that Mercy Lane had to have hers declawed. It scratched her over quite a bit and left her slightly flawed. All the things I know of friends fly from my mouth like birds, but idle gossip I should not spread when purpose steers my words. With weighted heart I tell you the reason that I write. The man she feared used tempered words and put her down tonight. I didn’t know my ***** was tame ‘til she laid heel for him. She rolled right ‘round under his palm and shocked me to the brim. Little more did I suspect that she would now submit, especially when his liquid voice just set her teeth to grit. He oozed some words and touched her sides and caused her eyes to glaze. Then, when we were both sound asleep, he shattered her to haze. It burst me out of all my dreams to find myself worn thin. Now I don’t know what to do without her in my skin. Tell me now, my dearest friend, what should I do hence? Should I let him have me too, or rise to her defense? The only problem seems to be I’m without her; she’s me.

She is blue raspberry slushee tongue
Meets feminist rant.

She is Moon Pie wrapper personified.
She is purple lipstick stains on wine glasses
Filled to the brim with cranberry juice.
She is three cats, one bed.

She is a scratch in your favorite record during your favorite song.
She is bubblegum bubble pop,
She is the definition of hypochondriac.

Curiosity didn’t **** her,
She killed curiosity.

She is dry heaving into the toilet bowl,
Claw marks on the inside of her stomach.
She is naproxen sodium
Swirling down throat,
Gagging up bullet sized pills.

She is the other side of unrequited.

She is no ones favorite poem.
She is her own favorite poem.

She is perpetual headache.
She is screaming for justice.
She is the jersey devil episode of the X-Files,
In other words,
She is a hot mess.

She is nature walks cut short due to laziness.
She is laziness.
She is lay in bed all day,
Drown in the sheets.
She is too many books, not enough time.

She is funeral song at a wedding.
She is dethorned rose, declawed cat.
She is waking the dead.

She is a renaissance painting come to life.
Botticelli would cry if he saw her,
His Venus,
Splashing in the water.

She is Jezebel mourning Ahab.
She is Jezebel being eaten alive.

She is ankle deep dimple.
She is never could quite get the words out.
She is lip bite, blood drip.
She is covered in bruises and she likes it.

She is listerine flavored whiskey,
She is a shot glass of formaldehyde.

She is an oak tree,
Thats what her sister tells her.

She is the x on the back of an 18 year olds hand.
She is conspiracy theory.
She is playing possum.

She is change the subject.
She is cry when being yelled at,
Cry when no one is looking,
Cry when everyone is looking,
Cry because theres nothing else to do.

She is leather jacket in july.
She is crop top and mini skirt.
She is lullaby.
She is dancing to the Law and Order theme song.
She is 8,000 tweets.

She is see how long she can go without talking.
She is goes so long without talking
That now she can’t talk.
She is novocaine needle pock mark.

She is her own mythology,
Her own god.
She is fire breathing dragon.
She is knocking on god’s door
Until blood erupts from her knuckles.
She is asking why.
She is Persephone feasting on pomegranate seeds.

She is two siblings in the hospital.
She is “call if you don’t feel right”.
She is disassociative personality disorder,
At least thats what she’s convinced she is.

She is anxious laughter,
Anxious smile.
She is sewing her lips shut.

She is only 11 Instagram likes.
She is learning to love herself with the lights on.
She is sleep to much,
Sleep too little.
She is curl on cheekbone.
She is protruding rib bone.
She is hip bones cutting glass.

She is Lilith saying no.
She is leading the serpent to the garden.

She is vegetarian on moral grounds.
She is not telling her doctor she is a vegetarian
Because what if its bad for her?

She is fate and destiny making out under the bleachers.
She is making nooses out of ****** strings.
She is choke on your own saliva.
She is burnt tongue tip.
She is puking in the parking lot of her dentist’s office.
She is a 1997 themed mixtape.

She is a stanza curving like a lovers back.
She is chapped lips.
She is brick through the window.
She is suffocating on suburban ideals.

She is Anne Sextons ***** bottle.
She is Maya Angelou’s silence.
She is Lucien Carr’s ****** knife.
She is Sylvia Plath’s last manuscript before
She stuck her head in the oven.

She is three am,
Get out of bed.
She is snow in september.

