Author Archives: babylon crashing

nachtmusik

18 Monday Oct 2021

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Heat haze at dusk. Ho hum clouds melt and meet

in gray and green flames until they become shrouds

for leaves of ribald trees. Across the street,

three floors up, Pauline’s cello turns darkclouds

to dew –– the most vulgar of all juices.

Each night she repeats her scales, saws out tunes,

twists old lays new. When I speak of crotches

I speak of my own; my cum, like the moon’s,

splatters in the dark while the music’s glee

sets fire to all it touches. I grind my teeth

and cum under the night’s skirts with Bach’s “Air

for G string;” while ‘neath the cellist’s airy

g-string Bach’s night heat yawns wide. Underneath

this string’s calico crotch: thick dew-slicked hair.

bacchanal

29 Wednesday Sep 2021

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“You did not know me,” Dionysus said,

“when you should have,” and proceeded to fuck

things up. I get that. Gods of rage and dread

aren’t that welcome at the office potluck,

either. But, just once, perhaps, a mellow

bacchanal would be pleasing; a laid-back

debauch with odd friends. Sadly, those I know

do not know me that well. I’m a shy Zack.

I lisp, stutter. People make me nervous;

I like quietude and sloth … except when

eldritch horrors possess me, when I rain

fire and salt the earth after. That luscious

violence when I’m not me; so I must, then,

be you, raving, both bullet and bloodstain.

unfit

26 Sunday Sep 2021

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Ask me. I will. Where I used to dwell I’d smell

the ghost of the red desert stirring, sensed

it wake at dawn. Creosote, sage, the swell

of black palm fronds flinging themselves against

a sky neon green, warm as bath water.

I will. I had the loneliness that sang,

too. It gave me songs but not one lover.

Songs of dust and rust, that horrible pang

of loss that left me sick. I still smell it.

In my sweat and sperm, my gristle. I’ll share

it, if you ask. Songs of blank bricks, Vegas

heat and heartache. I’ll sing of dawns unfit

for these dull days; when even rage is prayer

and we burn together, full of malice.

shuffle shlick

26 Sunday Sep 2021

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There were no strange colors in the streetlight.

No wet streets. No musk. No absinthe twilit

in jazz. No moon above roofs like a blight

in the sky. Just you, dead thing; while misfit

living things went flitting around inside

their hells. They make hell home under their skin

for their frail godheads; call themselves, “Brides

of,” and claim that shuffle-shlick is a sin.

Now it’s too late, dead thing, to place my hands

around their cunts and squeeze until their lips

form a heart. How the living waste living

astounds … even in this city’s wastelands.

Shuffle-shlick while the cum on your hand drips

since there’s nothing but you, dead thing, cumming.

gambol

20 Monday Sep 2021

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North winds: the old weathercock on the barn

spins, your window rattles. Rain soon. I read

to you until you grow drowsy. The warm

night lulls you to sleep. Tales of lust and greed

are your favorite. Even from here I smell

your wet spot spreading while your breath deepens.

Dreams of night queens and nymphs while the slow swell

between your thighs spreads, tracing your fountain’s

source. “Je suis l’amour qui tue,” the French say.

I’m the love that kills; chastity’s venom.

Let your mom sleep next door; the rain muffles

your old bed springs as your gambol and play

in your fountain while I, lewd ghost, watch dumb

small death bubble up from your genitals.

][][

Notes:

The quote, “Je suis l’amour qui tue,” comes from a fragment I found based on the life of Olympia Mancini, the Countess of Soissons; in theory used as evidence against her in the 1679 witchcraft scandal that implicated many members of Louis XIV’s court, the infamous the Affaire des Poisons. As far as I can tell there is no evidence that this was anything more than part of a salacious broadsheet sold to the public to titillate:

“Ma petite abomination, j’appartenais au démon de la chair; je suis l’amour qui tue.” Chaque nuit a ce criun démon de fille sort d’une cache, s’élance sur la comtesse et se met en train de lécher ardemment son clitoris dont la pointe sortait rouge et enflammée. Infernale lubricité! Par moment, la voix de la comtesse, qui râlait la volupté, dominait cette harmonie étrange, ce concert d’orgie, cette saturnale de sang.

sick

10 Friday Sep 2021

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I’ve been chasing the septic, the abscessed,

the wild and purulent. Disease is a grand

stand-in for lustfulness these days. A quest

for what others give away free. Not bland

pornography –– Promises of what might

happen. Let them exhale. Even the most

chaste and vestal can still hack & cough. Light

me up, dead man, with fever. Some still boast

of their prowess; as if the age of swing

might go back as before. Not with these lungs.

