VI. TO APHRODITE (21 lines)

(ll. 1-18) I will sing of stately Aphrodite, gold-crowned and
beautiful, whose dominion is the walled cities of all sea-set
Cyprus.  There the moist breath of the western wind wafted her
over the waves of the loud-moaning sea in soft foam, and there
the gold-filleted Hours welcomed her joyously.  They clothed her
with heavenly garments: on her head they put a fine, well-wrought
crown of gold, and in her pierced ears they hung ornaments of
orichalc and precious gold, and adorned her with golden necklaces
over her soft neck and snow-white *******, jewels which the gold-
filleted Hours wear themselves whenever they go to their father's
house to join the lovely dances of the gods.  And when they had
fully decked her, they brought her to the gods, who welcomed her
when they saw her, giving her their hands.  Each one of them
prayed that he might lead her home to be his wedded wife, so
greatly were they amazed at the beauty of violet-crowned
Cytherea.

(ll. 19-21) Hail, sweetly-winning, coy-eyed goddess!  Grant that
I may gain the victory in this contest, and order you my song.
And now I will remember you and another song also.

'i've only ever really read one poem. i, i have to admit.*  
You know, that, that one poem that everyone’s read, whatsit,
Howl by Ginsberg, 'best-minds-of-my-generation-destroyed-by-madness,-starving-hyste­rical-naked,' , yeah, that one;'
'It's just, I identify with it so strongly.' she says,
'That poem is soo me.'
It's funny how commentary on a generation 60 odd years ago come across as timeless insights..
how we learn that true spirit of rebellion and counterculture three generations ago,
  as it is taught to us by two generation ago countercounterculture academics.
but I guess, inevitably
                                         we
                                                  return,
  to those half drowned pontifications inevitably decried into transcendental truth by the onward spilling ratchet of cultural recognition;
  that sense of universal oneness generated by the unwashed ramblings of beat-generation hipsters dense innuendo in run on sentences running, running from their upper-lower-middle-class New York homes and their privilege of true vacant meaninglessness and despair,
   to those nervous tucked in shirted clean shaven scholars swooning over the same seme drugged, melancholic bearded men profussing the deepest of opaque truths only found up the furthest reaches of their own *****.
  As we push through to our lectures, the mosaic in motion of blazer wearing mac-users and mac-pac wearing blazers,
  As we hysterically interpret the formatting conditions for our reports, which could hang in the balance of whether the dreams we once had will ever be actualised,
  As we felt lost and found and found and lost at those park benches under the stars, where occasional strangers strolled by offering sessions and life-stories,
  As we paid exorbitantly to get out of our parents homes, and into tin-can flats with broken windows, absentee landlords and cracked paint only held together by all the moss, (the empowerment that is wage slavery,) for in our youth, poverty is not an ever-present pejorative, but the rite of passage to show that we are alive,
  As rituals of manhood are defined by two things and two things only; how much insomnia one can accumulate to meet insane and inane deadlines, and how much one can illuminate the walls in ***** from all the beers, spirits, cheap wines and questionable home-brews,
  As the government dismantles the human-rights commission, and we nervously attend the rallies initiated by the radicals, and the man on the megaphone calls on the crowd to chant and we can only mumble and laugh nervously at ourselves,
  And when the next speaker runs onto stage feeling the need to plead to this already nervous, placid mass that this is in-fact a PEACEFUL PROTEST, and that we are all true patriots and they insist everyone start singing the national anthem and we all look down and we again mumble, or pretend somehow not to hear them,
  and when, in this biggest independent rally around a unified cause our generation's ever seen, we have never felt so alone ,
  and isolated,  
                                  we
                                             remember,
                                                                    those earlier days,
  When we'd bleach our hair; we'd poison ourselves white, in the vain mystic hope that this was just the transition period to the time when we'd get true colour into our lives,
  Remember our wonder at the Eurocentric Asiatic television representations of the Abrahamic faiths, given transubstantiated holy revival by the medium of Saturday morning digital pastel pasture; when we were children staring excited and wide eyed into the Metatrons Fire of Sinai 'Random Almighty Mega Damage'; as Dante and the seraph class Tyrant-infused-Michael inevitably made battle with YHWH, -in the one True End,- as we grinded within the monolithic emerald obsidian halls, Mystical wonderment spilling forth from our reddened hollow eyes, at the beautiful unlimited expansive world contained within our console/consoling digital unit discs; conformally mapped and etched into the convex hull of our minds,
  Where we were gods, doing battle with every possible creature in morphospace, filleted into overpriced cards and cartridges, for which our strategies meant so much to us though none of us really understood the game,
  When we could quote verbatim every piece of dialogue in GTA2, and get concerned glances from our parents as we conjured veiled imagery of bukake-ladled innuendo which we didn't really understand until six or seven years later,
  When sexuality was a special secret club our elders and the kids in the years above came across so wise for being a member of, rather than an anti-turing test; a farcical ritual where everyone tries their best to imitate the hyper-reality of MTV while hiding the nervous feelings that this whole thing was really meant for someone other than us,
  When creating a whole new lexicon for our self-hood (be it artistic, ******, political or philosophical) felt like existential emancipation; a transcendental rebellion against the normalising identities and semantics of old, rather than an impenetrable circle-**** taxonomy,
  When one day we'd unveil a new term in some text, and it would completely change our outlook on every corner of our lives,
  Or, the next day, when we'd give up and just sit back on rolling banks, and look out at a veil of stars,
  Or the next day, when we'd wonder desperate and painfully, which of the last two was the real pursuit and which was wasted time? (Or was it this day, the day spent building an illusory dialectic between them?)
  Remember when we were in kindergarden, and you had to pass through the kitchen, -the adults zone,- to get to the toilet, and you'd feel both shame and wonderment listening in of the snippets of conversation muttered by these titanic figures; discussing abstruse issues from the newspaper in foreign yet noble tongues?
  Remember when we were teens, and every form-checking observation and question from these same adults was so painstakingly pedantically banal and asinine, that one could only respond with monosyllabic grunts and silent hysterics?
  And remember as 'young adults', when we'd inevitably entered this same dull Aristotelian world of forms, how we'd ask the same adults for advice on filling these paperworks, at once still asemic gibberish, and at once the fine-print that contained and predicted our lives?
  Remember when our dreams for the future were not bounded by the economy of our grade point averages and just how much debt we were willing to incur
                                …
I've seen the best minds of my generation climb into pre-packaged little boxes; and pay through the teeth for the privilege of doing so.  
  Akin to a 'Howl' they call it? Our cry for selfhood? What a scream.
It's not even a cry. Barely a whimper.
More of a zombified groan, completely aware our intrepid Journey of Self is just a pricey guided tour. (Tv Ad's static commodified existential emancipatory platitudes; 'your place in the world' / 'well it's my place and it's my time' urgh.)
And so we march asleep; all lame all blind.
  Trudging through the mind-fields; arguing, unravelling the semantic distinctions between the empty boundaries and the boundaries of emptiness.
  Transcribed down for essay deadlines,  /  assessing our lives trajectory as dead lines,
Becoming increasingly aware,
  We are not the living beings, the dasein, the Übermenschen being actualised; we are the machinery through which the institutions, the factories, the markets and education facilities actualise themselves.
  (While the only acceptable language we can breathe in opposition to these ratcheting pedagogical machines is the lexicon they provide us..
  ('oh, you hate systemic neoliberal alienation; the deestablishment of ontological anthropocentrism? Tell me more about the esoteric uselessness of academic culture.') bluh.)