She is poetry.
She is poet.
She is music in fingertips,
Songs molded from simile.
She is metaphor flavored kisses
And a witchcraft tongue.

She is a girl crafted of stories.
A collection of make believe.
She is breathing passion.
She is daughter of nothing,
Lover of everything.
She is afraid of scorpions.
She is the venom.

She is a violin heart screeching out its last note.

You need to be brave enough
To hold my hand
Even though haven't been declawed
You need to be strong enough
To lift me
Even though I carry heavy burdens
You need to be kind enough
To hold me
Even though I'm made out of shards of broken glass
You need to be tough enough
To be near me forever
Even though I am burning fire
Because love is impossible
But if you will be
All these impossibilities
I'll be all your impossibilities

Please repost if you want ti be someone's impossible
Please comment I love to read interpretations of my poetry

crusaders
christianized, zealous warmongers with ****** stains on stainless steel blades
hauling with them the great flapping insignias of royalty, emblems of their special heritage
disregarding the fact blood flows warm and fast all the same, nobody spared
familiar ties shattered over petty disputes of land and territory in the name of a great purpose
a great purpose disguising glory-seekers and painters whose favorite color is red
led by a massive snowy warhorse with crimson hooves and jet black beady eyes
old, worn, and of a raggedy golden mane forever worshipped
it is my fate to follow
(that’s what they tell me)

crusaders
biblical storytales springing to life as they gallivant across the country singing do-goods
while their actions connotate some great demon lurking about behind their holy words
valiant warriors in service to a mighty omnipresent deity watching woefully from above
as they unnecessarily **** innocents that they knew it was wrong to ******
blind belief is as alive as bloodlust to them, screaming their lungs out for the almighty
they are the salvation and the scourge, leeches of the land and lordly leaders for long
fearful eyes of aliens stare to the sky and grovel in a piteous attempt for mercy
he cannot condone this
(and that’s what they don’t)

crusaders
knights of cardboard armor and ironclad skulls falling by the thousands
yet they relentlessly hunt the enemy like predatory raptors of the past, voracious
not yet declawed or defanged as they are before the plastic wisdom of man claiming to be
the god of glory, gold, and gore; suddenly he is a savage ravager and avenger of the undead
men swear themselves to a cloaked idol in order to become accusers of the guilty
when the openness of perception may be all that is truly necessary
even kings are defenseless against the all-consuming force of religious blessing
how is it just?

crusaders
god’s greatest success
crusaders
god’s greatest regret
(am i both or neither?)

Bohemian Rhapsody at an hour and twenty-nine

minutes
a glass door opens and I watch,
from inside,

poor Freddie die, slowwwww

wonder if that might've been a time
or a half time
when dreamed of crossing
roads or
ways or paths or circuits were fitted
with resisters
set to never disconnect from base.

Standing ready to resist,
sistere,
stood in the rain watching others die
for me,
via-curiously as all hell,

you can feel this guy falling, this is mazing

is there a way back out, if it were a movie and not
words
tickling or itching
***** little fruit flies shifting dna in every
imaginible way?

what if rock and roll were the lie,
all along? or what if

we confessed, these wee gods we made and
idolized, were
but are not, now they are lies that lived in stories
we can tell truer than hell

sistere, we stand
peace-keepers keeping on keeping

this thing that builds our dreams,
realistic, in a common

kind of sense. Always gentle,
honed-est to the finest edge

----
could Milton have seen this thing coming,
from all the stories he told,

I don't think so.
I dont' think,
so a
comma changes ever,
just like that,

this hapts to attempt morphic resonance as
easy on the ear
after a while

as the music Milton listened to
--- but it is not rock and roll

--- its self made hermetical art flowing through the canyon

remaining a scar to remind us all,
surely,
we live on the wreck of a world.

--- and Michael, my broken brother-in-law

shouts GAWDAMIMITALL!

whoa, I feel this tug to hug, very strange, but
I hug him and say

now is okeh, I don't say it's okeh because it is else when
now is okeh,

we deal with this,
every, asif ever, but not

but often enough that we settle things fast,
if, you know,
y' let go and let the power in us

be
believable. Try. No lies, starting now, stories we tell
must be defanged, declawed

but unchained. Free stories of told lies,

those are those words to the wise you heard of.
Never were secret stories,
always been secret lies about stories teaching when

truth, in the telling, tells us what not to do.

