Tasting the cold rain
of her lullaby dreamscape
I floated through
her open streets
like open veins
where we carried out
our transfusion of love
such was
the umbilical cord of trust between us
such was
a long night's passions
not a drop wasted
she swallowed
the waters that were spilt in open corridors
rivers wide and winter white
ever fluid as they wound their way
into her dreamscape
spinning webs of reality from potential
and on nights
like this
I dream of who would have become if she loved me
but she dared not
and the cobwebs never spooled again
never cast their wide net
out into the hungry world
where babes go to die and ne'er do wells
eat breakfasts with smiles
I waited for her
and she never came
it was then I knew the brutal cruelty of the world
how
promises age
like foul eggs
wherein one thinks oneself soon to be fed
cracks open the vault of life
and goes mad
from the sight of the bitter truth
that all men die of heartache
long before their bodies give out
long before they never heard "I love you"
from tongues not forked
and lips not peppered
with the winter wonders
of myriad men
to whom love was also promised
and never made manifest

storytelling was god’s first gift
to humanity,
a way to embalm our histories,
to dress them up
just as a mortician might paint
the dead
to give the illusion of life—
the mirage of
immortality on our own terms.

and so we become this patchwork of stories,
tales sewn into
the very fabric of human existence like
some great cosmic
game of telephone stretching across
13,000 generations
of **** sapiens who lived and loved
under the same
canopy of distant, blazing stars.

but like the stars, we too die; we
collapse upon
ourselves, upon the weight of
our genetic code
spooled out and stretched like thread
until there is
nothing left to give—no more DNA
to copy, just an
empty tomb, the stone rolled away.

if only death were a simple thing,
like how our brains
can go on autopilot on our commute to work.
i’d love for us to
be able to hand money to the bus driver
and say, smiling,
“all that is mine i carry with me,”
and board the
bus heading to Somewhere empty-handed.

in this fear of a Somewhere, we’ve
turned god’s
gift into a weapon, sharpened
our walking
sticks into spears, melted our
shields into
double-edged swords, named
one side faith
and the other side belief.  

we cut down those whose beliefs
are different
from ours without exception, as if billions
of years ago
we weren’t all carbon and hydrogen atoms
bonded
together, spinning slowly in the dark expanse of
a frigid universe,
the very foundation of the celestial blueprint.

as if millions of years ago we weren’t
a family
huddled by a fire while the fifth Ice Age
raged on
outside, making glaciers out of  mountains.
we sat together
and swapped stories, painting our lives on
cave walls
using sticks and crushed beetle shells.

in this century, we collect new converts like
captured pawns
on a chessboard, as if belief is a battlefield and
the price of
doubt is a one-way bus pass to a Somewhere
that tastes
like brimstone, milk, and honey licked clean
from a lion’s
ribcage: a hint of ash mixed with sweetness.

because all evil carries a hint of god,
doesn’t it?
he made figs and floods, broom trees
and plagues,
trumpets and leprosy, blessings and
curses. at night we
fear that no amount of weeping or
new covenants
will make the scales fall from our eyes.

so humans, in our finite wisdom
can only
say, “all that is mine i carry with me,”
and pray
to Yeshua, the deliverer, to Adonai, the
Lord, and
rest on the seventh day of our rebirth
so we can
wake at dawn and see that it was good.

some days we can be like Jonah in the
belly of a fish,
wise Solomon on his golden throne lined
with idols, Job
who cursed the day of his birth with every
breath, Naomi
whose bitterness begot the still-born name Mara,
so long as we
remember to carry that which belongs only to us:

love.