But

       the more we follow those phantom images we built of ourselves,
the more we become aware they are but sirens; hypnotic dreamlike figures luring us to our doom,
  and as this awareness dawns; and the cognitive dissonances and schizophrenia grows,
       We


                                just try to keep calm and carry on regardless.

Can we really claim the arrogance of having a better path?
The conceit that there's a better cliff we should be guiding ourselves to to top ourselves off?
I don't know,
I reaally
really
just don't know.

filleted dreams, drip drip dripping into endless streams,
a falcon, a fisherman, a lonely seaboat with a blue stripe on white,
never ceasing, never dying, constant revelation, constant redemption,
dark nights, the tap tap tapping of raindrops on ceilings,
one leg cold and one leg warm, always reaching, never grasping,
a wine-drunken beam, a pill of golden light,
a breath, a whimper of sleep,
a drumming, a drumming, a drumming
of ever-closer watchmen on the rooftops of tenement houses,
weeping and watching and oh so silently
sewing closed their mouths with threads.

something in the darkness, something in the watchmen,
something in the drips of the tap and of the rain
and of the filleted dreams of endless streams,
cry technicolor, cry chromatic,
weep visions of paradise like water from Eden,
no, yes, my cautious child,
darling mother, sleeping father,
drunk drunk drunk on stolen nectar,  
rot, rot, rot into the sour deep,
buried under rubble,
smothered, squeezed, dissected,
infinite life, finite spirit,
cry, cry, cry,
cry stolen and pale into the screams of your indigo dreams.

Ushers clad in white rush the masses to their seats.
Talk dulls to whispers as the queue outside depletes.
A black suit waves his wand at centre stage.
“It looks just like they said it would on this week’s news’ front page,”
             they say.

The tuxedo raised its hands, to quell the audience,
His stonewall face daunting, demanding perfect silence.
As the ushers move in tandem, down the aisles to the stage,
The curtain breaks, the glasses shake, as the lights begin to fade.

Hooded figures appear, wheeling metal tables
Bearing cobalt cadavers, held fast with jumper cables.
They are brought to centre stage, to three white-clad physicians.
Tools are passed into the hands of each the meat-magicians.
“Thank you. You’ve arrived very much on time,” says tuxedo,
       and he snaps a shot of bourbon.

Curtains billow ‘round the stage like clouds of clotted blood.
The lights dim and the show begins, the audience waiting, rabid.
And through the obscurity,
Through the gloom of the room,
They see the white-coat men lift their arms in unison,
As the tuxedo points his wand about like a handgun.
He waves his stick at the white-coat men
And they lower their hands to the bodies in front of them.
They hold tools with blades short and long,
    and dig into their subjects.
They pick through pith and pulp,
     casting flecks of flesh into the audience.
Their white coats blush deeper and deeper
   the farther they dig with their knives and their peepers.
The tuxedo thrashes his wand astir, directing the dissection with little discretion.
The audience gasps and murmurs a disturbed digression
   but watch with wide eyes in disgusting obsession.
“Someone’s got to teach these ******* a lesson,” says a white-coated man, digging deeper depressions.
All the while the corpses lay, until the tuxedo man bends in plie.
And the cadavers awaken and scream upon seeing their entrails laid out for display.
“What a horribly carnal ballet!”
             they say.