Don't lie and don't let lies be pre-sent in packages of
maliscious conscious opposition

supposed
to entertain us, ah that high whine in my left ear that peaks then
falls in to background
white noise

soft, occasional thunder way off, a siren, a jake brake blaring

far far away, a chainsaw, not obtrusive

subjected to the filters in place,
this is a fine day to remember.

Like one of those Septembers, we share at the mention.

you are slender and sleek
your hair as black as night
and when you were smaller
you and teddy used to fight.

we named you after citrus
because you were so sweet
then you had a **** ton of kittens
which threw us off a beat.

I keep my door closed at night
so that you don't disturb me
and when you *** in my closet
It's pretty **** unerving

We really should get you declawed
sometimes you make us bleed
but if we have an infestation
you're the one we need.

One time we gave you the wrong food
not on purpose, i am sure
but then you farted in my face
and then you were abhorred.

I promise that i love you
even though you're such a ****
just because you're my cat
and i'll always be your nerd.

As crepuscular embers fracture window panes,
The mind wares the solace of this paragon host.
Destitute, edentulous, declawed.
Is joy only to be found in the exchange of hands and throats?
And I took more than my fathers name;
I took his blood and his voice and his pain.
So what is it that separates?
Am I the emanation of original thought or am i just the sum of the harbingers' tale?
Am I never alone or am I bound to wade in the vapid wake?
"Could we be the limbs of a möbius soul?"
The panglossian being wonders.
And wanders.

The beast inside,
Eating me alive.
Searching,
Burning,
Consuming my soul.
Begging for release
But, like a declawed cat
Unable to get free.
It planted a seed in the pits of my mind.
A request for help: for freedom.
But as the blood ran down my arms
And I put down the blade,
It decided the taste of my life was worth staying inside.

altar

the baby is too light.  its mother puts it on a scale that reminds her of a plate her empty childhood couldn’t break.  its mother invites neighbor boys to punch her in the stomach.  some of the boys bail.  some don’t.  the mother’s nickname doubles as her real.  the baby is not called bricks.


zero

when I couldn’t get my head around the surrender of my body to the flotation device of an immaculate conception, I’d simply swallow a baby that had swallowed a pill.  years go by and I am zero.  the number arrested for suicide.        



basics

because he is asleep, he does not find himself sleeping in the tub.  something slides from his belly and becomes wedged.  his dream business goes under even in dream.  he makes eyes at CPR manikins.  his son, his life, pushes for legs.



safeguards

I call this piece

the hotel room
that left
your father.

a hammer is a good bid, an unmarked
bottle of cologne
is better.

your mother stopped in
to let me know
my high school
mile time

was threatened.

she said she would’ve come sooner
but she had to work
a fork
from her thigh.

the disabled are born liars
but lie
only once.  




turnout

before the parade
I carried with me
a trombone
and entered
the high
corn-

what I played
there

was mournful
after
the fact-

a tune
for no one, for a tree’s

late
cat


outlet

depression is a non-starter.  depression is depression unknowingly cured.  it is like I have this shirt because it exists and not because it invites everyone whose shirt it’s not to enjoy joy.  I don’t want to hear you say you’re sad to say.  I ******* to reappear and think it might be why my father vanished.  it’s enough during foreplay to flicker.



viewership

my youth spent trying to see the devil as a young man.  my motherly youth.  my **** scene a return to form.  cut from yours, you have your baby’s eyes.  I went unborn.  I went beaten.  we went together in broad daylight when broad daylight was god’s elevator.



pressure

the original thought in my head was to be postdated by god until god learned he had a baby on the way.  I had children until I could only have four.  what I say to self-harm is pay attention.  my daughter raises her hand on the off chance she buried something in her teacher’s body.  (we have stopped talking

but I can squeeze her anorexia into a phone booth)  poverty myth:  I groom my sons with the beak of bird abandoned.  real time I tell my tongue it’s ******* curtains for the mouth I’m getting.  full circle my daughter surrounds those brothers of hers that mine clone.        



