Pennsylvania

Now it's a Home Depot

Your sister

11/12/10

Distracted

That'll be you someday

Hope you love reruns

Ivory Tower, Elephant Graveyard

Eddie Puss

Still the Good Guys

Spirit Lake

For many years we languished, 
our waters thin and cold

as high above us on the slopes 
the conifers thrived, using up
all the richness the soil would provide

just so they could thrust their boughs

into the apathetic sky. They left no sustenance 
behind for us. 

Beneath our mirrored sheen we hid 
an underwater forest filled 
with ghostly branches, petrified
limbs that pierced the silent depths.

Then the mountain erupted, its peak pulverized

and hurled into the air 
in great plumes of dust.

Lava gurgled, mud flowed 
and our waters warmed and clouded 
with nutrient-rich sediment

tossed from the raging Saint.

Thousands of felled trees slid towards us
in the mudslide, to end up floating 
on our surface, taunting their 
submerged ancestors

with their mercurial drifting.

Life flourished; initially microbial, 
which fed millions of insects

which amphibians grew plump feasting upon.

Everything bred 
and our aquatic factories teemed

as we commandeered the resources 
once monopolized by the evergreen behemoths. 

Enormous trout emerged from somewhere 
to rule the shallows.  
Life thrived.

In time, things tapered off, as
back on the slopes, survivors pushed
their heads up through the ash.

Seed scattered. Creatures poked their noses
from deep burrows. Deer trod 

the ruined soil, churning it
into something rich and dark, mixing it with their shit. 

The trees began to grow back, to reclaim 
their territory. Their greedy roots once again
sucked all the sustenance from the earth.

Now, as we watch the trout 
shrink in size, we brace ourselves
for the inevitable descent back 
into lifeless, lonely silence. 

We will miss the clamor, the constant flurry, 
but there's  nothing we can do 

but wait and pray to the Saint 
to deliver to us another
nourishing disaster.

Rotation sheet

Milhouse

In the end, we released him,

giving him a head start that we thought was 
more than generous, considering everything.

We laughed to see him spin his eyes

in fear, trying in vain

to spot us where we hid

behind our blind of tangled vines.

From time to time we'd prick

him with our whittled sticks, just to see him twitch

and bleed out just a drop, one tiny bead. 

We chased him to a cul-de-sac
of stickerbushes, foliage so dense
and thorny he could not press on.

He hunkered down and huddled in a nest
of vegetation rank as rotting meat.
He staved off sleep for quite a while,

but finally succumbed, and dreamed

of lying in his soft pajamas 
and resting his beleaguered head

on a pillow plump with feathers,

stained with not a drop of snot or sweat 

while we, his children, burst like pinatas

and strewed our steaming bowels like streamers
to decorate the halls of his furry jungle 

as if to celebrate some grand event,

the joyful homecoming that would occur 

when he woke up.

Pebbles & Bambam

The Innocent Pleiades

It wasn’t me, but you, that night;

your hand that crawled across her knee,

drawing back the shadow of her skirt

to expose the pale moon flesh of her thigh.

I can feel her skin as if I wore 

your fingers like a glove; using their tips
to trace her freckle constellations.

It was your name, not mine, embossed on the card

that paid for the brisket, the burgundy, the creme brulee;

I can feel the napkin patting the corners of your mouth,
can feel the pen in your fingers as you sign the check,

can feel the the wheel in your grip

as the waxed Toyota slides between the conifers.

Just like you, I know those woods 
like the back of my hand. They’re magical at night, although

you can only steal glimpses of the stars

tangled in the branches, if it's clear,

or the eyes of some animal that flash in the headlights

then quickly wink out, like cosmic embers snuffed

by their rush through the stratosphere.

I’ve noticed how poor the reception is out here,

between the mountains, far from the towers,
spots kept secret even from the satellites.

It was your name that she howled that night

...yet I’m the one they came for

when they found the car, I'm the one

whose swatch of hair they snipped.

As you take the stand, 
I think of her parted lips.