The audience clamours, simply enamoured,
Erupting with tears, and applause, and laughter.
They clap at the bodies exploding in seizure
While the white-coats rip and cut to their leisure,
The subjects watch in horror as they are filleted,
Their own pelts and rinds are stars on Broadway.

Suddenly the tuxedo man stops,
Signaling the white-coats to stop in mid-chop.
The mangled bodies see on the floor themselves in pieces like the dried needles of pines.
And they curl and writhe on the metal tables, hugging tightly to their own spines.
“Thank you. But it seems we’ve run out of time,” the tuxedo man says with a bow,
As he wipes the sweat and blood from his brow.
And the ushers rush the audience out,
While the hooded men return to collect the waste
While the audience leaves feeling nothing close to disgraced.
“I’ve never once seen a better display,”
             they say.

It was bad enough when opinionated white men were the only ones
You saw them when you opened your set
Haven’t processed it yet
Gave bert my last four dollars
Fear I may live in squalor
If I screamed and hollered
Would it help
It was bad enough when opinionated white men were the only ones
Merrily followed by
opinionated white women
Black men
Black women
The Asians
The Haitians
Good gracious
The whole gang
A whole gaggle of them
Each one more opinionated than the other
A chorus that roars of
Incredible bores
Tuned into the conversation next door
It too was a bore
Everyone’s hysterical
If it weren’t so serious
Would almost be comical
The what if demons
Threaten to demean us
What am I going to do
I have no money
You think this is funny
I could go hungry
See what I mean
Why should I care
Money will appear from somewhere
If I only can believe it
It was bad enough when opinionated white men
My pill popping hon
Busted in on my fun
He’s out of pills
I’ll see what I can do
I’m out of them too
My appointment’s on Monday
I know it’s not even Sunday
It’s the best I can too
I'm out of them too
And then opinionated white women
What of it
He twists and turns
Thinks something is wrong with him
They examined all over him
No one’s yet uncovered
Discovered his apparent rigidity  
Stupidity, in moments near to him
Rigidity can be good or bad
Happy or sad
Depends if your frozen or fried
Broiled or foiled
Sautéed or filleted
Or nicely done hon
What was I saying
Yeah, rigidity’s a *****.
Always on the hook
You play it by the book
You’re ready to defend
Opinionated white men
Seeking some advantage
Prowling for an entrant
Doesn’t matter
I’m not a contestant
I play by the book
Which book are you looking for
They change by the season
They change by the reason
They change by the color
They change by the number
They change by the thunder
They change by the why
They change by the hi(gh)
They change by the sigh
They change by the discipline
It took to get here
I need a break from this exchange
Dear
Finally, they’re gone
Glorious alone-time
My mind can roam-time
Away from the beehive
Mind-hive project set.
Are you ready set
It’s bad enough when opinionated white men were the only ones
Were the whole set, subset, sweat set upset
Not yet set
Yet set
Ready set
Go set
Maybe set
Maybe no set
Rap set
Whoa set
She said set
I’ll get back to you on that set
But not yet set
I need a rest set
For god’s sake
Let me think about it
It’s only been nine years
Nine months
Nine days
nine minutes
Nine seconds
A split sec
Compared to an eternity set
It was bad enough when opinionated white men were the only ones
You saw them when you opened your set
Haven’t processed it yet
Must be hiding way out on the net set
My God, how can I talk about rigidity
But I’ve changed my mindset
Ok?
But, not yet.

I drew the second third line
A first fourth one is on deck
Knew I inked them finely fine
Still, I go check and recheck

Marvelously filleted corners
Cleave an unsettling sound
Put compass back on paper
Just to make sure it's round

Anxiety was bound to happen
To the fifth first line I go back
Again, I sharpen and sharpen
But I give up, made it all black

Perfection is not my liberty
But a numb skin I wish to flay
Half of my mind seeks symmetry
Yet the other  half  
                                 is    in
                                          disarray

I remember that Day when we sat
(side by side)
On those Stairs
(Waiting for our Train)
And you bought us Miso Soup
(It tasted like Tears)

The Sun hit my legs
(With all the force of sepia toned Nostalgia)
Covering them, bathing them. glorifying.
The traffic was the push and pull
(To and fro, magnetising, Synchronising)
Of waves.
Harsh, solid, mechanical waves
(Full of the force of Human Atrocity)

Japanese Culture was "in" and everything was "kawaii" and sweet
(With the underlying disturbance of Sexualisation - *** takes pride of place in our Civilisation)

I thought I was eating the sea.
(I could see the tiny fish Nibbling us that time we went snorkelling. We saw a Sting Ray that reminded us of Steve Irwin: Danger; Barbed Wire)

The Snow-flakes
(Fish-flakes)
Swirling in the snow globe of my Polystyrene Cup
(A new kind of Fish Bowl, A new Exposure)
And they swam around and around, Hiding
(Cyclical, controlled by Lunar Activity. Natural?)