She has a heavy heart. A messy soul.
A reckless mind, that lacks self control.
She wore nothing but shades of grey.
Her finger tips blue, from writing all of the words she couldn’t say.
She’s always been a silent fighter,
with demons on the tip of her tongue.
Taking away her breaths,
right from her lungs.
She won’t take any judgements,
on the bonds she needs to untie.
She won’t listen to those telling her how to suffer,
and how to cry.
Ignoring the murmurs of others she looks up at the sky,
as tears start to roll down her cheeks,
that tell a thousand stories she’s too afraid to speak.
Her heart cries for help,
but her face is all smiles.
Her emotions unsteady,
hiding she’s been crestfallen for a while.
Something she’s learning is that she needs to undress.
Starting with her buttons of worry and stress.
Undoing them one by one,
brick by brick.
She knows it’ll be hard,
for she’s built them up thick.
She was once asked why she sometimes wears many layers on warm sunny days.
She said because they made her feel grounded,
but maybe it would be better to just FlOaT away.
Giving in she wandered around searching for something that will finally set her free.
Lift her off the ground,
high above the trees.
She is like a kite with it’s string still spooled tight.
Closing her eyes she drops all of her burdens mid flight.
After realizing how unhappy she has been,
she choses to live as light as air,
never again to lose sight from there.

As the beer somehow kept spilling
over the edge of the ping-pong table—

as its cascading luxury of foam
called to mind, for some reason, ruins
of imaginary Babylonian gardens

and the girls began to unravel with the night,
besotted with spume, gradually untwining
their spooled effervescence—

as our volume rose, and our thoughts clacked
against our teeth, the laughter silly—

as we unhooked ourselves for a time
from the existences we ourselves had stressed,
kneading them—and I smelled euphoria—

I, half-drunk off something
other than beer, turned to my friend and let out:

but what do you say to the doomed?
Teeth clacking.

His eyes heavy at me for having wrenched
at this. His eyes fading behind a film of alcohol.
His eyes silent.

Then his cup to the air, firm, salute-poised.

Then his cup to his mouth, quick chug
amid clamor of enclosed mirth—small,
clanging against walls, girls’ skirts—

as if you could only salute, then wash down
the aftertaste
with imaginary Babylonian gardens.

omens
crow january's
car wreck
silhouette
cigarette flick
wrist wrung
whiplash
alchemy
astrology
so much language
spooled in bed
a crumpled version of yr head
pill bottles halo nightstands
hands turn fist fight
dry wall patched
concussion
repeat
headache
repeat
release
kiss
glass
lip
mirror
mean it
this time

princess blood cult
throne of tethers
rumor's of frazzle drip murders
and blood spatters
on a bed of grinning hooks

X
marks the *******
she bled they fed
in love in bed

torn dress and flutter ******
form her squandered torso
as bare feet dangled
while skies shrieked knotted eyes
watching her get it hard

wet **** drunk
she tumbled
in this little black house of madness
****** her in a sack of sins
while **** buckarooed  
in a wood shed paradise

welcoming death by sexicide
she backstroked head over heels
exposed
flirting in the graveyard hacked and black

beckoning orchards that
caressed her by squirming *****

she adored the mole that snuggled her
while thighs shuddered with anticipation
hurricane tongued
she licked grinning *****
for pudenda's pillow
shimmed black light disco daggers
down her lips
to ****
to thighs
to drooling
raw lips

her ****
like a shucked oyster

whimpering disciple
of enticing wounds
bloom in gloom
she tasted like taffy panicked *******

erotomaniac
from head
to lips
to feet
chanting squeals
of infernal opera
in the throws of blood *******
and weeping barbarous 
stammer
beezel blaba blaba
Beelzebub

her body stained labyrinth floors
in soiled cathedrals of desire
while growing phantasm babies
he whispered death music
in grottos of legs over head
that made her hotter than
boiled fish eyes

chopped her in two
she  squirmed
shivering inkblots of madness
cu cu cu cu cu cu
*******

swing the scythe
and
get the knife
she shrilled

pump the ****
split the bone
smudge the lips
spit and blood
moon eyes turn blood gauze
and heads swivels hula

the **** yields
a spooled mouth contortion

her *** crack
a smile of accomplishment
and tormented ballet feet
stretched tickle toes
for heavens edge

she panted rolling away dark air
in an uneasy creeping
and widened thighs
she lost her head
like a chopped carrot
for the miracle of oblivion

you could hear the last thump
falling as silence falls

she spread like bat a wing umbrella

well something deeper
than the ocean here burns,
splits apart and quakes --

we've seen farther than the working
men can go--felt the emptiness of a
disillusioned life, wondered how the
masses buy away their souls,
he touches you and you feel
not a thing, just the skin beneath
his hairline that doesn't glow--