Not with this immune system. When I pull

on your hair and say, “you’re sick,” I’m being

literal. When I start to speak in tongues

that just taint I’m spewing, by the soulful.

just

31 Tuesday Aug 2021

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The day done gray. “Of the gods,” Aeschylus

said, “Death alone does not crave gifts.” The rest

love their altars and praise; become jealous

and ill-tempered if crossed. For Death the blessed

and the sinner are the same and worms feed

on them all. “Death shall be Death forever,”

Sappho said; unlike us, love, with our need

to see ourselves in what we praise. Lover,

love me now before I become just dust

of ten thousand years. My gift is coaxing

of my tongue – stroking foam – sucking obscene

– tasting what you crave. Let the righteous rust

since Death won’t care if we do everything,

nothing or just hardcore bling in-between.

][][

Notes:

Aeschylus was an ancient Greek playwright, known as the, “Father of Tragedy.” Sappho, “The 10th Muse,” was master of the lyric poem. I like what Kenneth Rexroth said about her art, “There has been no other poet like this. Wherever enough words remain to form a coherent context, they give one another a unique luster, an effulgence found nowhere else. Presentational immediacy of the image, overwhelming urgency of personal involvement — in no other poet are these two prime factors of lyric poetry raised to so great a power.”

taint

24 Tuesday Aug 2021

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How hot? The scabs under these bandages
came loose. Ointments melted. Stench sang sultry,

turning all this loving flesh to itches
and taint. Scratched them so much I pulled out three

stitches; they dangled from the scabs like roots.
Vegas heat made me long for other lips.

This heat is ooze and sulphur that pollutes
and crusts. No bath. No A/C. Just crushed hips

and cracked ribs; just on my back trying not
to move. Even typing this stinks. I dream

of ice, clean bed sheets. A month being prone
unnerves nerves; like sutures pulling on taut

flesh gone green, gassy. So hot my bloodstream
turned sick, lugging taint through each splintered bone.

    verve

    20 Friday Aug 2021

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    How the fuck does someone fuck in something/ as bent and broken shaft, as dried as pools

    no ink flows from, as a poem? Fucking,/ even the Platonic Ideal, has rules

    that we must follow. Instead follow this/ as I rise, aroused. It’s been one hundred

    twenty-three days (nombre magique!) amiss,/ blissless, frantic, sick. Some cocksucka said

    there’s no world soul, no anima spirit,/ no blessed words. By clits, cocks and balls, these scrawls

    rise with me. This is the ideal: shortest/ distance between us——words. We, who submit

    to lust’s divine plan. Recall what befalls/ cocksuckas who scorn the verve of Logos.

    ][][

    Notes:

    Logos is a Greek philosophical term that says a divine word (reason) governs the universe. Likewise, World Souland Anima (Spirit) Mundi are other concepts of Logos. Plato’s Platonic Ideal states that the idea of an act or object is, “more real,” than the object itself. In this case the concept of fucking is more real than the act itself. Finally, I love numbers that arrange themselves in patterns (12:34, etc.) Nombre magique is French for, “Magic number.” It’s good to be back 🙂

    onibaba [i,i]

    17 Wednesday Mar 2021

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    SCENE I.

    A semi-dark room scantily furnished. A sliding door opens and the distant chaos of a battle can be heard as two ghosts enter. The first, the soul of the legendary Hangaku Gozen, is dressed in her full samurai armor. The second, Lady Seishin, wears a kimono that might have been stylish 100 years ago and a kabuki fox mask that she never takes off. At the back of the stage is a small fire pit and a small window. Seishin stirs the embers and then stands by the window, peering anxiously out.

    SEISHIN.

    It is a wild night outside.

    HANGAKU.

    Help me off with this helmet. Is the rain still coming down?

    SEISHIN.

    In torrents. I cannot see the other side of the road.

    HANGAKU.

    That’s good.

    SEISHIN.

    If not being able to see someone ten feet away is good, then hai. Luck is with us. Should I put the oil wick in the window?

    HANGAKU.

    [Sitting down next to fire with her helmet in her hands.] Why? No. Only when we hear her order a retreat. That’s what she said.

    SEISHIN.

    But on a night like this she may have pulled the troop all the way back to Kyoto and we’ll never know.

    HANGAKU.

    Do not be so querulous, you cranky fox.

    SEISHIN.

    This isn’t me being cranky. Something is about to happen. Listen to the wind sobbing around the house … a lost soul that we’re refusing to let enter.

    HANGAKU.

    Why would we do that? The wind loves us.

    SEISHIN.

    The wind puts up with us. Ever since— What was that?

    HANGAKU.

    [Listens.] It is our message, I think. [Listens harder.] Something is coming. Douse the fire.

    [The room is reduced once more to semi-darkness.]

    SEISHIN.

    Shouldn’t we—?

    [This time the sound is heard by both women. Someone or something in groaning in the dark. They stand as the door slides open and Jiutian Xuannu enters.]

    XUANNU.

    Cousins, why are we wasting time here? I was going to call retreat but those stupid Takahashi samurai are milling about right over there and look so smite-able.