If I stared hard enough I would, no, could see myself
(Floating, Filleted)
Amongst those Ribbons of Sea ****.
With each Salty slurp
(That tasted of you, of the bitter Crust that Crowns your body in Heat)
I expected saltier Bladders to Burst in my Mouth
(Drowning me in Poison; Poisson)

I imagined the Japanese fisherman Catching Sun-Warmed Sea
(In a Polystyrene Cup)
The thousands of fish, tiny eyes that Blink, tiny gills that Palpitate - Suffocating in Air
(Aboard his boat, that Famed boat: "Daigo Fukuryu Maru")
Harvesting Silken Strands of Sea **** that Clung to its Crate
(In the same way that his Wife's Freshly washed Hair Twines about her Body. Static, Electric, Alive)

We didn't finish the Miso Soup;
It tasted too much of the Tears that I Cried.

in the dark you lurk
eyes seething
i smell your ***** stench reeking
your pores are swollen, hair on end
desire dripping from your wanton lips
there is a smoldering cauldron of hunger
between your legs
taut as a chord
wound enough just fit to break at a drop.
crouched low and devious, dark claws ready
each gasping breath is agonizing
the thrill of the hunt is upon you
waiting, desiring, anticipating.

i turn the lights low
ah...sleep is a blessing
the road to my bed has been long
*****, savaged and shamed.
i knocked on enough doors to know
my wandering soul is ready to rest
i watch my life play out
like an eager child denied his game
missing pieces of my starving heart
each wrong turn, each wayward chance
slips and go astray from my claim.
so with weary eyes i lay
quietly resigned of my fate.
and yet i sense a stirring, awakening...
i feel your presence.
even in my sleep.

the stage is set
oh, seductive phantom of libidinous aching!
you slither like a snake sliding
the slime of creamy eros trailing behind
damp and thick, like your lips drenched wet
by your convulsing furry tongue.
your fangs are now poised, sharp for the ****
you stand triumphant, eyes are now but anxious slits
unchaste ******* exposed and glorious in display
the pungent temple pregnant
moist and drenched with insane lust
as you grin, beholding your feast, a helpless prey
a life soon to be reduced with finality
****** empty and dry.

i dream the dream of dreamers
there is comfort in knowing you.
for i had longed to taste someone like you
to be loved, cared, held, understood
opened like layers upon layers of truth
for i had also longed to taste me, see me, know me
i have been denied but not defeated
and in the silent corridors of longing, i kept seeking
i knew you were out there.
i knew you when i saw your eyes, heard your voice
your cup was open and there was wine for the taking.
i dreamt of you when i was young.
and yet i sense a stirring, awakening...
i feel your presence.
even in my sleep...

crawling between the silken sheets
you lick my flesh from toe to thigh
i am unaware, yet fully keen to the blood rushing
engorging my veins, filling my tumultous swelling
ready for your diabolical invasion
filleted open bare and naked
your mouth descend on me slowly first
slick, devoted with carnal attention
then with strong lashings and shameless fury
i climb high and buck wildly, seizing in throes
my voice hoarse riding your face
flush and breathless, your ******* is powerful
unforgiving, kneading and milking
the floodgates are now let loose
lost in the ecstasy of my writhing, contorted body
i pour all of the thick creamy fuel of my soul for you to drink.
and so we meet...in your starving belly
we stay... in the sweetest spot of your heart
the desecration is now complete
the consecration has begun
we now are one.

sleep like a baby
my muscles are calm and spent
my mind drained with all but the thought of you
i have found a place to rest my heart
in this, our blessed ***-letting
i remain cuddled in my dream with you
i am now forever in you
my seed you carry
my seed is yours...

there is not a drop wasted in the red of your lips
you stand merciless and proud
bathed glistening in sweat and the stink of ***
you are victorious in this sensual debauchery
you toss your gold hair, revealing your wicked smile
on a classic face of such magnificence and majesty
and so you look at this hapless spent creature
like taking candy from a baby
he is now yours eternally
oh yeah..the beast is done for, conquered, consumed

but, no! his eyes are open. he is looking!
he looks at your eyes and knows!

yes, i am awake. i am looking
i look at your eye and know...

just as you have ****** him in you,
he has ****** you in him.

just as you have ****** me in you.
i have ****** you in me.

oh, no..
oh, no.

because *******, my beloved succubus.
i am your incubus.

I have gained a paternal responsibility
But I feel a different response filling me
Constantly itching from a million flees
Begging to get me out of this please
So in my mind unseen
Resides a murderous dream
To subtract from my team

I fall into a landslide
Of infanticide
A lioness eats her cubs
As a baby drowns in a tub
Before they reach the age
They acquire our rage
We devour our babies
Before they contract rabies

We're brought together by proximity and origin
By who we were forming in
This connection of chance
Determines circumstance
Guiding our circle dance
With random music
We take whatever we can
Until we lose it

A possum's mother dies
It has no time to cry
It must continue to eat
So it feeds
Like its mother in heat
Had to breed
In order to not lose
The child chews
In a world of me or you
The child chews
Instead of feeling blue
The child chews
Its mother's fur stuck in its teeth
It stays there to provide heat
The parent provisions from beyond the grave
Will get the possum through this ugly day