I'm surprised to hear you read my lines

as if you had written them yourself

and there's a rushing in my ears

and once again I see those beads of light

start to flash across my eyes
like holes ripped with a knife

in the blindfold of the sky 

Siskiyou Trail

Hurtling down the I-5 corridor,

we plunged through the wispy poltergeists

of two dead elks still standing stupefied

in the middle of the road

like statues carved from solid blocks of fog.

We dragged them behind us,

vaporous corpses that flapped like rags

from the rear fender

as we sped south through

the bristling Oregon woods. 

When we finally found a parking spot

after circling the block for half an hour,

we were so exhausted that we forgot

to untangle the ethereal beasts.

Leaving the apartment the next morning,

we found them

shriveled to snakeskin beside the curb,
powder to the touch.
We gingerly lifted them up,
wrapped them around our necks like ashy stoles
and sashayed along the catwalk of dried grass,

two more spirits torched

by the California sun.

Believing in God

I wake up as

a hunk of pastrami

shaved by an epileptic butcher

who has carefully manicured fingernails

and a tattoo on the back of his neck

of the Chinese character for

patience


 

networking

Double Header

Close under

Drag on the ground

Squirt

Conformation Show

The day my appendix burst
in an explosion deep within my guts
it all became perfectly clear:
I was being disqualified.

I spent the following weeks
recovering in my partner’s apartment,
kept company by (and cleaning up after)
Fig Newton, his spoiled Peke-a-poo.

I’d long been suspicious of theories
of genetic mutation, of evolution.
The randomness was too terrifying,
the odds of survival too slim.
I mean, what if the genetic quirk
that was meant to further the species
is embedded in the DNA of a child
whose skull gets split like a melon
by a Janjaweed lawnmower blade?

No, life could not have progressed
were it so dependent
on such dumb luck. Someone must be
guiding us along, just as whimsical humans
bred this snuffling mutt, molding its form
over generations to encourage
those bulging beetle eyes, that hairy monkey mug.
So must God have prodded us along, bred us
from primordial shrew to shit-strewing primate,
weeding out the less impressive specimens
until he arrived at us, his flat-faced, bipedal pets.

And what of my appendix, that fleshy morsel
formerly nestled in my guts?
Consider it not the remnant
of some once-important organ,
but an auto-destruct button, engineered
specifically to be pressed
(if all else fails; the impotence, the cancer)
by his fickle finger
to keep me from passing on
my ears, my nose, my double-helixed looks,

merely because they don’t quite conform
to his mysterious standards of beauty.

Humping forward

Space Suit

Song

I love to watch you slumbering, my pet,
Although I know your sleep is but a ploy
And that you’re listening to every word that I eject
As I sing you this final lullaby.

I’ve willed to you my eyes and appetite,
I’ve taught you many ways to hunt and buy.
My giant child, you’ve long outgrown my lap, my trembling knee.
Your girth makes my embrace a mockery.

You’ve splintered both your bassinet and bed;
In fact you barely fit inside the house.
I need you more the more there is of you for me to need.
Your ever-swelling belly brings me bliss.

(And this part I sing only in my head
And hope you cannot read my thoughts-not yet.
I must admit, at times I feel afraid. Not for myself.
I wonder if my judgment has been off.)

The more you take, the more I want to give.
I do not wish to choose. I have no choice.
No longer are my impulses so sharp, nor do I crave.
I only long to fill your savage void.

The name I gave you has become my own,
And every word I utter is your name.
Your picture’s hanging everywhere, on billboards, churches, schools.
Your jingles now are anthems sung by all.

(And yet, I think of when you were so small
And suckled at my breast, so sweetly weak.
And I remember your first death, the blood upon your lips.
I cannot plumb the depths of my regret.)

They say you’ve gotten far too big to fail.
They say we’ll give you anything you ask.
Your bloated stomach must not be allowed to waste away.
We’ll all make sacrifices for your sake.

One day, sweet babe, you’ll find there’s nothing left:
You’ve swallowed every whisker, every leaf.
I’m burying my fears to fertilize your barren fields.
I’m giving up my life so you may thrive.