On having a secret mother

the boy is lacing up his right shoe
when he sees
the string
tied
to his middle
finger
and wonders
how asleep he was
when it happened-

(being forgotten
is a lot like
being forgotten
by) harm, that purple balloon

lowered into
then surrounded
by

the inactive
construction site
of the world




On suicide

you are further than I
in your worship
of the slow
vehicle
that carries
praise
back and forth
from appearing
to reappearing

god (how else)
to bully

what would
wipe you
clean
of body

language…
 
On foreclosure

any chance, no,
of improving
upon
my impression
of god.

noises beneath a bomb or bomb
threat.

wheelbarrows, wagons.

the occasional declawed cat
past which
I make
like I am
rowing.

(in wheelbarrow)  (in wagon)  otherwise,

no cats
on cat
island.


On libido

the previous verse was a poor man’s bible.  like wildfire a fondness for appropriate discipline spreads.  one scarecrow means practice, two scarecrows mean parentage.  a third is your father’s failed garden of baby teeth.  is, by definition, is.  I are

motherless.  what mother doesn’t know doesn’t worry.  many spiders came on the wind and a few were swept into mouths briefly opened by age. what made woman did not make the disappearing girl.  flashing back to a scene that’s not there or forward to one dependent on space, pain arrives

in memoriam.  


On memory*

for all the showing, one would think the only things born were eyes.

when lord
says
or lords
say

this is the body

I tend  
in unison
to trail
behind
my voice

as if

I could make my own
remember
the anesthesia
it underwent

to intervene.





On devastation

brother, there’s not a cigarette

on earth
that you
can surprise


On the past

my death a warped photograph of a former awe, my life

four children
drinking water
from glasses placed on either side
of my sleep-

it is on these nights
when I am sick
that I become the sound of my ears
softening
my mind’s
thoughtless position
on time, that I am ably

here, ably slow
in sight of
the aging

marksman
I’ve given
a sporting chance
 


On supervision

you may have been a child
projecting a maze
or an adult
memorizing
the hollowness
of things.

in a condensed version
of poverty’s
obstacle course
I still hold the hammer
that works for a mirror…

with dog or with dogs, we were presented
as two examples
of how to be
family.

I love me a farm machine
and the week
you knock yourself into.

(a silo
saddens
a drunk)


On phobia

before the brat kid
can repeat

this is not
the television
my father
writes for, it is my understanding

that such a child
belongs
to the itch
to have a child
disappear.  as I refuse

(to enter
the ocean)

I’m pretty sure god has put my death in a bug.  






On the need for a watchlist

if one can talk of it

one is most likely
not
poor.
    
we called you to life to give you a name.
odd imagery ensued.

a prisoner gave birth in the yard of your mouth.

god became the man men wanted to be.  god wore a dress
he could see through.  a short history
of heaven
made its way

to hell
to have its
location

shared.  

your mother developed a stutter
for which I developed
a stutter
application.  things began to click

on you
and when that
didn’t work

your fake cry
took on
a depth

of meaning
made us dip

(into
your brother)


On paternity

as his mother heard yesterday he was born to some nobody everyone can describe, she instructs her barber to slide a lit cigarette behind her ear. as unimportant as the barber is, his pencil makes a subtle change in her dream to put a cricket on the witness stand.



On contact

talk early, walk late.  

eat
for food.

hold kitten
like a rifle, your father’s head

to god.

call my / with your

premie.



On looting

we move the cemetery to confirm there is nothing outside of this town.  the ******* remains a two man show.  leash laws are for dogs and angels.  our doctor has a touch of deer worry.  exercise is for the birds.  god is the pitter patter of imagined feet.  our fathers double over in bathrooms from the shame of not calling out for paper.  our mothers have done the math.  by now, most kids have eaten a popsicle alone in a church.  I’m in it for the stick.



On my father being gay

a crow
born inside
a footstep
is passing
for dark



On having little to no vision

the amount of thought
given to locating
the secret
mind.

I am on count eight
of ten-

ten, the future.

I call your hiding place
water.

-

of course you dream of falling-

those toys
are the toys
of god’s
children.

-

staring contest-

the only child and the twin, then

the lonely
victor.

-

let there be
all

the light.

 

On decompression

the zombie movie
about buzzards.

the hungry enough horse.

the 48 hours
that go
undetected
in the parents
of special
needs
children.  

the civilian
birthday suit, the war

footage.