From possum to person
I can't tell which is the worse end
For there is flesh stuck between my teeth
Like a Christmas wreath
Where what lies beneath
In a readily equipped sheath
Is patricide or matricide
I can't decide
But must abide
To survive
The purgatory
I see surging toward me
So to move forwardly
I must live forlornly
After feeding on family
Company becomes fantasy
Learning no one can handle me
They're just meals I'll eat handily

I eat my relatives
In this hell I live
Where what I give
Is the gnashing of my jaw
To follow a universal law
That says scratch and claw
Until I meet God
Expecting my parricide ways
Will garner divine praise
But for everybody I slayed
My soul was filleted
Now I only see grey
So everyone looks like my father
And I say welcome back Kotter
As I yearn for my teeth to be hotter

She keeps a bar in the window
Of the room she sleeps in every night
It's there to keep the rapists at bay
She doesn't bother with the other windows
Because her boyfriend will stop them
If they come in that way
These rapists aren't a figment of her imagination
Or a ghost from her past
They are a delusion of her present
Yes she was *****
But any lingering feelings she had about that
She ****** away a long time ago
I know they say **** lasts forever
But the bars in the windows are new

He sleeps with the covers off
It's a lot hotter at night now
Since they stopped opening the windows
He wakes up a lot for his midnight snack
Bagel and cream cheese spread with a spoon
He doesn't want to bother getting out his keys for a knife
He says, “I know she has issues,
But we all have issues, I have issues
That frankly I'm glad she sees past”
He's right that we all have issues
But his issues won't end up killing him
Hers will
I know they say love is forever
But the midnight snacks are new

She wakes up every morning with a smile on her face
Goes to bed every night with tears on her cheeks
The world never lets her have a happy day
She takes a shower and goes to work
Wonders if she'll get to see him before she hates him
Or is it her love the world wants to take away
She worries he'll give up on her
That he'll leave like all the others did
I mean they have *** all the time what else do boys want
If you were going to leave why didn't you go earlier
You know I'll just **** my self when you do
So just go now so we can get it over with
I know they say **** is forever
But forever is just so **** long

The suicide threats aren't new
He may have left a year ago but he can't now
Not now that she means it
He lingers longer before locking the knife drawer
Every filleted fish is a potential slit wrist
Not that he wants to die it's that he wants to help
She's louder every time she yells
He wishes they were fighting that would be the only normal part of their relationship
I mean he loves her so **** much even that's not normal
Tonight will be the fourth candle lit dinner this week
He read somewhere the dim lighting should soothe her
She thinks he's just trying to be sweet
But it'll end the same they'll make passionate love
She'll take a shower that lasts just a little too long
And he'll spend that time plotting her cure
They say love lasts forever
He hopes his suicide will too

You are perfect.
Beyond any comparable specimen
photo shopped and filleted under the surgeons knife
splattered puffy lipped across every magazine
in the dime and nickel drugstore isles.
Like some olden goddess drunken ancients
sent prayer and virgins to.
Like a pop culture piece painting
portraying perfection multicolored
and gleaming.
Like the way the sun breaks into every color of the spectrum
when it hits the clouds just above the shore line
amazing even the coldest of hearts.
Like a piece of water frozen and glimmering
with all the brilliance of the sun itself
turning fields into fiery displays with the morning dew.
Like the first message sent across the nation via telegraph
amazing everyone
and bringing wonder and mystery into the world again
as if darkness and desperation never existed
in the first place.
Like all of these things.
You are perfect,
and I don't know you.
I don't know anything about you.
The sick
the chauvinistic
the sexist
the slum dog
and cannibal
and primitive
the ****** and unforgivable
the pure drive
and urge
in me,
wants to walk up brazenly
chest puffed out to you
to say only three things.
You are perfect.
What is your name?
Will you lay with me?
But I cannot do these things
you know your perfect.
I can tell by the way you walk
the way you brush away looks like dust.
Full of pride brought on by good genes
and disdain for others.
I am a gentleman
and I could never say such things
to a person as self satisfied
and perfect in physicality
as you.

I'll show you all the cracks,
in your feeble facade.
Just shortly before I see it erased,
with psychological grenades.
Don't you know?
I've got x-ray eyes,
They see into your heart
and find the skeletons you hide.
I don't require knives to see you filleted,
I'll verbally split your middle,
expose your doubts and your shames.
I'll flush out every fallacy,
stop the production.
My words and my mind will see your destruction.

we were not born of blessed stars
we did not rise amidst
feathers scorched
from the burning bush
our mother planted carelessly

inseminated with a yearning
for tiny pretty things
she forgot to keep us whole
and instead dismantled our nucleus
cell by nervous cell
until everything grew into nothing
the skin of our young hearts
filleted as embellishment
for her fine collection
of unhappiness

year after lonely year
our mother became obsessed
with our expected failures
creating dusty bouquets
of abandoned feathers
as a reminder of her sacrifice
a reminder of her love

we were never meant to fly
we were born of sadness
and heavy with regret

we entered this life
choking on her tears

Caffeine in the form
Of delicious Starbucks
Grande Carmel Frapp

Farewell my love!

Sushi and tuna so moist
Wrapped in seaweed
Filleted with crab

I leave you for now!

Hot tubs and Saunas
My bubbling friend
Of flavorful, steamy warmth

Oh how I shall miss you!  

