VS: indiscriminate.

Root Chemistry of a Disgruntled Rhythm Section

I loaned
myself an experience
again. I took it
for myself and grew
my self tree
out of planter
pots and that
lic of sour, they
derive from root
and Barq. It’s hard
to argue with productive
happy hour. Too sexy
to deny a full overhaul: mind
is still tethered, but the filaments
get some
newfound slack; body
lays off me for a happy few —
and, girl, how I’m willing
to share. However,
when the body works
exhibit water-slide
contractions and factions
of the heart associate less
than they selfishly collude
(or are they just misled?)
there’s a timpanist going
rogue in the rib
cage hall and I’m
worried he’ll
quit overlong.

The Waypoint

Oak receives us.
The airlock
of this sanctuary
hums, suspended
in February´s deep
vacuum. Defrosting begins
with a dulling
glow that drips about
the room, absorbing the clack
of mugs and rounding
voices. We gorge
on the dense oxygen.
Sawdust muddies with
the spilled lights
and darks. It scatters
everywhere, a lattice
of dance-steps
and stagger-prints.
Toes and humors can´t stay
cold for long, both invigorated
by the core of this
place. We´re drawn to
the bulb of coal and cast
iron: well-tempered
if fiery—not unlike the silver
locked Irishman taking
orders (but certainly not
taking orders). His
timber arms
bear fistfuls
of half-pints
with every pass.
Fixtures resemble deep sea
relics, mossy with ancient dusts. Every surface
is patchwork of framed photos, carvings; these preservations
musk of wood-stain, not formaldehyde. Ocean scents lead
to the toilets: crusty traps for fish guts and ceramic piss.
Standstill is confirmed
by the solemn vigil of a red-oak wall clock, her hands
locked in permanent mime.
Choices are simple here: Butter or bread (or both).
Trickier words might find their way
into the oven.
Below fast gathering mugs
and misplaced ale stand the old
house’s tables: Stolid squares
and rounds peppered
with dents and tattoo. The surface
of each has the smooth pitting of slow
erosion, withstanding
frothy tides and more
than a few cruel Februaries.

But no one is counting
here. Time is
measured like the ale:
By the half
pint, or not at all.

Catharsissism (Sun splatter)

She was your sun goddess.
He was your son child.
I was the first orbital body.

Everyone is weary with the amber lock
twist-and-thirst, earthly fucking,
tepid cayenne in your meals, but you chose
to wallow in the bruised shadow of exotic
eyeshadow, kill-shrined
around a nostril like the wreckage
of a totaled benzodiazepine.

I’ve even buried feet in the reeking soil
rotting myself with spoiled salves. It still stinks
less than the yes/no/1/0
blight of your pocket tremors.

We keep our heads above
liquid. Your speeches
become smaller, pithy, head less
restrained, inflated like the bullshitfrog
who decries with every breath.

Yelling into the dirt only loads
your mouth with dirty medium:
Incremental excrement to music.
Blither away in a painfully regular cave
(more likes than when above sea level)
blue thumb in mouth, conveniently
dilated for ill-comfort.

Every-fucking-one sees
the same bigscary outside
the bottle. We debride
wounds with wildfire woven
in pattern. You unearth
you, into just-glare
and sun-splatter.

Fuck or Love (Wishes)

Wish it was your low cut
dress over
bentoo and lavish
tips, butt.
It’s cigarettes over
a lack of drive and slimmer
pockets. Wish it was
a beamer smile
on well cut brick, then off to red
lipstick secretary, short skirt,
lengthy raincoat, butt.
It’s not. It’s sharp
freezer mornings and
puke-smell
busses. Airplanes, business
class—more like the paper
kind. Wish it was me in your
affairs, the liason’s
sweat. Real satisfaction: a roll
of old-style fifties to wag and
bedding model(citizen)s.