Last Supper or no someone's still gotta do the dishes

Weightless

Running out of compliments

The Seal

Sasquatch Jerky

There was a woman in the kitchen with my father.  I could hear her voice from all the way down the hall.  I padded all sleepy-eyed into the room and there she was, sitting right there at the kitchen table. My father was standing at the stove making his famous crepes, which really weren't famous at all.   

“And who might this pretty young lady be?” The woman asked.

“This young lady might be Minnie,” said my father, placing a plate in front of the woman. “Min’s my little helper around here. When she's not busy sleeping in that is.”

“Nice to meet you, Minnie,” the woman said. “I’m Moe. That’s short for Maureen.”
  
My father put another plate on the table and sat in front of it. I looked at the woman for a minute, then took the carton of OJ from the fridge and my favorite Holly Hobby glass from the cabinet. I sat down across from my father and filled my glass up to the very top with juice while he shoved half a crepe in his mouth. He mopped his beard with a paper towel and wiggled his fork in the woman’s direction.

“I picked up Moe hitchhiking last night,” he said. “She didn’t have anywhere else to stay so I let her spend the night.” I slurped my juice without picking up the glass so it wouldn't spill.

“And I want to thank you once again for that,” Moe said. “You are a true life saver, Terry. My hero.” She placed her hand on my father’s, then quickly pulled it away and went back to eating her crepe, cutting it into tiny pieces which she ate with fast little bites like a chipmunk.

“It's TV,” said my father. “I told you to call me TV. Everyone else does.”

“Minnie, honey, look at this scar I got,” Moe said suddenly, swinging her leg out from under the table and twisting it so I could see. Running up the back of her thigh was a long scar of puckered flesh, shinier and pinker than the skin around it, which I could see was crossed with little wrinkles of cellulite.

“Want to hear how I got this big old scar?” She asked.

“Min doesn’t want to hear about your scar,” said my father. “Now finish your crepes. I made those especially for you and you'll hurt my feelings if you don't finish them.”

“It’s a good story though. You said so yourself, Terr- TV.”

“Eat up. Got a busy day.”

Moe shrugged then went back to her chipmunk nibbles. I noticed her eyes rolled up towards the ceiling when she ate. I slurped my juice and we all sat there in silence.




After he dropped off Moe my father came back for me and we drove out towards this place he wanted to look at. As he drove he kept a paper bag with a bottle in it wedged between his legs and every so often he’d take a swig then offer me some but I knew this was just his joke and so I just kept looking at the big trees out the window.

“I don’t want you to get the wrong idea,” he said to me finally. “About picking up hitchhikers I mean. And I don't want you hitchhiking yourself, either. It’s dangerous and you should never even think about it.” We passed a place where a bunch of trees had been cut down and you could see out over the valley to the next hill. Some of the trees there had been cut down too, leaving a steep field full of stumps. There were still plenty of trees on the other hills though. Despite what they said on the news it looked like we were in no danger of running out of trees.

“I ever tell you this one time I picked up this guy?” my father asked. “It was not far from here. I was driving along and I saw this guy leaning over the propped up hood of his car by the side of the road. So I stopped and asked if he needed any help and this fella said sure, he could use a ride. He said give me a minute while he did something under the hood and then he got in. As I was driving off I could see in the rearview that his car was on fire."

“What?” I asked.

“Yep. The whole thing had caught fire just like that. I knew something was not quite right with him then. So I tell him I got to stop for gas and at the filling station when I pay for the gas I write on the bottom of the receipt HELP US. And the filling station guy looks at it and doesn’t say anything so I point to it and say, is that alright then? And he looks at it and says, looks okay to me. So then I drive off-”

“Wait, did this guy have a gun or something?” I asked.

“What? No. I don’t think so. I don't know. He just…well I knew I had to do something, it was obvious that this guy was really whacked out. So I-”

“Where did he want to go? Was he ordering you to keep driving?”

“I don’t know, someplace up the road somewhere. But anyways I finally figure out what I need to do. I tell this guy I need to make a stop first, and he says okay, so I drive us straight over to Dan’s place. You remember Dan.”

