Poured into the tight pants,
the grey ones with the zipper
that's afraid of heights, and
guess what? They're really
wrinkled or very wrinkled
or **** wrinkled--but they're
the tight grey ones, assumed
the thighs and calves would
handle the ironing.
Ten minutes late,
usually more. The clock
in the car, the red beat-up
'02 Cavalier, is not behind
or ahead an hour, no it's
set to some vague time
because lateness has
replaced time so why
even worry. Blood pressure, etc.
Spray on the cologne kept
in the car. Could look
up ingredients in cologne
to describe the smell
but that would take
away a little something.
So say: it smells really good
or very good or **** good--
and move on.
Walk inside, unbathed and
sun burnt--well not completely
unbathed. Washed the hair
because it's a puffy, erratic
downer otherwise.
It's all about appearance,
the bosslady said when
she made the hire.
Slipped a little.
Big woop.
Cold called the Southside
Veterinary Clinic.
They'll allow a visit.
Pack it all in the bag,
the mouse pads,
the koozies, the actual
thing to be sold:
SHEENY PUPPY, some
really heavy or very heavy
or **** heavy duty
coat treatment for canines.
The first one is on me, is said
as the package is handed over.
The vet wouldn't buy. Not then.
Probably not ever.
Ate an eighty-calorie bag of cookies.
Drank some coffee.
Stopped at the gas station, the
Conoco on 15th and Kelly,
and couldn't decide between
the fun size or the party size.
This is called the spectrum of grief.
Bought a pack of cigarettes.
Smoked three really quick
or very quick or **** quick,
like Mom might show up any
second and then tossed the pack
and the lighter.
Done with those. Forever.
This time. Or that time.
There was $20.89 in the
checking account and
a fresh girlfriend reminding
that today is one month.
Dinner. Dinner and wine.
$20.89.
You can sell only if you believe in the product.
Be really blunt or very blunt or **** blunt.
Stress is an art.
Create FUD (Fear, uncertainty and doubt).
It’s all about the presentation.
She's fresh and funny and so
self-conscious when she eats
spaghetti. Can't get
by with spaghetti
for the one-month.
No. No. No.
Be on fire and inspiring.
If you don’t know the answer, ask a question.
Answer inquiries concisely and loudly.
Humor is ****.
You can always be better. You can never be worse.
Call Mom, donate plasma or take the Xbox back.
Is this one forever?
Does forever mean dinner and wine
are necessary?
Or does forever mean that
the spectacle is frivolous?
In the cabinet at work
someone left blueberry bagels.
There's a microwave and a tub
of margarine that only
recently expired.

I never knew his real name and my youthful imagination named him uncle funky the peanut man as bagged peanuts burnt were hopefully sold from a makeshift stand now on this June 2013 morning my mind slowly opens the door of youthful memory and I see soiled pants turned over shoes old hat crooked atop long gray hair  brown hands waiting for a dollar exchange as funk clings to the untended skin like fleas on a homeless dog whiffs released randomly would stagger a prime boxer the times changed with the town sweeping uncle funky away with yesterday and the past of bygone days and I wonder and it is"t a very pleasant wonder whatever happened to uncle funky?









ut to be sold hopefully from a makeshift stand now on this june 2013 morning my mind opens the door of youthful memory and I see clearly soiled pants and shirt old hat atop of unseen hair  brown hands waiting for a dollar exchange as funk clings to the unbathed skin like fleas on a homeless dog whiff released would stagger a prime boxer the times changed with the town sweeping uncle funky away with yesterday and the past of bygone days but I wonder and it isn"t a very pleasant wonder whatever happened to uncle funky the peanut man?

the lines on your face tell a story i've never heard
nor seen, blown to smithereens, you're a broken bird
with your wings growing back crookedly
the first time you saw will be the last time you see
i've seen this fifteen times before
the sixteenth won't mean much more
you're awfully late to the game you started yourself

your eyes once looked my way
floating in ***** water, unbathed
thinking i'm headed for a watery grave
because, to your eyes, i'm a slave
getting better at your favorite game

