The Murder Skills (October 20, 2009. Issue 10.)
Can't say yet. Working on it hard.
This time I'm so full of strangeness.
Still I see the neighbor mom parting
the lips of the fat wailer in the wood
chair to bury the dog food chunks.
Dad will want to play catch tonight.
The boy stands near him. Dad has
learned to throw the ball high up to
give the boy a chance to get under
the meteoric ball. It is not the same.
I start a hack into my shirt. My hand
comes away with what feels like sea salt.
There is a problem with this, I feel.
If only I could have the cherry tree
of my childhood back, then there
would be no more spying on the
lives of others; I always go close.
My first time was unforgettable.
I, so full of disorientation, waited
in the roominghouse. My nose:
a poor drying rack for the dune
of yellowy sick that scrabbled in
a flurry of hot fits up my slack
throat. They brought the body
in its priceless rigor mortis. The
first munch being hardest; a cult
member held the bathroom door.
Nothing yet. No runny nose at all.
I remember thinking to myself:
What base would cannibalism be?
I started to laugh at my own inner
joke: an inside-the park home run.
Seeing green when it gets late. Yet
these binoculars do not have night
vision. Boy, I sure would...I would
love playing catch with those two.
Would they notice my being so
full of strangeness? I do have a
brand-new, brown, leather glove.
Three Poems (July 20, 2009. Issue 7.)
well spun yearn
please pinch this sincerest, syrupy, desirous,
tripwire twine that makes a drippy, diamond
chain of the aqueous rain, & dawdles out of the
cotton candy lump of her thorax as her unshorn
legs tuck your locust carcass into a silky, sleeping
sack bier where an invite to an eternal slumber
party with no yearbook & no boys & no movies
awaits you till she returns on her spider-vein
legs, bares sheep shear fangs, puts you to rest,
cuts the phone cord, & granulates you, sugar.
Neighbor, my mind made itself. I have decided to be troubled.
You should have seen me reading Vonnegut.
I think Bokonism is real. I want my thoughts to go stupid.
Neighbor I will offer you a seat next to me on the bus, if you like.
We can talk about the parts of The Apology that keep tripping you up.
Or you can bitch to me about homework your daughter did not do.
You'll say she was out with your SUV proving the DMV should set higher standards.
To be affable you'll make a remark about the legs on the USC sorority pledge sitting nearby.
Neighbor, I feel bad for you. Would you like a handjob? Maybe we can ask the sorority pledge?
Love thy neighbor as thyself?
OH. SORRY. Sheesh. I thought you would at least be receptive to my pledge of love.
Ha. ha. Not funny? Hmmm....
The conversation won't matter to me though.
I will be paying far more attention to my book of poems by Allen Ginsbeard.
I see you've a copy of the New Yorker.
I guess we both have our own backwards ways.
Take me for instance.
I know the sorority girl. We dated for a week.
She thought me artsy, but the age difference got to her.
I mean, pledging a sorority at 45, and chasing young men.
She wanted someone closer to her age, and more her stream.
And I can respect a girl who keeps me longer than some of her video rentals.
Because most girls should keep me for a week at least. I have bulky genitals.
Sorry, I said that. Hmm. Try some of my tea? It is hemlock.
Neighbor, please come back.
I had fellow feelings for you.
We could have had a dialogue!
Well, at least I can put my feet up.
The Clincher
dear me, damn my mother's lips.
lips that blew up this polka dotted
inflatable swimming pool that
i pour her ashes into in accord
with her last pill and chocolate mint.
dear me, curse my mother's
feet that trod so much mud
into the kitchen the day sister
fell on her face & never chewed
jerky smoothly again after that.
dear me: to the abyss with
my mother's eyes that gazed
on my father's gut so pregnant
with powdery potato chip cheese,
and made his bald spot reflecting
the ceiling fan's light into a nimbus.
dear me, keep mother's
hands out of the ashes
and in the remains. the
slack, taut, bony fingers
that nourished you and
made the veins in your
hands long and strong as
taproots that steady this
happy meal box as your
mother's ashes fall among
the play place balls crowding
this inflatable swimming pool.