“No, who's Dan?”

“Dan with the twins around your age. Toni and- you know, the twins. You used to play together.”

“I never played with any twins.”

“Yes you did. Anyways Dan used to work at Folsom before I did. So I go over there and tell the guy to come in with me and Dan and I tie him to this chair see and...”

“Wait. Why’d you tie him to a chair?” I was starting to feel a little confused.

“Well, Dan was like, you know, I signaled him, see, I gave him the signal. The thing about Dan is he can tell about people, I mean when a guy's all whacked out like that, he can tell. Dan was in that place a long time, a long time before me, and he could tell pretty much just by looking at someone. So I figured, well, it’s out of my hands now, and so I left. Washed my hands of the whole thing.” He chuckled and shook his head.

“You just left the guy there. Tied to a chair. For no reason.”

“I just told you the reason.”

I sighed. “So then what happened?”

“Nothing. That was it.”

“God, Dad, that's even worse than your Bigfoot story.”

“I showed you those pictures, didn't I,” he said.

I saw a deer sign in the road. Someone had spray painted a word across it but I couldn’t tell what the word was we went by so fast.

“I can’t believe you don’t remember the twins,” said my father. “What was the other one’s name again? I can tell this is going to bug me. Toni and something or other.”

“I told you, I never knew any twins,.” I said.

We rode in silence for a while.

“Where’d you drop Moe off this morning?” I asked.

“Who?” my father asked. “Oh, right. Moe. Well, first she had to...”

He hit the brakes, not stopping completely but slowing down so suddenly that my seat belt cut into my chest. Right ahead of us was a flipped-over car, lying like a turtle on its back in the middle of the road.

“Don’t look,” my father said as he swerved around the car, but I looked anyways and I could see what looked like a pile of red clothes tangled up inside the upside-down vehicle, with maybe some things that looked like they might be arms. A little ways down the road my father pulled over.

“I’ll be right back,” he said quietly. “Stay in the car.” He took one last swig from his bag then chucked it into the woods. I heard it crash, then heard the sound of his boots crunching the road, then nothing. I thought about getting out and hitchhiking so that when my father got back to the car he’d find me gone and never know what happened. Then years later I’d drop in on him and act like I’d just been out taking a stroll around the block.

But I didn’t get out, I just stayed there. I pushed all the buttons on the radio but it wouldn't work with the engine off. I opened up the glove box and saw my father’s gun shoved in with all the papers. I heard his footsteps and I slammed the compartment shut and sat there drumming my fingers on the arm rest. My father got in,  buckled his seat belt, and turned the ignition key.

“Are they alright?” I asked, though I'm pretty sure I knew.

“They’ll be fine,” he said. The tires screeched when we pulled out. We drove fast and didn't say anything to each other until we got to Gary's Gas'n'Go at the base of the hill. A bunch of plywood signs were propped up in the gravel out front, reading things like "Sasquatch Jerky" and "Sasquatch Salsa." Gary was always trying to cash in on the Bigfoot craze, even though no one had reported a sighting in years.

My father stepped out to use the pay phone. He was in the booth for a long time but I couldn't hear what he was saying. After he hung up he went into the store and came back with a bag of jerky and a couple of Cokes. He handed me one. It was very cold and wet, with little flecks of ice on the bottle, and even though I never liked Coke I took a long gulp then let out a really big belch. My father gave me a look, then took a long drink from his own Coke and let out the longest, deepest belch I’d ever heard. It was like the bellow of some wild beast echoing through the trees. Then he gave me another look and this one seemed to say, Beat that. So I put the cold mouth of the pop bottle to my lips and look a long, long swig, feeling the sweet bubbly soda pour over my tongue and down my throat. I guzzled until I felt the carbonation build up down there, a bubble of gas dying to burst free, begging me to open my mouth and let it out.

I opened my mouth.