You hear about his sanguine childhood
a finespun gossamer thing,
stretched across the state of colorado,
webbed and spun around
tent stakes, campers, drawn into the Four Corners
spooled in a Chattanooga coffee mug, dipped in  
day old orange juice
I have
settled
into the bottom of his
cup, a thick pulp, rind
and stem -- terrified that
I won't pull through,
that this isn't enough
that I am too much
or too little, haven't
been or seen
there are no
scars on my knees
or callouses on my hands
when the bears came I had
no pots and pans --

I study the sofrito, stir the
rice, break open green olives
and slide the pimientos onto
my tongue --
deftly speaking about shredding
chicken, chopping onions, rolling
corn tortillas
wondering what it is about people
about parents, about chile con carne


this pan holds 21
like the age, like the game, I think.

I am truly terrified.

I could never forgive you,

For all the pain you put me through,

For all the words you spewed,

For the ones that cut so deep,

I bled inwardly.

The demolition of the forgiveness of my soul,

That wretched wound buried further than the iron core,

The blood bubbled and simmered,

That volcanic eruption of hatred,

It spooled over,

The feelings of animosity.

Those months doomed to recycle,

It will remain a part of my being,

Until the day we raise,

From the dust we have lain.

They may have all forgotten those words,

But I shall never forget,

I shall NEVER forgive you.

I put you
over my shoulder
like a spooled
rope.

Twisted too many
directions,
a little tug
and you might go
anorexically
thin;

too taut for me
to yank anymore.

And when you come to me
drunk,
a *****
of yelling,
I think of those times
when we sat close together,
barely touching.

In those days,
we were both drunk
and bitter over forever.

Beers chased liquor
over steeples;
we dropped dimes of pain
over smoked ****
and bleeding anger.

Time languored,
and eventually
or anger
stymied.

When you cried
twisted beyond
compare,
I held you close,
sniffed your hair.

People hurt each other because they can,
and we lay
on a mattress of your canned hopes.

I would never be a prince charming,
even when I groped
you;
when we were tossing each other,
fighting like ghosts do:
bad jabs,
quiet knives,
softer moans.

So, I curled you
over me;
beneath my earlobe,
as your whistled tears
drained energy.

Our synergy was syphoning
each other's
pain;
coiling nooses around our hearts
and kicking out the chairs
holding up our underneath souls.

Wait and
Feel the depth from within the Jungle
Of an overlapping melody of violence-
The water rose and drowned the sounds
Echoing the silence of seven years buried
In a sea of earth, so
It was written as
Ridden steady waves
Split, sparked, spooled by
The written woven
Time of infinite darkness
Like, glass clouds blooming across the eyes
Like a glass veil glazed obsidian- migrant mother stranger
Hunter in the depths of Hell- without without as I have
Leather whipped crescents livid on my eroded
Bones
The water rose and I with it as if participating in
The joys of nascent mother motion ever-flowing

I neglect to confide in what formal formality dictates a causality      
The end

I mislaid myself one November morning
Took three months to claw me back
Searched every corner of a blistering dark
Scoured the pavements crack by crack

Spooled the night with a microscope lens
And then rummaged under the bed
Tried to push out those other girls
Who’d instated themselves in my head

Latched myself into my writing
Handcuffed myself to my keys
Fed off the damp of my poetry-drip
Then relocated myself with ease.

the trees in my head were metal painted red
I shot up ****** and melted into my bed instead of going to school
I spooled thread around my finger till the tip bled
ships sped around my room on the wallpaper
gloomy clouds pushed through my screen and vapor floated around me
I tongued my teeth to see if they were there
I was completely numb and happy as a bear

I'm being
eight tracked into the spooled tape,
rewound,
it's too late,
I'm going in.
Circumspect would more than likely press eject
but I have never been perfect
and so I slowly wind.