There are lots of topper things I adore on earth,
like cats, the moon and drunken mirth
or talking, the sea and a well buttered bun,
nights drawing in or long days in the sun.
Another thing I really like is having a shower in the morning,
it’s the perfect antidote to my just awoke yawning,
the aqua blast helps remove the yearning for more bed
the watery goodness bringing vitality to my head,
the soapy woosh invigorates and vamooses my alarm’s mesh,
I exit the bathroom feeling fantastically fresh
and when I’m sat on the bus to work I think “ohh, someone smells splendidly,
oh wait a minute, yeah, it’s me!
Now although I adore gliding into employment with the fragrance of roses
I don’t always heed my cleanliness craving after dozes,
If I’ve had a alcohol drenched Sunday with lots of venturing out
my wanting for a pre work bathe goes up the spout,
sometimes I’ll awake on Monday after a drunken slumber
and feel like I’ve been covered in a ton of lumber,
and think “right it’s either get up now and scrub myself clean
or hit snooze and have another 15”
as even musing on that is making what little energy I have sap
I pull the quilt tighter and take the nap,
the tiny jot of rest doesn’t even touch the side
and before I know I’m at the bus stop awaiting a ride,
I get on and sit down still knackered as hell
and think, “what is that that stale vino smell?
Ohh I bet someone unfortunate was sat here before me,
one of those who has to choose tween getting drunk and having their tea,
someone who everyday has to have more than a few,
then the penny drops, “Jesus Si that odour is coming from you!”
I’m weary, languid, my body is sore,
and because I didn’t shower I’ve got Pound Shop wine coming out of my pores
yeah 4 for tenner cheap plonk is great to toast the end of the paid employment week
but after 24 hours without a cleanse  it pongs pretty bleak,
I’ve got eau de toillete of rotten grape reek.
I hum like I’ve slept in a pre Herculean task Stables Of Aegean that’s been dosed in a dregs of wine pump,
or stench like a on the streets Oliver Twist spliced with a wino Stig Of The Dump.
The bus pulls up to work and before I head in I think I’ll grab something greasy to eat,
ohh, congealed fat mixed with a day on the beers stink, your mates’ nostrils are in for a treat.
I slob to my desk like the unbathed thing I feel
And ponder, “that shower later better be the real deal.”
But, I don’t always rue not having a shower on a Monday because sometimes it means I don’t have the aroma of a stale wine scene,
sometimes uncleansed has me feeling serene!
I remember one unshowered Monday as I’d seen you on the Sunday I smelt of that perfume you always wear,
cos as you’re huggy and tactile it was on my clothes, some of it was even in what was left of my hair,
and as that scent reminded me of you what swirled around me was your awesome breeze,
suffice to say that day of employment passed with ease,
as whenever I got bored of pretending to look at that work thing on Excel
i’d get a hint of your fragrance and my thoughts would propel
with,
your easy wisdom and penchant for a chats
how you like Amaretto and how you love cats,
how you help out animals when they’re feeling brittle
with the tender coo of a Dr Doolittle.
You can take a piece of junk that was discarded at leisure,
decorate it with aplomb and turn it into a treasure,
you’re a burst of energy, a buzzing sprite,
a pleasure to be around, a total delight,
you’re interested in the world, and quantum theory,
talking to you is never dreary,
you bounce around the pub fabulously gassing with the many folk you see,
opening conversations with your splendid key,
**** you seem as popular as me!
Ahh, your joyful demeanour and fantastic soar,
how could anyone fail to hear your wonderful caw;
Emma every time I see you I like you more!
And on those your perfume days when I do get home, hit the shower and feel cleanliness envelop my face
I think, “you know for a ***** day you turned out pretty ace!”!

How many mothers are aggrieved of themselves
Shattered by the heart of matters which they take part of the blame
No longer denying in their crying
That they too were made fools
Beggars yearning for a redo
To undo the terrible truths
Revealed and reviled

How many parents would stab their own heart
To undo the part they played
On any given horrendous day
And see the ones they lost
Returned
Unburnt
Unscathed
Unbathed in blood
By the horrors of the day

And whilst some cannot rewrite those dark nights
Perhaps they can pass on the lessons in wrongs
So other mothers can make this life right

It's the third week of summer and we've had nothing but gray skies
No sunshine

Quincy Valero is in a bad way these days

He's been dumped
She wanted a kid, a ring and a promise of a life time
He said no
She left