Questionable one

Gall

“Men are just bigger, more complicated gall wasps.” –Alfred Kinsey

Gall bumps blister the arms of the oak.
Within these bulges, gall wasps gestate.
Every other generation
of these flightless, unarmed specks
reproduces without having sex.
The tree tumors, or oak apples,
occur when venom is injected into the bark
by the female when she lays her eggs.
The hatched larvae bide their time
inside these warts, sometimes for years,
before gnawing their way free of their woody tombs.

Acid extracted from these galls
was once used to make ink. Leonardo used it
to draw fantastic war machines and
cross-sections of the human body,
to sketch the Blessed Virgin and her Kin.

In twenty years of taxonomy, Alfred Kinsey
collected seven and a half million gall wasps,
carefully measuring and pinning each
to a tiny card. Eventually
he moved on to human sexual histories,
making eighteen thousand recordings
of married men and women confessing
their deepest sexual secrets, habits, perversions.
Their stories were crunched into statistics;
passion transformed into numbers.
The establishment found the results upsetting.
Kinsey was accused of being a deviant,
of being gay, as was Leonardo.

At picnics with my good Catholic parents,
I would catch yellowjackets
in pop bottles. The insects would alight
on the glass lip, then crawl inside,
only to become trapped
in the sticky sludge at the bottom.

I had no scientific interest in these pests,
and I would have revived them
if I could -little buzzing Lazaruses!-
if only to kill them again and again,
like in a video game or shooting gallery,
fulfilling that human dream
of death without consequence,
death with need of neither science
nor conscience.

Sixty years after Kinsey’s passing,
the California law barring gay marriage
was overturned, the judge citing
scientific evidence that disproved the idea
of homosexuality as family blight.
The voters stare up at the clusters of oak apples
and shudder, seeing infestation,
seeing disease, seeing sin.
Distrustful of science, they would eliminate
everything they deem ugly or immoral.
They pin their victims not for knowledge,
but for the sake of the pinning,
haunted by the extermination
of their own sexless specimen, himself pinned
to some supposedly unblemished tree.

Kamikaze

Junk Mail!

Hey everyone,

I have a story up on Jeff Chon's fine literary internet website magazine, vis a tergo. Please feel free to check it out if you have nothing better to do, or if you don't want anything bad to happen to someone you care very much about, perhaps a child or pet or that nice old man you see waiting at the bus stop sometimes, wouldn't you feel bad if one day you were driving by and he wasn't there and you knew you were somehow responsible?

Anyways, just read the damn story. It'll take you all of like thirty seconds.

http://visatergo.wordpress.com/

Hospitality

Coven Ciccone

Louise enters the Late Night studio balanced on the crossed sticks of a team of hockey players. She has to duck her blond head when they carry her in through the doorway. She looks wary as the little procession carefully makes its way down the stairs to the stage. Letterman lurches towards her like a golem, gives her the talk show embrace. Rubs her back, holds on a little too long. Louise folds herself into the easy chair beside the desk, fidgeting inside her plain black dress. The studio audience is going berserk, ecstatic to find themselves in the presence of royalty, and right here in America! Suddenly she twitches, her eyes go glassy, then she is back to normal, flirting to make Dave blush. Letterman looks sour and haunted. Louise’s skin is stretched taut across her skull, her hair stringy and yellow. In a village on the other side of the world, a specter rises from the cracked earth, stretches a bony hand toward a fly-encrusted baby. The specter brushes away her white habit so she can see better. Her eyes are black, black. Back in the studio, Dave is spluttering and bantering like an awkward teenager. His boner is hidden beneath his desk. Louise stares vapidly out at the rows of acolytes. She licks her chapped lips, imagining the studio in flames. Her best years are decades gone, yet the mob still chants her name. Her mind goes to the desert and she sees the old woman take the baby, pulling it into her robes, cradling it in a nest of bones. The baby starts to cry and the woman stuffs her withered teat between its black lips. The woman’s breath is hot, her skin papery. She makes the sign of the cross and leaves the village, her bare toes scratching claw prints in the dust. The Madonna smiles, her mouth a wide red gash. She sits up straighter, adjusts her dress, places a hand on Letterman’s sleeve. Her skin glows, her crow’s feet have disappeared like tracks in soft sand. Her hair shines like gold. Dave bows his head. The audience screams.