Don't, the doctor states
Can't, the internet reads
Want, my brain pleads

But I refrain, all for baby

You can’t feel pain
They said to the fish
They served him filleted
On a nice silver dish

You’re not a real person
They said to the slave
They whipped him and beat him
All the way to his grave

You don’t work hard
They said to the poor
They let them all starve
When they asked for more

When the slaves and the fish
And the poor were all gone
They looked at each other
And a war was on

The most heart wrenching
Soul shaking
Mind clenching
Fear...

You were born to be Artemis,
Brave, free,
Your heart broke your spirit,
Your hormones and adrenaline fighting for your body and your brain racing for a restart.
You?
You wish you were a computer, you wish to be free of a filleted heart and a poisoned mind.
But your chains will never break, and you know it.

You strive instead for chemical imbalance,
For your body's need and you're mind's release,
Homing for a delay, a way around your love.
You bite and nip and ride and kiss and claw and scream AND NOTHING IS LEFT.
You are, you have become need.

But under every need? Lies a parallel, a turning point, a breaking zone.
You have a void inside yourself, an abyss if fears, all of them.
And your fears,
Your human human fears?
They'll eat you alive,
You could never escape.

So face them!
Fight!
Untill every nerve is gone and the blood has left and the bones are broken!
Fight!

Fight yourself..
Fight to be human.
Fight and turn to water,
Rejuvenate yourself,
Let your voice be nothing but reverb...
But then be nothing but sound itself!
Be free little Artemis.
Be free with Persephone.

My grandma is a fish
I saw the gaping mouth
The hook was just a wish
To pull her back down south

The gurgling and gasping
Were more than I could bear
Gnashing and convulsing
I felt a tiny tear

Ed just wouldn’t wake
From his sleeping chair
The paramedics’ take
Sank Mert into despair

Then not much later on
It happened just this way
She had a small procedure
The surgeon’s knife filleted

And when the job was done
Within a god ****** day
I got a call at work
And what you had to say…

She’s not long for this world
We’re going to unplug
Come down and say your peace before
we salt her like a slug

She doesn’t want to be
Kept alive with a machine
To go against her wishes
Would be a trifle mean

The big brains all are saying
She’s just a little old
And though she’d probably make it
If she did what she was told…

She doesn’t want to live alone
So let her keep her pride
Here is an exception
To that rule on suicide.

I just wanted to run, I just wanted to hide…

I just hated your faces; it just felt like you lied...

We met on common land
Sharing a favorite band
We started holding hands
And I felt absolutely grand
Following your similar strand
But I began to feel ******
Once I saw you had planned
To burn me with your brand
You had my idiosyncrasies scanned
So you could start acting bland
Once I was on your nightstand

While trying to give me an *******
You put on a fake southern inflection
Thinking it’s in vogue to be Texan
You’re more like Rogue from the X-men
Spreading your shapeshifter infection
Trying to pass your suitor’s inspection
You hide your personality from detection
Like a jaded politician during an election
You give the people what they want
Until they love you
Your similarities you constantly flaunt
Until they’re subdued

Your metamorphosis
Informed my bliss
By eating from my dish
You fulfilled my wish
Of finding who I’m looking for
Not knowing what’s in store
Once I start to see more
Deep down to your core
To find an empty floor
Behind a locked door

Raised as a changeling
With trends ranging
From punk rocker
To athletic boxer
In a life where validation
Is another person’s creation
Needed for ego inflation
That’s given as placation
For your simple sedation

Now you’re a shapeshifter
Looking to ape misters
As you forsake sisters
For date blisters
Creating a friendless drought
So when you’re down and out
You need a man who’s devout
While I look at you with doubt

I come to you with problems
You can’t help me solve them
You just listen to what I say
And then press replay
A form of redundant consolation
So issues I don’t relay
To avoid your echolocation
While my soul is filleted

Your Houdini act
Voodoo genie tact
Garnered a time pact
By tricking a blind bat
Through a mind hack
Which gave me great pain
The size of a Great Dane
For a misery refrain
After you interest feigned
To enjoy my reign
But your interest waned
And you quit the game
Saying I’m to blame

Once I’m replaced
You build a new face
On the one you erased
For another embrace
While losing all grace
Looking for an ace
To take you away from this place
Where you’ll always remain
An abrasive codependent strain
Viewing relationships as games
Or obstacles overcame
You become the bane
Of another’s lane
Causing rain
In their brain

Your focus on mimicry
Is super gimmicky
Pretending I didn’t see
Your lack of personality
When you can only parrot what other people say
You become an amalgamation of those you date
Which isn’t the worst but definitely isn’t great
When we should just organically relate