Now, he's searching far and wide for a new dock to make port

He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out three likely candidates

One who has blown hid mind on multiple occasions, and quite a few others

Another who has been straight up stalking him and begging for one night of beastly ***

The last who if he got drunk or high enough she'd do anything, unfortunately she resembled an ugly spud

The firs girl was right out, she informed Quincy that since the last time they hung out she found a boyfriend which she is dedicated to

The second girl has been on vacation since the end of the semester and won;t be back until the next one starts

The third girl is seeing some one but said she would hook up with Quincy if circumstance allowed

He has fallen into a state on unbathed sloth
Staying up until six am
Waking up at three pm
And not going to the gym

He crashed his Mustang back in Ewing
He hasn't come clean about it
His father told me
Quincy tells me it;s just sitting back at his house down there and he's too lazy to go get it

He now goes to online dating cites in hopes of getting laid

What has become of the self-proclaimed Don Juan of Dumont?

I can only pray this time of depressing desperate sadness is temporary

& the Capuchin dances on a grand piano
Lit by a candle
I'm gonna catch that ****** someday
But he is good at hiding and bringing me
Baskets of dead flies
With a smirk that says he knows
Exactly how sick he is
Unbathed and starved.

Sheathed in stolen jewelry
the Capuchin
Mocks Salvador Dali hung up beside us
I attempt to strangle him but he knows better and wraps a necklace around my throat
& tightens in a boiling silence

Meanwhile the kettle is unattended
And hot and I can't breath!

I suppose I deserved this with how much I hated and dreamt of escaping this monkey..

But sometimes karma simply comes back around and
Shows you who the real fool is

The piano is terrified of losing me

*I became invisible one Summer , a ramshackle empty home was my
safe port , the walls my confidant , my July bastille in constant danger of being overrun
Hostility answered in midnight dreams , a flea the mongrel couldn't reach , unbathed in reprisal and pain killer forgetfulness
I dreamed of my death , I entered a dark place , burnt musical scores to light my way , sang out loud to show I was not afraid , I dreamt the same nightmare everyday
I ran out of money , ate cornbread for five days straight , running out of "Oxy" was sweaty , demonic pain , on the eighth day a I heard a voice on the answering machine asking if I was okay
Pawned a decent guitar that morning , went to work the following day
I was at the crossroads that year and by sheer luck I just happened to turn the right way

[notes from life under bell]

(i)

on video my cousin is singing a song she’s learned by heart. she’s maybe four. I don’t know where to begin. this pond behind her, perhaps? that in my memory is the size of a fire pit. or maybe, here, in the darkening sameness of those sentences strung together by cows. or years from now, even, with the word no and her sister’s lookalike being assaulted by an only child in a library of fragile non-fiction. my cousin is singing a song she’s learned by heart. she’s five. a careful six. sound’s fossil. no city half-imagined. no insect obsessed with privacy. time matters to the frog we catch.

~

(ii)

there are days he is the son of muscle memory and funny bone. days his hands are gloves from a small god. poor god, he says, and grows. days he can carry a circle to any clock in the town of hours. days his past can be heard by his siblings- you’re beautiful the way you are. days his blood pushes a bread crumb through his thigh. days his scar is a raft for ear number three. nights his brain / the separation of church and church.

~

(iii)

violence is a dreamer. a boy on a stopped bus is dared to eat a worm. it feels authentic. alas, there is no worm. the devil knows to stay pregnant. word spreads about the girl without a tongue. cricket lover. and then, bulimic, when she won’t sneeze.

~

(iv)

the mother of your hand is smashing spiders with her wrist. we have a high-chair for every creature that eats its own hair. the twins in the attic have switched diapers. skeptics. voices heard by the ghost of my stomach.

~

(v)

it is snowing the first time my daughter drives alone. Ohio is cruel. stillbirth, old four-eyes. you want them to like you. the insects you save.

~

(vi)

a lawnmower starts then dies then is pushed by a noisemaker past fog’s dark church.  an unprepared prophet drinks the milk meant for baby eyesore.  my sister loses most of her hair putting together a puzzle of her mouth.  a bomb is dropped on a bomb.                