Whatever-the-Hell-It-is-a-Go-Go

Black and white again

80910

Don't ask me, I have no idea

Hate Mail

Feeding Tube (Doing Good)

It's good of you to come, my son.
It can't be pleasant seeing your old man like this,
beneath this shroud, hooked up to kind machines,
and sucking breath from this oxygen tank teat.
I wish that I could tell you of
this memory that keeps on looping through my mind.
I must have been the age your son is now
when our geriatric cavy, whom I
(precocious child!) named Aurora,
finally collapsed, arthritic legs curled into claws
beneath her caramel pelt.
But still she ate, and heaved her bulk across the cage
to lap at the water bottle's metal spout.
She continued to oink annoyingly,
continued to lay her smelly pellets
in the shredded cedar. Finally, my mother said
Enough, and swaddled the rodent
in a dish towel, carrying her out
to our silver Chevy Nova.
She handed me the bundle and started the engine,
pumping the gas while I pressed my pet’s pink nose
close to the mouth of the tailpipe.
The creature trembled, breathed,
continued to live.
The pipe, rattling as it heated up,
began to shake. I shook a little too.
Eventually we switched places, my mother
trying to mask her mounting frustration.
And now, as the walls around me click and wheeze,
and the vents flood the ward with hell's cold air,
I can still clearly see that child behind the wheel,
pressing the pedal to the floor,
doing his damnedest not to cry,
and for one time in his life
doing good.

The General

Stew

My fingertips brush the ice chunks nestled 
between the blades of the blender
as my other hand itches for the puree button.
Hooked to the wall, a collection of oven mitts, 
plain, decorated, in the shapes of claws, hooves,
animal heads, insulated puppets
eager to plunge their noggins into the stove.
On the Formica counter, splattered buttermilk
pocks craters in the flour, cocaine, baking powder.
In the oven's belly a casserole dish gestates,
its unscraped sauce hardening to lacquer.
Knives glisten, locked to their magnetic strip,
brand new but already dull as spoons.
Cilantro minced to algae puddles on the cutting block.
Beside the sink looms a simmering crock pot
full of strings of sinew, buttons of fat
and the bubbling realization that I can no longer 
cook anything without you dipping 
your spectral finger into the batter 
for a late taste.

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Untitled

for Ted Sparrows flit amongst the rhododendrons, causing the bloated white puffs to bob at the ends of their willowy stalks. Just above, a single bird perches on a bare stick of the Japanese maple. Stricken with some disease, the right half of the tree has been stripped of leaves as if it has suffered a stroke. This lone sparrow hops from twig to twig, one last, skittish thought ricocheting about the withered hemisphere, watching its brothers dart effortlessly in and out of the young, healthy blossoms.

Cheery one today

80210

Bananas on the Brain

Paper Wasps

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Discounts in Valhalla

Red stitching zigzags along the edge
of the beige elastic ribbon wrapped
around my swollen foot 
propped on the wooden bench 
in the middle of the mall.
A row of teeth, a jagged path,
an erratic graph.
I clutch my cappuccino, 
scorching even through the cup holder,
and lean my crutches against the rail
overlooking the lower level of the mall
with its fountains, its palms, its food court.
Robyn is in the store behind me,
returning her new cocktail dress.
I can see her through the glass.
Humanity trickles in through the revolving doors.
Consumer spending has flatlined: the couples, 
out-of-towners, teenage girls bustle about, 
bagless, here to suck the cold air
or, like me, to convalesce.
It's an easy place to get around if you're wounded,
with few obstacles blocking the wide passages.
Escalators glide to every level.
Everything looks bland, nothing to obstruct or distract. 
A peaceful tide of music soothes the crippled soul.
Even these blood-red threads seem to throb less insistently.
The sterile mannequins do nothing to quicken the pulse.
Miles of cotton gauze constrict my senses.
These hallowed halls, with their weekend sales, 
remain the perfect place for 
a failed and fallen warrior at last to rest,
to wrap his throbbing heart 
in a shroud of soothing beige.