On the expected delays**

in this place
paid for
by another
country’s
melancholy

two dreams
of being
run into
by a newly
pregnant
late

bloomer

are had
by the one
man
we share

like a comb
to forget
whose hair
was first

The hooks are gone,
A cat declawed,
Your memory, a diffused bomb

Existing in neither time or space,
Happy moments without a face,
All free to dance like marionettes.

And
Not even hearing that old tune,
Or seeing you across the room,
Could pluck these heart-strings
to make me swoon

Nor the way you make me laugh,
As we joke about times past,
Could move my heart
to break its fast.

Not even when you've gone,
And your scent still lingers on,
Would I wish you'd pressed your luck...
Oh ****.

Just in case you
couldn't
guess, it's not a
a fair fight
or a level
playing field.

It's you with
boxing gloves
and them with
machine guns.

It's Van Gogh
throwing his paintings
out the window
to stop the hecklers.

It's Janis falling
down
the stairs, lonely
and
broken
looking for love.

It's Morrison seeing
the game for
what it was,
wanting to disappear
in France and
write poetry,
then dying in a
bathtub with a
witch in the wings.

It's morphine dreams
and thorazine days.
It's the tiger
declawed and lobotomized
at the zoo.

It's the lobster
cursed with
precious meat.

It's the statue of liberty,
burning her bra
and impaling
working class men with
her stiletto heels.

It's Gogol
dying after a
prolonged fast,
because a charlatan
told him
it was evil.

It's the elephant
domesticated by
the cage, but
still dreaming of
the Serengeti.

It's the dolphin in
a Hollywood
swimming pool,
a shark in your
coffee cup;
it's the criminality
of releasing the insane
from their cages to
wander the streets of
Santa Barbara.

It's pathetic and putrid,
a setup up;
the perfect tragedy;
a crime that goes beyond
denunciation.

It's what they will continue
to do to
you and me
until someone or something
intervenes.

Partners
no crime,
innocents,

time served deserves
an extension

we pretend that others do not exist,
stare our way through each day
until we get home and
then it's the telephone and
the world is okay
but
I take a ride in the landau
listen to
Spandau
ballet
really?
yes,
it's just a matter of no fact at all.

Walk tall, mum said, as I hid under the bed,
always monsters to fight
wrongs to fix,
right?

nearly midnight and no Oasis
what's this,
music of the solo mind?

Walkman no talk man makes
Jack a bull dog or something
that hides in dark corners.

Still dozing my way through the
thoughts and each day
I am dozing
some more,
it's slightly not keyed in
the code is not right
the dots don't line up
or
it could be my eyesight.

'if you haven't got a penny a halfpenny will do'
then they decimalised the system and the
scheme fell through,

what about you?
do you collect stamps?
get cramps?
forget your name?

I am one of the same among many
cloned,
declawed even as I roared
my defiance and we should not
place any reliance on the material things
nor spirituality
punctuality
or any eventuality that eventually
will occur

share nothing
even thoughts have shadows that
show up in ultra violet light
wrong or am I right?

This is broadcast by the
'last of the Mohicans',

'should have kept my hair on,
white eyes speaks with forked tongue,
bet he
eats his peas with it'

thank God for madness
she is
the mistress of sanity
and
the goddess of poetry.

~

[On mother, father, god, dog, *****]

what if the eyes in the back of my head

hallucinate

what if
the eyes in the back of my head

during surgery

during

a haircut

~

[On foreclosure]

the occasional declawed cat
past which
I make
like I
am rowing

(in wheelbarrow)  (in wagon)  otherwise,

noises beneath a bomb or bomb
threat

~

[On the past]

my life

four children
drinking water
from glasses placed on either side
of my sleep-

it is on these nights
when I am sick
that I become the sound of my ears
softening
my mind’s
thoughtless position
on time, that I am ably

here, ably slow

full view
of the aging

marksman

~

[On phobia]

as I refuse

(to enter
the ocean)

I’m pretty sure god has put my death in a bug  

~

[On the need for a watchlist]

if one can talk of it, one is most likely not poor.  we called you to life to give you a name.  god became the man men wanted to be.  god wore a dress he could see through.  a short history of heaven made its way to hell to have its location shared.  your mother developed a stutter.  your fake cry took on a depth of meaning made us dip

(psalm
for satellite)

into your brother.

