Sunday, October 28, 2012

Unmanned

War's hell that's sure. Cutting up the desert, rows of dust plumes, more fire than the sun spitting from clenched teeth. (Machine gun pulse but no heartbeat.)  Sun slips behind mountains, dust blows away in a breeze. Then it is quiet. Not a single child stands beside the stars and stripes. Flag stands alone in the desert night.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Category 5 creation myth

Hurricane is on its way, dear. Grass between our toes whispering, rolling and cresting so we may drown in no more beautiful a starlit country picnic. Tattered and checkered ship sail. Insane with moon salt and Cabernet, thirstier with each sip. My dear mate, afloat under redshift glitter sequins on Tiamat's dress the color of dragon's smoke.  Marduk creeps through oak leaves rustling as we split our mothers down the middle, and spill their guts across our smiles. Clink chalices and sink our fangs into sandwiches. Tear them to God-damned shreds and cackle as madmen do. Chill air reds your cheeks, lifts your hair, electricity in the sky, and we may lose our lunatic shrieking voices in all the thunder. For soon the clouds are here, and they are pregnant with grief and disdain. And oh how we mock fragile grief by laughing and drinking in the rise of flood.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Hypothesis

Love pressed between glass slides, his trembling fingers afraid to touch.
Fingers diverted to microscope dials, yearning to bring love into focus.
Dirt caked beneath fingernails, unshaven mouth whispers, What, oh what the hell is it.
The laboratory is a sharp and cold place, cold as heel-slapped roads late October.
Morning dawn frozen solid, he climbs off the bed of splinters beside the subway stop, that subway stop, whichever one you imagine, coffee burns fingers back to life and a stiff amble to the laboratory.
Where, oh where the hell is home.
Glass slides slip from his trembling fingers and shatter between feet.
What, oh what the hell was it.
There is no answer to the question, echoed in the sharp and cold laboratory where the scientific method has exploded to debris.
Now he might never find home, because he will not have discovered when to meet her at the subway train. He will have to leave it to chance or prayer, and since he does not believe in such things, there is no use.
He will climb down onto the bed of splinters beside the subway stop and dream as little as possible, to reduce the statistical possibility of her passing in his sleep.
His burden of proof.

Monday, October 15, 2012

Homecoming song

On rooftops all across this damn city, staring up, leaning back. Lonely fools starlit. Never wanting to climb down, wanting to tear roofs away like their own sleepy eyelids, and let milky way spill, seep into the walls and carpet, and spend days curling under rain growing moss on the upright piano keys and the recliner and the children, slumbering centuries until the clouds and sun fall into green and orange and then black. And they'll sit in moss and with children in lap, recline, stare up in silence, and wander home.

Friday, October 12, 2012

Tinder nests

Crows bustle on by past jet exhaust clouds, sky blue as daddy's drowned face. Cracking blue. His few remaining hairs floating lake vegetation, his fingers outstretched.  Wheat thistle digging your gums, blood swirls. Swallow. And run your fingers against the rust, rough orange blistering death eating holes into the frame. Pale yellow paint, flat tired Pontiac, tarp half folded over torn vinyl roofing. Daddy's rage and regret smoldering here in the land of shit and wheelbarrels, the grass is all dead here and will not grow again. Press your palm into the spring peeking from the driver's seat, you are his only son. Tell him, fuck yourself, daddy. Close your eyes and drive away, the Pontiac running for the first time since daddy's fist fell open in brackish shallows. So says Nietzsche, that mean fuckin hermit who couldn't bite his tongue while you grit your teeth. Mean fuckin hermit was right after all. Daddy was dead before a one cricket rubbed bow to string. So close your eyes in that shit-smelling dead field and with sweat dripping into the puncture in your palm, dull pulsing ache, and grip the wheel right where the sun has split it open like a fist, and drive into the midwest night, drive until there are so many lights you can no longer see stars. Pretend you ain't got to open those eyes. Pretend the crows ain't godless philosophers, shrieking in the unrelenting noon.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Give thanks, oh ye whisping willows

Shutter sputters a fine November morn, stout young collared boy and ponytailed toothy grinnin girl, hair tied with marbles of transparent red plastic, the crisp air cutting through their play lakeside, thousands of tiny curls cresting on brackish blue, thousands of tiny footfalls pressing grass, photo edges left to yellow with autumn, color drains from the tips. That's what autumn is like. A fierce November wind slashing the cheeks of the boy and the girl as they rush across the shore of the lake, running away from life.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Transcontinental

Barefoot on rocky roads, walk too long and it don't hurt no more. Transient pain, ha ha. Thumb out, long greased hippie hair, maybe a long-barrel revolver, dreaming of wide-brim hats casting shadows on unshaved smirks in out west desert towns, bang bang. Just tryin to get out west, mister. It ain't easy under the sun. All white like dancin' sand dunes, just tryin to get out west and buy myself a wide-brim hat, mister. Might I borrow your cash for the hat, and I won't shoot you with the long-barrel revolver my granddaddy gave me, mister, ha ha. I was there after Vietnam spittin' and full of venom, just got caught up with one of the two crowds, you know? Now I see how easy it is to shoot someone, bang bang, just like out west, which is where I'm headed. We had one thing right back then, ain't no different shooting the life out someone in a war or in this here sedan. Just had it backward, you know? They're both easy peasy. Been on these rocky roads a long time, you know? It don't hurt no more. Calloused, ha ha. Well the last frontier is gone. No more savages, and I ain't got a buzz cut but I'll sure as shoot you. Rite of passage for those headed west. Only thing keeping me from the task is the playing field ain't even. What with it being noontime and yet you don't got a gun and we need some open desert for the ten paces, neither one of us got a hat brim. Ain't fair if I can see your eyes. That ain't fair at all, you know, mister? Memory's like the scars on my burnt up feet, and I don't know I got room for more scars.

Madre negra

En la noche embarazada, puedes presionar la oreja contra el suelo y escuchar el latido del corazón de la mañana.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Sea level, above, below

No mountain angles incising horizon like ice picks left behind from climbers in their final, delirious, burn-eyed footfalls, no iced caps melting against cloud, drifting, parting and coming back together, lovers one. In the swamps, we must resign to cut our hearts on alligator teeth and sink into our muck, warm and nonetheless comforted in the mosquito rhythm of home.