~

(vii)

the man his shadow and the woman her dream.  

their child
its track
of time

~

(viii)

onstage a dog barks at an empty stroller.  the mosh pit is weak.  last count had three pregnant, three resembling the man who unplugged my father, and two praying for the inner life of a hole.  onstage a boy is holding up a kite for another boy to punch.  dog’s been tased.

~

(ix)

we put a museum on the moon. I had all my dreams at once. a mouse was wrapped in a washcloth then crushed with the songbook of baby hairless. fire treats grass like fire.

~

(x)

outside the bathroom’s designer absence, our melancholy impressed by symbolism, we form

a line

~

(xi)

tree: the unbathed statue of your screaming

shade: the folder of my clothes

~

(xii)

praying he’ll see again them cows of lake suicide, the handcuffed frog shepherd

prays he’ll see again them cows of lake suicide    

~

(xiii)

a body to dry my blood.  some god

seeing me
as a person…  

how quickly birth gets old.  

~

(xiv)

lonelier than creation, I have nothing on trauma.  genetically speaking, I don’t think anybody expected us to spend so much time on one idea.  this open umbrella.  ghost at the keyboard.

~

(xv)

and in the spacecraft where a mother diapers the doll that makes her fat there plays the voice of god asking for a film crew none will miss

~

(xvi)

we wore clothes as an apology for being nearby.  a door was a door.  a ghost was a ghost and a door.  the house was possible.  its rooms were not.  baby was a body spat from the mouth of any creature dreaming of a bathtub.  I got this lifejacket from a scarecrow.  said the redheaded tooth fairy.

~

(xvii)

his baby is wailing in its crib for its mother and he mans you up for a cigarette and blows on the baby’s face and somewhere you yourself have stopped crying as you are pulled from a pile of leaves by two people made of smoke

~

(xviii)

for a spine, doll prays to fork.    

all kinds
of shapes
miscarry.

~

(xix)

one day my son is dying, the next he is not, and the next he is.  day four:  prayer is dismissive, but welcome.  whose past is how we left it?  body is delivered twice.  beginning and end.  nostalgia and wardrobe.  middle eats everything.  it snowed and I thought my blood was melting.  could be the way you reason that happens for a reason.  I was a kid when mouse was a kid.  there’s no hope and I hope.  

-

my son’s weight is a cricket on a piano key.  it’s more than I can handle that god gave us god.      

-

aside:  we don’t come out faking our death, but are born because birth can’t sleep

-

aside:

I study lullaby
and lullaby
bruise    

-

it takes four juveniles to recruit his thumb.  his fist has been called:  hitchhiker practicing yoga in a junkyard.  I cannot visit the instant ruin that forgiveness creates.

-

sickness in the young is god’s way of preventing nostalgia from becoming the god I remember

-

I was beautiful but now I’m ugly. (now) being the most recognizable symbol of the present. this is the silence I speak of. my son says (more ball) and you hear (moon bone). he is very sick. his moon has bones.

-

the disappearance surrounding said event.  a horse belly-up in water’s blood.  see telescope.  also, cane of the blind ghost. magician, maybe, on a rabbitless moon- oh cure.  

oh silence afraid to start a sentence.  

-

in the photograph a fist is cut from, a kneeling family of five is putting to bed

the unremembered
present.  

-

traced, perhaps, for a terrible circle-

today was mostly your hand.

tree: the unbathed statue of your screaming

–

shade: the folder of my clothes

Home

The taste of granite flushed her mouth,
Felt like brittle sand between her teeth,
And she grimaced harshly,
Blaming the crust on her teeth for her situation.
Her knuckles cracked as she pulled her hands into fighting fists,
Her heart beat sung cruelly in her ears as she stared,
Black eyes dancing in unanswered danger,
At the large looming presence in front of her.

She could die,
Truly die, splat, gone, disappeared,
Wind howling with her absence,
Never to be seen again.
And she didn't know how to feel about that,
Was undecided,
Twisted and curled and gnarled in darkened thoughts,
Couldn't quite wrap her fragile mind around reality.

She was walking,
Back and force, pacing with side stepped tracked expectancy,
Eyelashes swaying like whiskers in the wind,
Cold eyes opened and ready to see the end, the coast to her city.
Her feet clacked like a horse's hoof beneath her,
Her shoes, never cleaned, smelt quite similar to a horse too,
Musty, sweaty, *****, filled with unleashed stench,
But she did not plug her nose.