I saw most minds of my generation
(and a few generations past)
all boiled together
in the cauldron of history,
a simmering creation from ancient recipe–

who take one breath of fearsome air,
positioned on false arousals
erasing ****** decades
badgering doves with tropes
of noble hearts
protecting fiery hearths
with flag of nation raised;

who mix in a dozen distasteful cities,
adorned in luxurious isolation
producing delicate ennui
which finds each donation harmful
as colors pretend monochromatic
talk of godless violence
withstanding headstrong lusts for nil;

who devour a whole fetishized messiah,
crowned by galloping anxiety
obscuring bulleted defects
battling monsters mounted
on imaginary horses–not crosses–
whilst saving purest virtues
of every child & mother

who torch refuge under murderous lights,
presented as shackled dilemmas
casting diabolic martingale
pitted against those urban sissies
of shallow flimsy heart
mirroring frozen affections
for bizarre cloven rambling about “facts”

who finish with crooked saucy error,
whipped from soft flesh
converted into rusty treasure
absurdly vacant demonstrations
topping brightly flavored cries
still couching ambiguous decrees
amid gaunt periodic theatrical spectacle

who bellow “THIS IS US COOKING!”
awaiting timer dings to hail
the proud tentative product
of their latest ghastly confection,
seasoned with salty tears
and wrought of troublingly familiar ingredients

who pair sacrosanct identities with Pinot Noir
and speak of black & white & queer as if
they know who is what and why and think
they’re somehow differently acidic
in a stomach digesting stale bread
sopped up stew of circus elephants

who hardly know to laugh or cry,
when sadly forgetful, they’re surprised
by the unsatisfying result!

who hold their noses, ignore the taste,
with eyes downcast,
some mumbling, most shouting
“Just serve and enjoy!”

hearts long butchered out and filleted
but still pumping as they fed
millennial masses raised on milk
of Secular Western Humanity

gulping slurping moldy vestiges
forgotten soulful terrors consuming cannibal cravings
passions relit by ignorance of the poem
of life replaced by the hum of sly echoes

ricocheting in revolver chambers
ricocheting in rifle chambers
ricocheting in machine gun chambers
ricocheting in chambers of bombers
ricocheting in chambers of bone in skull

oblivious to decimated cities
–struggling against straw men ignorant to the epidemiology
of the ideology of the very viruses they created–
unworthy of mention or count or even noticing brown lives lost

beating beating beating pounding
till knuckles nearly break
atop the drum of warheads’ quiet boom
Long gone are all objections to escaping
the phantasmagoric discomfort of Actual Reality!

beat on beat on beat on end whimperingly
–with renewed amnesia–
in contemporary post-modern
dullness fading sparks of anticlimax
then no denouement… *Il est vrai pour nous aussi…
Au nom de quoi?

Cars were parked all over the yard, with rusted parts, and chipped paint, that gave way to faint brown sprays on jagged window frames.

And where the oil puddles turned the tall grass grey, a trail was made that lead the way, to the house where the bodies laid.

Stripped of clothes, and filleted in droves, they were posed in ways i couldn't explain.

He used a hammer to remove the teeth, and neatly sawed them into pieces at the creases, as he dumps the clumps into a drum of something acidic, before pouring it down the sink, where he swiped the fodder, and runs the water until clean.

He then places the teeth on sheets of torn cloth that he bundles up, and stashes up in the loft, before heading off for the street, to repeat his play, to the piece, so his dreams can seep into your day.

He was a hitch hiker, having his way.

I loved you,
forgotten,
forgiven,
filleted.

This food was bad. The grease dripped off the polystyrene into the bowl as if life itself was disgusting.
He sat in his flat, unable to write. How ironic that a writer with so much experience couldn’t write his own story. He was so good at observing everyone else.
Then the haze of dubstep pounded through his apartment walls and he imagined a ****** scene in which the cops would find his neighbours filleted on the floor and all over their filthy couches.
The blood spatter, the details in which their ears had been molested as he felt his were... what happened to real music?
He felt raw.
He felt injustice.
He felt motion in his fingertips and began to type.
Ferocious typing.
Typing to the beat, angrily aiding and abetting this criminal assault on his senses.
He stopped to take the last sip of his last warm beer. He smiled…

Casting chicken liver off the levee
tap and pull, rod starts bouncing
set the hook, and reel it in
all its fins and tail a'flouncing.

Costa sunglasses cut the glare
of the green rippled lake light,
three baited lines in the water,
patience, ready for another bite.

Waiting, waiting in the sun
as mosquitos buzz around me,
a slight breeze blowing from the west
they say its when the fish bite best.

Water snakes, colored orange and black
float upon cattail rafts, soaking heat,
ignore the splashing of my cast,
one of my lines goes suddenly slack.

**** the rod, the fight is on!
Catfish tugging toward the bottom,
he so enjoyed my ****** bait,
my fillet knife, though is his fate.

Channel, blue or flathead
whatever fish will try;
will be swiftly cleaned
and served deep fried.

Filleted and battered thick with beer
the oil is bubbling and smoking hot,
hear the sizzle as they fry up crisp,
fill my plate straight from the ***.

Once the night spills its stories three shots down
the wives are always *******
and 'he' the prefect one. How come?

Little did he know his drinks
were earned on the backstreets of ******
and the greasy twenty was to keep his mouth
shut the **** up. But no, he blathered and blathered
of his own inadequacy, on the home front,
and the two children he never knew
ignored his weakness
to sell crack on the doorstep of doom.

The day he went to investigate
this moral uprising in his mind
they found him filleted like a big fish
in the factory backyard where the
slabs of ice kept him frozen for a whole month.

He was shipped on a container to nowhere
frozen with the tuna.

Author Notes
Optional
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a day ago

During my high school days
I was a fat kid afraid
of making any ****** advances
I never went to any school dances
because I knew this fool's chances
were lower than evergreen branches.

