STICK’EM UP with LIQUID NAILS

DANGER ! EXTREMELY FLAMMABLE
        See Other Caution on Back Panel:

I’m hot for you Cowgirl – you’re so flammable my glue-gun starts to melt; my screwdriver starts twisting when you loosen that low-slung belt. You make me feel like laying re-bar in a freshly-poured foundation. Shoot me up with that caulk gun baby – I need you like salvation. Ten and one-half fluid ounces – pull off your top, pop a love-cap in me. Fingerin’ your trigger while the job is gettin’ bigger so take me for a ride to the hardware store, honey, cause I’m seeing red and feeling white on your golden background’s sheer delight.  Hammer me a heart-full, spike me on a cross of blonde, I’m hanging ten, surfing the tube of your magic wand. I’ve been in love ever since I first waterproofed my seamy undersides with you… stand over me in those red, red boots, you Liquid Nails Girl – and from your pure white Stetson let righteousness unfurl. You won the shoot-out long before you even drew, my dear. Lost hope of the Wild West, Final Frontal Feminine Frontier – there’s only one side of you…  your GOOD side.  Just one look and your fearless gaze silences the foes, my blooming prairie rose.
YEE – HAW !  Be my angel, be my dream, my valentine rodeo queen, be my bodyguard, my therapist, long & tall & hard & wet – be my Liquid Nails Girl forever and I’ll ride right into your sunset…

that initial feeling
of water as
it seeps
through the seams
of a boot
finding cracks
in the leather
supposedly
   waterproofed
against such leaching
of puddles being
drawn in by
a traitorous sock
willing to sacrifice
the fraternity
of dry comfort
that once it held
flooded with irritation
that will be quenched
only with the offering
of an inane
expletive or two
muttered
under breath
carrying the weight
of a week's worth
of frustrations

i thought he wore a red wind cheater,
it was a boiler suit.memory kicked in
already,

my brothers’ faded jackets,
waterproofed, cracked with age,
rubber lined, elastic cuff.

to cheat the wind i suppose.

i inherited.

not the corduroy shorts ,
which were
dyed dark brown each season,
passed from brother to brother,
not to me.

my mother supplying snake belts
for slippage, and parafin oil
on slicky hair.

those days things faded.

sbm.

**notes, we have no photograph.

Let's meet under all of this.
Under all the skin and politics,
under all the hate and animosity
that society is burdened with.

Mother nature got it right
she waterproofed our skin.
She didn't waterproof our minds,
hence the state we're in.

So it's hard to meet below the surface.
Just easier to swim
and thrash about in the waves of our ideological whims.
Front crawling, backstroking
"Go with the flow" kind of doomed.
The odd ones butterfly stroke,
the rest of us are stuck in our cocoons.

Their secret plan was
airtight and sealed,
waterproofed,
no leakages was found.
In line of duty,
the castle opened,
numbers on the wall,
speaks as a code,
to open separate
different doors hiding
secret files with
the names of men
and women with
influence holding
political powers,
timbre and calibre,
men and women trusted,
but ruining the affairs
of the nation,
causing the problems
and uprisings of the
ethnic groups of
indigenous tribes.
They were blinded
by greed but now
marked to be eliminated.
Their demise became
necessary to redirect
the course of national
fate and security.
There is anarchy in
our nation for the
fear and insecurities
caused by the insurgents
are on the increase.
It's a dangerous affair
for the **** is real.
Arrows flying in
the darkness and
everyone is running
around scared.
Perceived in the air,
the stenched smell
of sweat and blood
mixed with smell of
smoke from incarcerated
bodies and houses.
Unexpected turn around
of events could
bring disaster for you.
A little oath is not
the prove of solidarity.
For the betrayer is
within and hidden
amongst us waiting
to give you away.
Death or to be alive,
which one is
the best survival tactics
at this time of
great distress when
there's no help
or hope to survive.
Escape through death
or death through starvation,
both are imminent when
all around you is death.
Just like the one
in a shipwrecked shark
infested ocean with
no help or hope of survival
but just there waiting
to die or be rescued.
©2018,Emeka Mokeme. All Rights Reserved.

I am wearing heavy feathers
with the gaze of the day lit to my backside.
A rotisserie routine,
hot with punishment and prayer.
Prayer for punishment,
punishment for prayer.

Answers from a sky beaded in blue birds,
upon gods supposed pretty blue fabric.
Crowned crows and drowned geese barking their bird songs.
Like god’s dog, a dog’s god.
Feedback fed back to my waterproof back.
Backed by waterproofed ears.
No water, no proof.
Not even of the air.

Myself, essential as an appendix,
wise as a wisdom tooth.
A modern sticky taste of evolutionary distaste.
An undriven itch paraded down a forked road.
Forked, ******;
spooned and knifed.
I ask silver why,
silver when?
All it knows is where,
the non knowing of a mouth.

Only a stabbed spoonfed reflection,
down a downed throat.
Only, gagged.
Only, only, only.
One and only, twice and only, third and only.

Words like a modern car,
broken as modern routine,
breaking like the century,
braking on my tired back.
Treaded wrong,
treaded right in the in between spot.
Stubborn and beige as the day.
Shining with sheen of a hydrophobe,
a homophone,
a synonym.
Silver seal skin,
sealed in,
sealed out.

Worn all worn over unmatched elbows dripping dropped drops.
Pointed pens drawing the ink down from my cupped jaw.
Southern drawn tears
written on a northern face.
Tearing torn words on the papered table,
cornered into torn corners,
soiling the bread on the table.

The bacon,
this belly fat.
Migrations rations.
A seasoning.
Sprinting, flying flavors
chased to the next season.

Only less of a lesson when schools out, only schools never leave school.
Schools make students,
and fish,
and pheasants,
and flies,
and men.
This ancient ill-working work.
Same working sons under the same working sun.
Always an agent,
always a pharaoh.
Concealing the pyramids,
stealing cerulean.

Never claimed,
never claimed to claim.
But claimed clams
and bitten birds,
spun on a spit and spat on;
We all are
all we are.