The smell was hers to disgust on,
She embraced it.

She tucked stray hairs behind her angled and alert ears,
Letting calloused and shredded hands do such a gentle action seemed wrong,
As if they only mimed the part they were meant to fit,
Even though they had been her hands for as long as her hands existed.
Her eyes raised slowly, in key with the slow moving sunrise,
She gazed in mesmerised and petrified wonder,
At the unveiling scene of terrified beauty before her,
It didn't seem real.

She dropped her arms in shock and amazement,
The two falling tactlessly beside her sides with the agility of a ragdoll,
She found herself walking on slightly bent legs,
Towards the glorious picture.
A child, no older than four,
Demon eyes the colour of the blood,
And silver hair the colour of the moon's reflection on the sea,
Lifted out a curious arm with gentle innocence.

The child was not normal,
Though neither was she with her black eyes and doomed expression,
They fitted together, their palms folding like two clashing pieces, and slotted seamlessly,
She had thought her hands would fall off if they ever touched another.

Why was this boy so special,
And why did she not hate him for it?

She lifted him into her arms with a maternal grace she had never understood,
Tugged him close until his small plump face rested on her clothed chest,
Could hear his gentle and fragile heartbeat thumping softly against her squished torso,
Banging harmlessly against her ribcage.
She felt tiny hands play with her straight locks of hair,
Running fingers through the tragic art of her style,
Sniffing the smell of unwashed hair,
Of unbathed pale skin exposed to the elements.

The little boy's nose did not wrinkle as expected,
He did not appear to think she smelt of horse like her shoes.

The little boy smelt of woodchips, of forests, cooked chicken, and clean air,
He was far too precious for her to be holding,
But she couldn't seem to let go,
Not once she had him.
He brought his butterfly soft lips to her ear,
Gently brushing hair away from the opening,
And whispered softly, as if he had no idea how glorious the words were,
Against her shoulder and into her heart.

“I'm home, right?”

He rolled the words over his tongue,
Tasting them like fine wine,
As if he could not believe them himself,
And she could only hold him tighter.

[response musics (i)]

what nostalgia is to angel, eyesore is to animal

most mothers
hate
being filmed

there is the way I hold my son
& there is
the way I hold my son
while running
in place

tornado means
I am touched
in a house
with no
basement

wherever it is your father goes
the postcards
there
are small

oh to see jesus
walk at all

~

[response musics (ii)]

I thought girlhood the boyhood of grief

childcare, handprints, the failed hearts
of octopi

toy / on a stair / left there / by doll

god (memory)
making its way
through the useless
infant

myself
an impressionist

(because all

my mothers
faint

~

[a prayer for the tall mother whose cigarettes void brevity]

piano that disappeared
milk
that didn’t…

feather in the stomach
of my angel’s ghost

~

[cleaning the body small and boy]

the brain a ****
in the remoteness of god

~

[removal musics (ix)]

what a quick study
addiction is

this longing
my father’s

(her childhood a pinning of morose insects)

no horse but maybe
one
that pillows
a tree’s
broken
hip-

this poem, lonely expert
in a town of goats

~

[guest musics]

sand in her ear
she goes
as a seashell
her small
joke
a way
of living
on land
with the ghost
of her unbathed
child
her mother
calling clothesline
the scarecrow’s
scarecrow

~

[how to make a body]

sleep
until you feel
it passing
the slow
mattress
drowsy
and afloat
designed
for god

throw anything
you can find

stick, stone, nest, honeycomb

bird
the weight
of wasp

- name
what lands
with a friend
you can touch

~

[being alone went by so fast]

we have in my city a museum just like this. I, too, am private and have lost an unabsorbed child. I am,

inventory, very motherly.

this one-man radio show about a father looking for his mouth. this tornado.

my first owl was a bee-loving tick. my first milk
was jigsaw

milk. being alone went by so fast.