~

[On paternity]

as his mother has heard only yesterday how he was born to some nobody that everyone can describe, she instructs her barber to slide a lit cigarette behind her ear.  as unimportant as the barber is, his pencil makes a subtle change in her dream of putting a cricket on the witness stand.

~

[On my son having little to no vision]

I am on count eight of ten-

ten, the future.

I call you raindrop,
your hiding place

water

-

staring contest-

the only child and the twin, then

the lonely
victor

~

[On decompression]

the zombie movie about buzzards.  the hours that go undetected in the parents of forty-eight special needs children.  

~

[On lore]

I have two dreams of running into the newly pregnant late bloomer.  in the first and most recurrent, I am operating a remote control car I’ve lost while worrying about a brother’s closeness to a certain pilot.  in the second, my mother is talking lights out to nostalgia’s previous owner who agrees with her that the roofs of buildings need to be smaller.  in both, I get the sense my father has already hit the pop fly under which he collapsed muttering baseball, baseball, ghost of a baseball.

~

[On suicide]

I was here long before you guessed my age  

-

(our proverbial sister dons again the birthday suit of body language)

-

the dog won’t eat.  might it know

we come from the family of sitting and dying?

~

[On contact]

hold kitten
like a rifle.  pop

a paper sack
at your father’s

ear.  ah, your father

who was made to kneel

for two
maybe three
things

(god, shrapnel) a flying saucer

from the wreckage of his church

~

[On writing]

my sense of place is a person.  *** is odd,

right?  this thing that auditions

for what it has.

On having a secret mother

the boy is lacing up his right shoe
when he sees
the string
tied
to his middle
finger
and wonders
how asleep he was
when it happened-

(being forgotten
  is a lot like
  being forgotten
  by) harm, that purple balloon

lowered into
then surrounded
by

the inactive
construction site
of the world


On my father being gay

so you know
what it is
you have

(felt,
there is)

an emoticon

at the end
of this
book


On suicide

you are further than I
in your worship
of the slow
vehicle
that carries
praise
back and forth
from appearing
to reappearing

god (how else)
to bully

what would
wipe you
clean
of body

language…


On foreclosure

any chance, no,
of improving
upon
my impression
of god.

noises beneath a bomb or bomb
threat.

wheelbarrows, wagons.

the occasional declawed cat
past which
I make
like I am
rowing.

(in wheelbarrow)  (in wagon)  otherwise,

no cats
on cat
island.


On libido

the previous verse was a poor man’s bible.  like wildfire a fondness for appropriate discipline spreads.  one scarecrow means practice, two scarecrows mean parentage.  a third is your father’s failed garden of baby teeth.  is, by definition, is.  I are

motherless.  what mother doesn’t know doesn’t worry.  many spiders came on the wind and a few were swept into mouths briefly opened by age. what made woman did not make the disappearing girl.  flashing back to a scene that’s not there or forward to one dependent on space, pain arrives

in memoriam.


On memory*

for all the showing, one would think the only things born were eyes.

when lord
says
or lords
say

this is the body*

I tend  
in unison
to trail
behind
my voice

as if

I could make my own
remember the anesthesia
it underwent

to intervene.

momma always said that life on the farm wasn't always stingy she said the birds were chirping Roman numerals and the bees buzzed the alphabet sometimes

daddy always said momma's knees were full of salt because grandad made her kneel
momma said childhood was rough once grandad knocked the hummingbirds out with morphine and daddy had to peel their feathers off

sometimes momma would have a seizure and start sputting out random stories that she would remember and then we would go have to quiet her down and bring her to bed
the one story she never tells is the story about me - how I broke her vase
that barnacle was so delicate it cracked when I put too much salt in it

momma heard the wrong bedtime story once and ripped her seed-filled bible in half
she said god gave her a vision and finally tore the dream catcher I have above my bed to see the trains I stuck in my head
she never knew I could be the little girl dreamin of covering her next lover in salt
and the little girl screaming in the crazy box when she had to put miss instead of sir

