Cephalopod Swashbuckler

These words speak to our fantasies, those we share in the darkness hidden by kitchen appliances. The fuzzy shadow behind the range. The rough-hewn gray-red behind the refrigerator. The cool cowardice beneath the toaster. Our hands sit naked atop our laps. Our tongues are suspended between our jaws. As if palming a tack.

In these tasselled lawnchair moments, varieties of anger concocted over hours of stiff labor settle like tin shavings in the bottom of a jar of glycerin. Let the houseplants sit wanting as static mimics the moonvoice. Let the glue dry to crust. I really mean that last part.

We don't need glue now.

Periods Correspond

These religions is the mystery

Who has parched this land under this mountain?

The nature of the cult is secrecy

Who gathered the unchosen heresy?

New faith concluding the narrative fountain

These religions is the mystery

Cradling scraps of garments to chests, fiercely

Who felt with their tongues energy undaunted?

The nature of the cult is secrecy

Who undertakes the promise of our sincerity?

We all shall be revealed to the crowd and taunted

These religions is the mystery

To be newly arrived is to gain one's longevity

Who knows the desperation for hands to be counted?

The nature of the cult is secrecy

Who has overtaken me with such parsimony?

Bleeding from gashes, hobbled and hounded

These religions is the mystery

The nature of the cult is secrecy

Perfect Stick

One blue-mouthed woman, silently waiting

Waiting for words to fulfill her intent

Flesh inside flesh, insistent creating

Dying, the coward's voice is fading

Wisps of sugar vapor, toward ears are bent

One blue-mouthed woman, silently waiting

Television is investigating

Emissaries to the brothels are sent

Flesh inside flesh, insistent creating

Our emissaries, giddily braiding

Their languages together, bleached and bent

One blue-mouthed woman, silently waiting

The cowards and emissaries shading

Their flesh under skin stretched tight into tents

Flesh inside flesh, insistent creating

Here we engage in more fruitless mating

Displaying these organs, purple and rent,

One blue-mouthed woman, silently waiting

Flesh inside flesh, insistent creating

Watching the Program with Children

I am a dude,
A rich broth of contradictory thoughts
When I am nude

Parents are rude,
Demand confirmation of what was taught
I am a dude

Humble and crude,
Devouring the lunch meats (which I have bought),
When I am nude

Shielding this brood
Teaching my body things others will not,
I am a dude

Eating more food,
Opened and bloodied when it has been caught,
When I am nude

Endlessly shrewd
Owning the property which I have sought
I am a dude,
When I am nude

The Singer Oriented

Our companion mammals are made of noise

And swaggering we walk to the kindness we know

Filled with the dimness of muscular joys

Hands filled with hands filled with these broken toys

Created as bodies for the ones put below

Our companion mammals are made of noise

Hands for the labor of milking this noise

Sheathed in plastic, sweating, cold as reflected glow

Filled with the dimness of muscular joys

A golden seepage encircles these boys

Creates an eternity to know and unknow

Our companion mammals are made of noise

Swaggering with kindness, words soft and coy

Summoned back to the places where ash blackly blows

Filled with the dimness of muscular joys

Children will sleep clutching these broken toys

Lidded eyes perceiving the residual glow

Our companion mammals are made of noise,

Filled with the dimness of muscular joys

Under Blown Leaves

The earthworms give us red bracelets. The goldfinches give us new flavors for unsatisfied tongues. The origami elk gives us a virgin's wisdom. The somersaulting children of immigrants give us anger to wield. The earthworms give us red bracelets.

Sandstone and limestone.

Cumulus and cirrus.

Scissors and tweezers.

Steel and aluminum.

Lizard hips and bird hips.

If you can know these things you can grasp the difference between, between, between Muddy Waters and JL Hooker. You can wander free of memory and labor.

The mallard gives us a clean thirst.

In Hair, Words

Don't tell no one, not one other or each other, not one another, not a man or a woman you see. Don't tell no one of my presence or the sounds my body makes. My voice ain't not a thing at to see or hear no more than rocks and food are things to be noticed or matter.

Don't tell no one. Don't tell no one. It's not a thing right to do. Don't. Do one more thing when I hide behind you. Behind my back I'll hold this rabbit skull and behind your back you'll hold me so don't tell no one that nothing is behind your back.

Back behind the shed in the wheelbarrow we flipped upside down before winter, in that wheelbarrow I made tracings so if you betray me don't tell no one but that would hear you about the tracings and I can forgive betrayal and I can feel your heart beating under the palm of my hand and I have the rabbit skull in my other hand. It's clean.