~

[musics, other]

mother’s
farsick
palm, father’s

pack
of disappearing
nails-

our goldfish
insomnia

~

[toying with object permanence in kidnapper’s invisible world]

how
to unfossil
the mourned
boy
kissed
we believe
on the wrist
by
(we don’t)
the last
to experience
déjà vu

~

[lawn musics]

books on arson, grammar, vandalism…

god, multiple owners.

a typewriter
touched by father
at night.

the electric chair my brother imagined
& the hair
my sister...

adam (who’s never known the age of eve

thru June 11th, Lulu is offering 10% off all print books AND free mail shipping (or 50% off ground) with coupon code of BOOKSHIP18

poetry collections, mine, self-published, are here: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/acolyteroad

~



NOTES FROM LIFE UNDER BELL

(i)

on video my cousin is singing a song she’s learned by heart. she’s maybe four. I don’t know where to begin. this pond behind her, perhaps? that in my memory is the size of a fire pit. or maybe, here, in the darkening sameness of those sentences strung together by cows. or years from now, even, with the word no and her sister’s lookalike being assaulted by an only child in a library of fragile non-fiction. my cousin is singing a song she’s learned by heart. she’s five. a careful six. sound’s fossil. no city half-imagined. no insect obsessed with privacy. time matters to the frog we catch.

~

(ii)

there are days he is the son of muscle memory and funny bone. days his hands are gloves from a small god. poor god, he says, and grows. days he can carry a circle to any clock in the town of hours. days his past can be heard by his siblings- you’re beautiful the way you are. days his blood pushes a bread crumb through his thigh. days his scar is a raft for ear number three. nights his brain / the separation of church and church.

~

(iii)

violence is a dreamer. a boy on a stopped bus is dared to eat a worm. it feels authentic. alas, there is no worm. the devil knows to stay pregnant. word spreads about the girl without a tongue. cricket lover. and then, bulimic, when she won’t sneeze.

~

(iv)

the mother of your hand is smashing spiders with her wrist. we have a high-chair for every creature that eats its own hair. the twins in the attic have switched diapers. skeptics. voices heard by the ghost of my stomach.

~

(v)

it is snowing the first time my daughter drives alone. Ohio is cruel. stillbirth, old four-eyes. you want them to like you. the insects you save.

~

(vi)

a lawnmower starts then dies then is pushed by a noisemaker past fog’s dark church. an unprepared prophet drinks the milk meant for baby eyesore. my sister loses most of her hair putting together a puzzle of her mouth. a bomb is dropped on a bomb.

~

(vii)

the man his shadow and the woman her dream.

their child
its track
of time

~

(viii)

onstage a dog barks at an empty stroller. the mosh pit is weak. last count had three pregnant, three resembling the man who unplugged my father, and two praying for the inner life of a hole. onstage a boy is holding up a kite for another boy to punch. dog’s been tased.

~

(ix)

we put a museum on the moon. I had all my dreams at once. a mouse was wrapped in a washcloth then crushed with the songbook of baby hairless. fire treats grass like fire.

~

(x)

outside the bathroom’s designer absence, our melancholy impressed by symbolism, we form

a line

~

(xi)

tree: the unbathed statue of your screaming

shade: the folder of my clothes

~

(xii)

praying he’ll see again them cows of lake suicide, the handcuffed frog shepherd

prays he’ll see again them cows of lake suicide

~

(xiii)

a body to dry my blood. some god

seeing me
as a person…

how quickly birth gets old.

~

(xiv)

lonelier than creation, I have nothing on trauma. genetically speaking, I don’t think anybody expected us to spend so much time on one idea. this open umbrella. ghost at the keyboard.

~

(xv)

and in the spacecraft where a mother diapers the doll that makes her fat there plays the voice of god asking for a film crew none will miss

~

(xvi)

we wore clothes as an apology for being nearby. a door was a door. a ghost was a ghost and a door. the house was possible. its rooms were not. baby was a body spat from the mouth of any creature dreaming of a bathtub. I got this lifejacket from a scarecrow. said the redheaded tooth fairy.

~

(xvii)

his baby is wailing in its crib for its mother and he mans you up for a cigarette and blows on the baby’s face and somewhere you yourself have stopped crying as you are pulled from a pile of leaves by two people made of smoke

~

(xviii)

for a spine, doll prays to fork.

all kinds
of shapes
miscarry.