My definition of try
was hair that was dyed
and apparel fly
I bought some **** clothes but they were 4XL
now I only spread sheets that far for Excel
because it reminds me of my ex hell
when my enthusiasm for *** fell
because of how weight impacted my mobility
and society negated my nobility
just for the food filling me
which was admittedly killing me
with cholesterol and restaurants billing me
because I was addicted to eating willingly.

Then I started counting calories
for purely cosmetic purposes
which gave me more of my salary
canceling extraneous purchases
but it mainly stopped my self hating
I started meeting people and dating
which feels like competing for ratings
which can be quite grating
but my chances for love are fading
so my life can no longer be about delaying
finding someone who's interested in staying.

Now my docket
shows **** licks
and crossfit
no longer frost bit
by locked lips
I got this
advantage to not being lonely
but now I gain no new homies
when no one wants to know me
just *******
showing
I'm not really growing
just getting laid
but that's a decent trade
for the life I had made
getting food filleted
to a lower grade.

Far away, across the emptiness
and unbrokeness of the desert
a thousand
pebbles are strewn,
each one begging to be picked up.

In some eastern city,
a girl and her friends
wander, and laugh, and joke,
and jump, drunk. She looks
so good tonight. Her hair
wavy and long, her eyes
a thousand different wavelengths
of blue, green, amber.

In a room,
there's a bed,
a desk,
a dresser,
a bedside table.

The girl and her friends,
wandering darkening streets,
drunk, looking for the next ****,
next bottle to **** dry.

Outside his window,
the setting sun reaches out
for it's last burning grasp
of skin. Scorching all day,
now it relents, but it always leaves a mark.

There's a guy in the club,
all up on her,
and she isn't trying to push him away,
even as his lips brush her neck.

In the room, in the dark,
he goes subterranean,
spending hours staring at her feed,
at her notifications,
where she's been,
and who she's with.

The brushed lips are the first warm thing
in forever,
it seems.

Going even more subterannean,
he runs through and through
all the scenarios.

He goes back and forth
in his room,
looking for something,
looking for nothing at all.
Up.
Down.
Sit.
Stand.
Calm.
Explode.
Reassure.
Anger.

And tonight the most harrowing thing,
is those lips and the strength
of pain and sorrow.

He saw,
He saw the snapchats.

Emptied him whole,
right there,
filleted his stomach
and dropped some rocks
for his way down to the bottom.


All the rights he has now:
the right to the joy of betrayal.
the joy of being right,
and its incumbent wrongs all at the same time,
the comfort of madness.

Ive never rushed to death,
Under a cylinder scope
A peek into the surreal:

A dance of shadows
Filleted by burnt light,
Across the portico
Under the middays thought
A girl under my eyes
Holds the glare of our only
Star;

The nocturne and his ways
Mysterious like a woman's
Touch of lips,
Kiss the sky under
The constellated passions
And in the moment....
A girl!
A man sees the destiny's
Plow through fields
Of the grained aches past gone,

A girl subdues the terminable,
Just a breath before the
Dust settles,
A sigh of life.

I can still remember going to school
when it was raining
morphing into a mule
for things draining
from the life I thought I would rule
it's enflaming
all of this taming
with no one to save me
when the student meets master
whose whip is faster
than the policeman's blaster
protecting their interests
on the command of corrupt arbiters
so I can't make up the difference
when their money muscles are bigger.

They turn my peers into overlords
I can smell the overtone
of the rear odor grown
living in my motor home
parked at my job
the ark of the lost
heartless and tossed
friends of the frost
counting the cost
of commodity crops
guarded by cops
so I must pay the right price
or get filleted in a knife fight
by members of a different ark
their difference is stark
like they're the FARC
from Jurassic Park.

We once went to school together
until we were unspooled forever
diverging cultures sever
our tumultuous tethers
until we're rats racing
to the flats facing
the cliff casing
of a bullet blazing
through rodents raging
while automatically aging
in a game not worth saving
until our grave is paving
so the rats contract rabies
and try to enslave me
through shameless shaming
their nameless maiming
is grating gravely.

Their laugh of wit
a crack of whip
they slap I slip
in their pool of spit
which is fuel for grit
to not take their ****
until they break my hip
with the quake of work
I'm too raked and hurt
to spank their skirts
so I bank my irks
for another day
when I want to play.

The days continue to pass
as they misuse my ***
their issues last
through the time elapse
I can't seem to grasp
my life from their clutches
I tightrope with crutches
until I break for my lunches
or break from the punches
of a million miniscule crunches.

They break me in
they break me down
I can't hear any hymns
over factory sounds
I haven't been to the gym
since I developed this limp
being their gimp
getting ****** on the regular
my only communication is cellular
feeling so molecular
kicking for a living like Shane Lechler.

I look at the analogue clock
sitting next to my Econolodge cot
to see this is all the time I got
getting high smoking ***
pretending I'm something I'm not
which is happy
childhood friends outlap me
all the while laughing
about old jokes from school
like forgotten jewels
carried by a beaten mule
working for wool
so it can dress like a sheep
so it can get some sleep
to forget the regrets it's reaped.

there is a rock bottom
Id just got comfortable
when the **** fell out
now Im on a spike in hells basement
spit roasted flayed filleted
wishing I was back where Id started
with a life I still cared about