If you don’t cut it, just
pop Emmy and wed
the dealer, as if playing
at street player
fools, songs of real
things, like shag tobacco
and invalidated souls needed―
time and sobriety permitting. Wish
for the good life; hate
making a living; hate
repeatedly counting
dimes to get to work.
Spend like a CEO; Wear the same
clothes all week; wish
to fuck or love.

2 AM

Japan: I
lust to wander
its winding mesh
of narrowly veined
streets at 2 am.
Kaete ii?

V: Sabbatum Lux

Cervidae (to Have a Head on the Wall)

He champs insults
like the sound of a prick of a rusty
chainsaw, remarks
scritchroaring down the subway
tunnels.

Old thoughts
he polishes with vodka until it’s back
to their dirty
paper envelopes. These packets of slur
crumble but persist, stinking
of the world that made him.

Round and round, the scarred
wheels begrudge each
millimeter of track
hauling him, and I, and us all, forward
but downward. Round and round
his eyes, cheap
amphetamine
spatters and screeches.

We form a pack, shying
from our own mortality, only closer to
our mortal frailty.
Light is fabricated underground,
and in my mind. Others close their eyes, opening them
to a quiet smell of loam in the wood. I am far
from those leafy whispers.
Fluorescents dim and struggle against our
blaze of spirit
and physical integrity of heart.

Before I was
an ingot, inert, unthreatening, but
each
clanging
blow, the heat, the pressure, reshaped me. I pulled the thorny
blades of Pedicles
from his quenching slack tub. The twin
blades smolder patiently, each eager
for a righteous stab.

my fists collapse inward, singular
by the weight of their own
black mass. Doors, like minds,
begrudgingly open and shut.

Antlers snap;
trains sprint backwards;
and the hateful disembark alone:
in a calm land of rutted
trees and bottles.

Big Blue

I like seats given up
to the wrinkled
grin: the one who stands, stands
taller, or, fine, sit and tap from an ivory tower.
“Taller than us all?” inquires
the Lorax of his stumps, but
I like waste and land
equally. A fifteen chamber breather isn’t
designed for speaking easily. I like
throwaway handles for one joke. I like
that first pull of tobacco, but I’d
hate to half puke on your porch
when the fourth butt retches.
I like beating a sensible rhyme until it’s no longer
the gross, ostensible me. The filtered
yinyang watermarks a bro; but I like
the train and all its haul; I like the way
the guts unweave, when that one slouched
over isn’t dead.
I “like”
dank memes my friend
makes to pass the life. I like
the metric ton of dust we
all drag in a tarp, just a few
feet behind, or ahead,
when we tantrum — I like
geopinning, then mimicking, your
accent. I like battered
beers onboard the fishing
dingy. Sud sips we spit away with the smoke
surf the wake’s ripples. Learning
wakes will only triple, with the Augusts
we counted in mostly empty
backpacks, and the fear
of irrelativity rampant — but,
I’ll stamp the ash
still, and brand it all
with a big blue thumbs up.

Phoebe’s Morning

The overseer stalks in, finding
her place beneath the microwave, crunching
and cracking. The trash needs
quarantine, reeking of vulture
plump with bruised
carion breakfast, purple
as the walls that covet black and white
floor tiles. (Ours are olive and jaundice).

A gentle padding and
the kitchen is alone, save
ants on the long,
linear patrol.

Sleep Paralysis

Bluish pupils
flicker below lids
clenching, racing
within: smelling
waxen floors, familiar
pull at my lungs
and grainy innocent
sniffs of grease.
I crave theatrics
and darkness,
instead find
vacuous breath
that goes in
but not out.

He asks I study
the first of his disciples:
led to the third depth
of Hell, he slouches
over the shop counter,
scented of tallow
wax. He bares yellow
waxen teeth, a finger
guides his marionette
at the counter.
Stony eye drag
upward, glazing
nowhere.
Fanged knifemouth smile
in carousel hands. My lipskin
melts over frozen
teeth as he dissects
his finger. I
recoil from the crimson
spill and fleshy tokens.

Only Once, Wind-up Man

Poem for Saki