~

(xix)

one day my son is dying, the next he is not, and the next he is. day four: prayer is dismissive, but welcome. whose past is how we left it? body is delivered twice. beginning and end. nostalgia and wardrobe. middle eats everything. it snowed and I thought my blood was melting. could be the way you reason that happens for a reason. I was a kid when mouse was a kid. there’s no hope and I hope.

–

my son’s weight is a cricket on a piano key. it’s more than I can handle that god gave us god.

–

aside: we don’t come out faking our death, but are born because birth can’t sleep

–

aside:

I study lullaby
and lullaby
bruise

–

it takes four juveniles to recruit his thumb. his fist has been called: hitchhiker practicing yoga in a junkyard. I cannot visit the instant ruin that forgiveness creates.

–

sickness in the young is god’s way of preventing nostalgia from becoming the god I remember

–

I was beautiful but now I’m ugly. (now) being the most recognizable symbol of the present. this is the silence I speak of. my son says (more ball) and you hear (moon bone). he is very sick. his moon has bones.

–

the disappearance surrounding said event. a horse belly-up in water’s blood. see telescope. also, cane of the blind ghost. magician, maybe, on a rabbitless moon- oh cure.

oh silence afraid to start a sentence.

–

in the photograph a fist is cut from, a kneeling family of five is putting to bed

the unremembered
present.

–

traced, perhaps, for a terrible circle-

today was mostly your hand.





WE BROUGHT HOME THE WRONG DYING BABY



I ain’t been talked to in so long my wife’s kid thinks I have amnesia. ain’t been touched since Ohio’s ramshackle symbolism swallowed up some ***** donor’s shadow. I went yesterday to a funeral for a woman’s ear. told people what I was wearing was a bedsheet belonged to the man in the moon. told myself I had this microscope could see a ghost and that I’ve only ever lost an empty house. I don’t know how old I am but I know what year I want it to be. before dying I saw it flash how I should have died. low creature. tugboat.

~~~

father an optometrist inspecting a replica of a totem pole and mother an eel collapsing at the thought of a play performed in a stone.

and there, at the bottom of grief, a cup of dirt with nothing to bury.

~~~

mother is chewing gum like something fell asleep in my mouth. I say dog for both dog and puppy. pray for things I know will happen. a rooster through a windshield. a dried-up toad in a deep footprint.

~~~

mother and father give their word that all narrators are orphans. that blood is a short leash. sometimes, a fence. be, they say, the symbol your god remembers you by. tell your brother to act like a chicken. your stickmen to share a toothache.

~~~

I saw a cigarette with its mouth open. today was hard. hate is amazing.

god will die with his ear on my stomach.

~~~

the darkness has many stomachs and we’ve no one to tell my son he’s lonely.

seller of the disappearing stone, the mouth names everything and is born after eating a blindfold.

~~~

for desperation, boy puts a bird in a hand puppet. here a finger and there a worm, sadness has no family. oh fetus my moth of many colors. oh mosquito that bit an angel. time with my son

in scenario’s territory.

~~~

atavism
(god is someone’s calendar

–

valley
(a girl with a marble who answers to overdose

–

pulpit
(rooster ghosted by elevator

–

subculture
(in my years with the poor, I wrote nothing down

–

alpenglow
(the scalp will baby its grief

~~~

on muscle detail, the clapping boy from the cult of thunder brings a wheelchair to the last rocking horse known to model swimwear for the few dolls that remain married to the same mask. the boy is weak but maybe he puts two words together. like ghost

and exodus. for the second coming of the handcuffed animal.

~~~

the boy picking flowers for my shadow loves no one. everything I touch remembers being my hand. the world has ended, or started early. god’s heartbeat. sound’s watermark.

~~~

because her son can see the future, she is not yet born. god matters to the discovered.

~~~

overtook no cigarette. surprised no sleep. keyed the car

of a minor
toymaker.

radar is getting possessive.

~~~

for the gone and for the nearly, brother has the same stick.

I call belly
what he calls
eye
what answers
to limb

~~~

to speak
it needs gum
from the invisible
purse.

comes with everything. cries like me.

~~~

she says
three times
the word
brain
to her stomach’s
blue
mirror
and scores
sight’s wardrobe
of rags
in earworm’s
dream

~~~

there’s a comb
in my narrative, a goldfish

coming to
in a beheaded
angel