As the days go on
I find I get along but wonder why
so many things go wrong
when all I do
is right.

Perhaps
the light I see is bent along
the eight track
symphony
and I
will be
perpetually moving
in
the dark.

Usually spooled
pink fluffy

sugary stuff
it's there

in your mouth
then it dissolves

here
then we're not

parting
is never sweet sorrow

senseless
maybe

and what is there to fear
in the refuge of bedrock,
in the embrace of flaming
sword and iron shield,
in bronze hands that
cradled us when we
were but dust beneath
a night sky filled with
stars,
who spoke past the
rivulets of time to
forge seas from the
embers of dying stars
and unfurled entropy
into a flat sheet across
an ever expanding universe,
of a god who, looking at
angels with wings the
size of galaxies, sought
to make a home for
a host of insignificant
creations instead,
whose lives could be
measured out in grains
of sand, spooled in mitotic
spindles of telomeres,
fragile pieces of DNA
covered with the fingerprints
of divinity.

Wait on me, as I wait on you.
Worship me back cuz I got feelings too.
Encompass me with particulars,
determined passion to adorn all I do.
Treat me like you give 3 *****,
and I'm stuck to you like glue.

Treat my words like they give life
and I guarantee these lips
will only form words around
the likes of you.
Look me in the eye when our souls sing,
otherwise we're just *******.
I don't like that.
I want to feel your gaze lock me down,
like there's silk bounds spooled up in your irises.

I want to feel your being rush inside me.
No matter how knarled and rampant our roots,
I want your spirit subdued,
dying back to life with each sigh
until morning dew breaks over your face,
beaming anew like the sun rising.
Good morning to you too.

what you choose it bound to
your skin
spooled tightly around
your ankles
gray and black rivulets
tight rope on the ground
walking straight, walking clean
watch your feet or you might
fall on to the
wrong path one where
men wave their thumbs at you on
the highway
while you swerve and
bend no tightrope
no
haywire haze on your
window shield
your parents want you to
pick up pieces of cloud
bring them back to
their aching heels
curved around the coils of
gray and black.
you’ll always wish they
could see how low
your wire is
how close you are to
jumping down and resting
your feet a while
maybe it’s time they
get themselves a thicker piece of land.

rest slips
sleeps
loosely tied nots
the chasm yawns
as slumber lost
its easy to
forgive
what we forgot
the brain debrides
a sleepless rot
seeps in quiet
at first
then like a riot
logic process bursts
a mind full food
sleep nourishes deep
mistress of mood
our sanity she keeps
night
after
night
spooled reels unroll
an endless thunder
amassing its tolls
in joyless wonder
I'm all rite I'm all write
lip maneuvers say
one more haunted night
feeds
one more daunted day.

J.C. baby-owly-owl 23/08/2019 5.05am.

images brim
inside my
lonely, worried head.

things.

all the
t h i  n g   s
need
to be done
all the time.

i know.

but i
petrify
like a tree slip;
now tipped over,
asked to lay down;
horizontal to this,

death's opened fist.

and then,

all those lightyears
spooled along the edge of the rush
come lit with a sound
so furiously felt

it -somehow- passions forth
a small being, breathing
from ways milky forever.

and i

place it,
upright,
in the palm of your
hurt hand,
semi-curled openshut, and
sorta tilted;
as if to say, idunnoifishould..

... but you do know.

and it will grow up
and down
and around,

where it will thrive till shone tumble and wilt.