72610: back to black and white

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Gastropod Oracle

A squeezebox whines nasally to accompany
two snails grappling like tongues in the garden.
They are too busy impregnating one another
to ever dream of a future in which
they huddle like black tonsils in a dusty tin
on the shelf of an all-night grocery,
part of an accidental delivery
of budget delicacies; sour caviar and cut-rate calamari,
economy size tubs of pate the owner feeds to his cats.
There they will sit, their label bleached 
by the fluorescent lights, until their can is swiped 
by a couple of stoned teenagers
who pry open the lid with a switchblade
and flick the mollusks, one by one, 
through the chain link fence of the overpass
to splotch the windshields of the cars below,
causing one camper van to swerve into the passing lane
and smash its lips in a reckless kiss
against the grille of an oncoming produce truck,
sending its cargo of pomegranates 
bouncing across the blacktop.

I could perhaps warn them of their fate.
But no, I will tiptoe away 
and leave these viscous suitors oblivious,
reflected in the garden globe
as they twist with torpid ardor 
beneath the bowing leaves,
among the stones

as my accordion wheezes its stale breath
into the glistening night.

Flea Powder Footprints

A whirlwind of dry skin flakes and coarse curly hairs 
wobbles along, following your trail of smoky toe smudges
that skip like stepping stones across the barren floorboards,
criss-crossed by floury paw prints.
You've spent days flicking insurgent freckles
from your ankles, your wrists,
as the cat attempts to dislodge them from her fur 
with constant licks. The bodies 
of the wounded wriggle and twitch,
fallen warriors in this itching, gnawing war.
Outside in the yard, the bedbugs huddle in their bunkers,
the chiggers dig deeper in their foxholes 
with their fingers on their triggers,
and beneath the porch eaves, a nest bristling with bird mites
ticks like an incendiary device, counting down the seconds 
before it detonates
like the sandpapered letter in your hand,
I regret to inform you...

72010

My Career

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American Echo

"Jesse James was my great, great grandfather,"
he says, eyes glazed and unblinking.
His mustache droops over a caved-in mouth.
His crutches lean against the glass.
A dachshund stretches across his lap.
"Don't believe me?" he says. "I got proof."
As the bus crossed the drawbridge
he reaches into his jeans and pulls out
a pocket watch, holds it up for me to inspect.
It looks brand new, shiny.
He raises his eyebrows.
I look away.
The July Fourth fireworks disintegrate
into glittering dust over the river,
obnoxious blossoms blooming 
with merciful brevity.
He pulls out his cell phone to take a picture.
Everyone twists their necks.
The booms, the shots
follow us like bullets
hurtling down the barrel of the night.

Culvert

When we awoke, we stamped
the harried earth with our hooves
and flicked the flies from our ears,
stretching our necks over the fence
to nibble the choicest greens.
When the pasture heaved and the hillocks rolled,
we toppled,
our racks of iron ribs crushing the clover.

When we awoke, we knotted
our tiny bibs around our necks 
and flitted from hide to hide
on tiny segmented wings, alighting to lap 
at the sticky seams
until our bellies split and our juices squirted
from our armored abdomens.

When we awoke, we circled
on creaking feathers,
gulping beakfuls of bugs
that bored our stomachs into sieves,
causing us to crash
into the woolly gray husks
of the clapboard semaphores.

When we awoke, we plunged
our thirsty roots into the spongy soil,
slurping sustenance until 
the piercing frost sucked
the marrow from our stalks,
caused our supple leaves 
to crackle into dust.

When we awoke, we grew
a thousand mouths in place of eyes,
with rows of fangs for lashes
and a thousand stomachs in place of hearts.
When we scraped our chairs up to sit
at the table of the fields,
we took a bite 
and choked on what we saw.

When we awoke, we crouched
in the drainage pipe that ran 
like a sphincter beneath the road,
linking ditch to swollen ditch. 
A thin gruel of digestive runoff 
trickled across our toes
as we huddled amongst the bones
and waited for the world to finish feasting.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Here's another weird picture to celebrate. (I know, you probably would have preferred flowers.)

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