    HANGAKU.

    But who is going to do the smiting? You?

    XUANNU.

    You look sad, cousin. We’re shadows, azure-

    eyed, made from lust and stardust and despise

    blood and afterbirth. Fools fear our power

    to peel off our pelts. Fools fear change, disguise,

    the way floods deform and do not deform

    dry earth. But, cousin, what use are nightmares

    if you can wake up? Why try to transform

    when we can slaughter? We don’t need more snares

    fools keep slipping free from. Call Onibaba.

    She’s a friend. She has farseeing vision

    and short cruel knives. Fools call her, “Hag with Tusks

    and Fangs Chitter-Chatting in her Vulva.”

    Fools fear her carnage; her love of carrion;

    how she sucks both down to their very husks.

    HANGAKU.

    Fetch her.

    [Jiutian Xuannu exits.]

    HANGAKU [cont.]

    But first, let’s test her skills. Seishin, you pretend to be me.

    SEISHIN.

    I’m not a ghost. I think she’ll notice.

    [Jiutian Xuannu, Onibaba and Kijo all enter.]

    SEISHIN.

    Ah, Lady Onibaba. Chrysanthemum in the Legion of Flowers. Mire in the Order of Tenacity. Chalice of Malice. Fury of the Divine Crest. It is I, your Lady Hangaku!

    ONIBABA.

    Xuannu, I find it odd that the, “Terror of Genpei,” would be both Jiuzhou and alive.

    XUANNU.

    [Aside.] That was the worst Hangaku impersonation I’ve ever seen.

    HANGAKU.

    Lady Onibaba, please forgive me for being cautious. Who is this?

    ONIBABA.

    [Indicating Kijo.] My daughter, Lady Kijo.

    HANGAKU.

    [Incredulous.] You had sex?

    ONIBABA.

    Hai.

    HANGAKU.

    [Skeptical.] With a mortal?

    ONIBABA.

    Hai.

    HANGAKU.

    [Scandalized.] O my, you nanty narking chuckabog.

    ONIBABA.

    I don’t think you brought me all this way to make snide comments about my lovers.

    [A loud moaning begins from outside and the wind rattles against the hut’s walls.]

    ONIBABA [cont.]

    The dusk wails and you pray for Onibaba

    to smite souls. It’s fitting that twilight

    moans for us, glimpsing our hitodama,

    our blue-green flames, as we pass in the night,

    searching for the spot where we died; where our

    blood touched the earth and our hubris melted

    when we found out all our sweet truths were sour,

    our faiths false. Who claims to know what’s sacred?

    How I don’t know. But they’ll kill for it.

    You want me to go out and lay the Eight

    Ring Curse on those men? Men who love carnage

    and their samurai bushido bullshit?

    I’ll do it. Saints say hate cannot kill hate.

    I say all we are is gristle and rage.

    SEISHIN.

    [Aside.] These mountain demons can be very tempting with their tongues.

    ONIBABA.

    Don’t frown, Lady Hangaku. That was you once, too: a butcher. Now you’re just dead and vague.

    [The door opens and a little battlefield spirit acting as a messenger enters.]

    SENJO BOZU.

    [Bowing.] My sovereign. Ladies of the court. I come from the walls of Osaka. Takahashi’s soldiers have stormed our outer defenses. We are now fighting in the streets.

    XUANNU.

    What sort of necromancers do they have that can breach our spells?

    HANGAKU.

    I heard that Emagami The Blight was selling herself again, but her skills are pitiful.

    XUANNU.

    [To Onibaba.] My lady, do you think that we should give up on Osaka, or not?

    ONIBABA.

    Of course not. Only cowards and monks run away.

    HANGAKU.

    Yattaaaa! I agree with what she says: we’ll fight it out.

    ONIBABA.

    Glory is like the ripples on the water. You have given me the task of whipping the Takahashi then I will beat those waters until they froth.

    HANGAKU.

    Lady Onibaba, drive the living daylights out of Osaka. They says the root of suffering is attachment. I say we beat that koan home on the skulls of Takahashi and his men.

    [All exit.]

    ][][

    Notes:

    Onibaba is, as her name states, is a red-skinned, white-haired Japanese ogre. She carries a kanabo (Iron war stick) slung over her shoulder.

    Hangaku Gozen  was an actual warrior and fought in the Genpei War (1180-1185 AD).

    Jiutian Xuannu (Dark Lady of the Nine Heavens) is a Chinese goddess of war, lust and longevity. With long Mandarin robes and her Dadao (“Big sword”) she justifies showing up in this play by saying that she is on holiday.

    Seishin kitsune is one of the names used for a fox spirit.

    Senjo bozu. A spirit from the battlefield.

    Jiuzhou is an ancient name for China.

    Hitodama are a pair of blue flames (similar to will o’ the wisps) that accompany a ghost when it manifests.