Yes,
I am dead

I have walked the streets of life
before there were even roads

I twisted my ankle
on the cobble stone

I have moved past the past so many times
that I don't even know

I have roamed the metropolis's made by man
and have found them all below a stones throw

I've met the faces of the characters that dreams wove
just to awaken to pounder what has happened to whom I was to be betrothed

I've seen the tapestry become unwound
spooled in a mound upon the earthen ground

I spoke so sweetly
I was not heard

I yelled so loud
I was feared

I thought so quietly
I was Love

I thought of myself
I was abound for above

alas,
the wise in the weak can never lesson

there is not a sign in life
that left me guessing?

They are called cowbirds.

I did not know this until
just a few weeks ago.

The neighbor-lady told me.

I told her that they made me think
of those fish that you see during
documentaries about the ocean;
the fish that cluster and move
and
bend the shape of the whole school
so that it catches the light that is just
visible below the surface
and
is just
bright enough to scare the sharks or
dolphins enough into thinking that
the entire school is one big fish that
might do well at fighting back against
dolphins or sharks,
so they end up leaving that particular school
of fish alone and look for easier prey.

“Yeah. They’re called cowbirds”,
she said again.

So, I asked her if she came out to look at the pinks
and purples  and oranges of this sunrise and I asked her if
she thought that the ***** snowdrifts looked like coral reefs
now that they’ve melted in the sun that we’ve had in the afternoons.

I told her again that the coral reef snowdrifts and the way that they’ve melted
are the reason that the cowbirds made me think of those fish from the ocean documentaries and I’m sorry I can’t remember what those fish are called,
but
aren’t the colors of the sunrise beautiful?

“So, yeah, they’re called cowbirds”, she said one last time as she turned to go back inside.

“Now I know what a cowbird is”, I thought.

And, in spite of the black and grey dirt on them,
I still thought that the snowdrifts looked like coral reefs as they melted,
and
I still thought that the lavender sky,
with its pink and orange laser beams
was beautiful while the cowbirds swarmed
and
their inkblot flocks
coiled
and
spooled through an ocean of blue ,
my brain wandered around the ocean
and wondered if those same types of silver-scaled fish
made like the cowbirds while avoiding
the dolphins and the sharks
as though they were seafaring
raptors.


*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2019

Trapped inside a nightmare,
  dying inch by inch

Slave inside a rusted heart,
  feelings chained then lynched

Later now than yesterday,
  earlier than goodbye

Spooled like thread that can’t be sewn,
  the needle asking why

But time contorts, reversing,
  trumpets call you home

Eyes unspoken, voice untouched,
  senses all dethroned

Words on fire with freedom stirred,
  their meaning scorched and bare

A silence brewing louder,
  new light burns through the air

Eleven Angels fly as one,
  and twelfth, you join their throng

With wings now soaring inward,
—time’s grip left dead and gone

(Airplane To Seattle: March 8, 2017)

I tell myself one life
must yield to another:
fly to spider,
spider to bird,
bird to birdshot.

I tell myself one life
must, in the full course
of a day relinquish itself
to another savage dawn,
fall as each unbidden

yesterday fell, bleak
and ungrieved, twisted
on a rack of tomorrows
no more certain than a silk
spooled about a winch.

The girls in my stories love to eat each other.
In one, Red Riding Hood lies back on her cloak
with her spooled ringlets falling all around her as
shiny and intimate and obscene as anything.
The Wolf says, "I'll have the heart last."
Red says, "Good, I've wrapped it as a present in
skin, fat, and ribs and I've been saving it just for you."
The Wolf kisses up to her femoral artery where there pulses
live communion and laps her way into carnivorous heaven.
In another, there are two characters
who don't share our names but you're not stupid.
They fly cranes across balconies
with ink-smudged messages folded on the inner planes,
the hearts and brains of paper.
The words are meaningless; the game is to divine intent.
When they talk, phones fall awkwardly from their mouths
and they pray to God the other knows how to unwrap them.
The one who doesn't share your name cuts
through the skin and fat and ribs of sound
and savors one fleeting drink from the well of me.
You choke on it, then swallow, and then we love each other again
with the biting curiosity of strangers.