now momma always said that I would be her little girl but momma never said she would always treat me the same
momma threw a knife at me and said girls belong in the kitchen
momma striped my room clean and said decorations weren't manly
momma yanked my clothes off and pointed to my chest "these aren't supposed to be here"
now daddy always stuck up for me but this point I wasn't daddy's little girl - I was momma's little reject

now momma lost her mind when she found out uncle shared the same name as me
momma threw the cat tails at me and threw me out
momma ripped my life apart and said I was at fault
momma was weeping with the pigs and shot the dogs heart out
momma scratched herself up and declawed the horses
momma went headless with the chickens and skinned herself with salt

momma calmed down when we tied bricks to her feet and dumped her in the river for a bit
now she sits in her rocking chair on the porch, picking out dead flies stuck in honey
every now and then she gets bit and feels a sense of reality
she doesn't talk much anymore so I just stuck the tongue back in my hat

thought a country girl would've been good enough for the folks back home
spent the nights carving in the trees together
sticking wheat in her teeth
and she shoved grass down my throat just to keep me quiet
momma saw me filling my lovers mouth with a tongue and yanked me by my hair
dragged me all the way down the dirt road
momma didn't flinch and quickly had my mouth washed out with salt

the fly
has a bed
and cat
was declawed
by snow

Frankie, the devil-cat, was always
The infamous focus of blame.
Folks said Lucifer would have been
A more appropriate name.

Always in trouble he was! You couldn't
Find a more wicked cat.
If you can name one more evil than Frankie,
I will eat my hat.

Sometimes he would want your attention.
Bah! Attention indeed.
If you pet him, he'd bite your arm
And scratch it and make it bleed.

You couldn't walk across the floor
Barefoot, for if you tried,
Frankie would attack your foot
And bite it until you cried.

He had a strange design on his forehead
Which frightened the local priest.
"Beware!" the priest told Frankie's owners.
"The cat has the mark of the beast."

You might wake up from a peaceful sleep
In the darkness of the night.
Two yellow eyes would be staring at you,
And make you jump up in fright.

"****, **** cat!" you'd yell at Frankie,
And he would yowl and hiss.
When you got up in the morning, you'd sense
That something was amiss.

Your favorite knick-knack would be lying
In pieces on the floor,
And Frankie would stay hidden until
You were no longer sore.

When he was hungry, you wouldn't have
A single moment of peace
Until you filled his bowl with food.
THEN the racket would cease.

When Frankie's owners would leave the house,
It was as though he would boast
That now he could use their luxury couch
As his favorite scratching post.

They never caught him in the act.
A scary thing happened when
A guest who said Frankie should be declawed
Was never heard from again.

Frankie would sit by the window and wait
For other cats to come near,
Then he would scream so loudly that he
Would fill them all with fear.

One day out of meanness Frankie
Started to chew on a wire.
Zap! He was electrocuted.
What a way to expire!

The owners say he's in kitty heaven,
But people who knew him well
Roll their eyes and under their breath
Say, "More like kitty hell."

"Frankie, aka Lucifer:
The meanest cat around!"
Should be Frankie's epitaph
Now that he's underground.

-by Bob B (3-2-24)

imagine having to haunt doom. sole cornstalk in the dreamworlds of tree. I cannot track the beauty of my children. it’s as if they are egging the model airplane of a pilot who loves matches, declawed cats, and wax museums. imagine chickens. leaving the anthill.

As a child I saw through the glass clearly
With the characteristic greed of dawn
I drank from every spring. But it's not greed
It's the enchantment of youth, open and
Constantly roving, like the restless sea.

Sons of craftsmen stemmed toward the light,
And even without faith, I could relish
The slow comforts of belief. I cherished
Those now gentle customs, declawed by time.
The cold stone floor, where I had stood and sang,
Grew mossy over me, beside the light
Of quiet outbursts from dancing candles.

Next to me, you were, and you were not there
Through divorce we come to live in two worlds
But complacency settles, steadily
Like the first snow of winter, those slow shifts,
Deliberately drift into mountains.

Calcified in time, dead mounds listen
As night talks to itself in tongues
And I can no longer grasp its language.
The boy that I was, has fallen from the sun
Yet we still live, abstracted, with burned wings
Pointing upward, misplaced amongst ruins.