ALL ORANGE GLORY

09 Thursday Apr 2015

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“The bud/ stands for all things” – Galway Kinnell

 

After loss then the libido snaps back

sick and mad as before. I don’t know why.

 

Knuckles push into moss until – hunchbacked,

straining – I pry the bud apart. My thighs

 

soggy sorrow burn all orange glory.

What gods would trust a mouth that makes such Os?

 

Thorny lips … that curl up around all three

of my fingers … a butterfly … that glows

 

when it dips for nectar — No, won’t go on.

What’s wrong? I feel like I’m faking it. Porn

 

on a Thursday. After loss why this brief

horniness? Once my fingers are withdrawn

 

let the bud close, leaving behind thorn,

moss-grown verge and grief. The gods’ own grief.

ALL THE DEAD LITTLE THINGS

09 Thursday Apr 2015

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I love that my fear lives under my bed.

I’ve been down there: torn condoms, used needles,

 

and my left toe-cutting knife. All the dead

little things I’ve loved and abandoned. Skulls

 

that will always be prettier than me.

Loose teeth. I’ve swallowed at least six. The jaw

 

of one Milady de Winter. What she

did — no, spoilers, sweetie. The things that gnaw

 

at me aren’t what you think. The Internet

where I live: “None of us fuck, see? Sex is

 

ugly. None of your free, hippy love shit

here,” as Johnny told Nancy. It’s that threat,

 

you might become mine, I might become his.

Strange how just a floor can become a pit.

danube

08 Wednesday Apr 2015

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Just say, “scummy waves;” that’s the sort of kiss
I want. Something so foul that it sucks down

seagulls in its wake. There’s a dead princess
who claims she’s a Czarina. Her pocked gown

looks a tad Orthodox. We made out, once,
though it felt like deep-throating an ice cube.

That cold got everywhere. There’s a science
to it, like when I swam in the Danube;

something pulled both my legs wide. I could feel
each wave lapping. Everything should lap, dog.

And the puckering … and the — tie my tubes,
lip gloss. If you want this, make it surreal.

Like the dead who kiss since they’re only fog,
or the living with fondness for ice cubes.

with flutes and fleas and dung

08 Wednesday Apr 2015

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Pick me clean. Strung up I’ll never go down
on my best friend. Never gape or have her

sodden laundry slap my face. All these nouns
define me. I am more girlie-satyr

than twin cocked-minotaur; with flute and fleas
and dung between my hooves. I know the more

that I write today the less I will please.
I hate being someone’s gear-notch; hardcore

engine-grind. I shift. I shaft. Stranger’s love
poems bore me. So what? They still won’t

dig graves or change diapers. Hush. There’s a hill.
(there is always a hill) with birds above

where I sit and do satyrie-shit. Don’t
it just cut ya? like bones in a gristmill.

and then that happened

06 Monday Apr 2015

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I yawn. I wake. I walk about bandy
legged without you staring at my scarred-up

leg or the tiger-stripes on my belly.
The crows bring hashish, vervain and julep

root to my window. The ants bring badger’s
foot. It’s good to be alone. All the toys

are put away. The urge to peg strangers
has dulled. I’ve wiped the lipstick off. This bruise

will fade in spring-light; so will all this tensed
rage. I don’t need sap to run with mischief

in my head. I’ve sharpened all the kitchen
knives. The shadows rub their muzzles against

my palm. I’m so full of myself; enough
to know I’m both antidote and toxin.

scars without flinching

02 Thursday Apr 2015

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“Ugly,” is what you would call me, if you
were to call me anything. I have one

who can touch the scars without flinching. True,
“I am lucky;” what they tell the burden

so it will stop feeling like one. Sometimes
I want you to see what I look naked.

Mostly I don’t. It’s not like the right rhyme
will make the world love me, or that my blood,

once spilled, would raise a Cain. Of all the shocks
that’s the worse. That all my fears get condensed

to this: I could go out, full of desire
through the rain, with crickets clinging to stalks;

through wind, with seas of Queen Anne’s Lace against
my knees; and I would still drown in such fire.

you see the merchandise

01 Wednesday Apr 2015

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Carve me a toothpick; I have one curled hair
stuck in-between my incisors. These chapped

hips, this silicon knob with its horsehair
tail, these boots. Have I ridden you? or “tapped

your ass,” as Butch Lisette once claimed? Of course
not. Please forgive my friends, they are … so young,

obsessed with sending nude selfies. They’re coarse
little things, amusements. But you? Your tongue

itches to taste this, no? Peace. Come closely.
Pull up your trousers. Look out the window.

Be still, pet. What do you see? The merchandise
of lust; the night hums with it. But for me

I’m done with stroking needy libidos.
That’s how much I adore you: more than vice.

cuts you up

01 Wednesday Apr 2015

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[I have] [no] [words for] [this flesh I] [just wish]
[the whole] [world was flooded] [hip] [deep I do]

[fear] [that] [I’ll wake] [under water that] [squish]
[sound when] [I move my] [thighs, some] [membrane-goo]

[that I] [can’t pull] [off; Venus] [in the sky]
[There should be a] [photo] [I’d share my] [rude]

[crotch, my wiry hair] [my scars my] [marked] [thigh]
[I love] [my] [thigh but there] [isn’t. Rough-hewed]

[flesh is not] [fit for such] [things I love] [how]
[both] [legs look under] [water, yet] [water]

[floods in] [when I] [open] [my mouth] [Venus]
[if you would just] [possess me] [once more] [Now]

[liquid] [laps. My] [limbs curl] [in] [I’m the] [slur]
[without words] [What] [Burroughs called the virus]

check your tongue

31 Tuesday Mar 2015

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Of my three aunts, Sylvia, Adrienne
and Anne, two killed themselves and one refused

to look at me. I’ve loved them. I’ve loved gin,
static-buzz, bone-fever — all that confused

their words with being something more. “Nomen
est omen:” call me, “Left Behind.” Call her:

“Matertera.” Without these three women
what am I? Check your tongue about that slur

that I’ve broken my pact made between gods
and their dire verse; as if either pleased.

Tonight I want an aunt’s voice that marauds
through my skull, that translates all that buzzed

into something. Confessions. I love them.
I love their words. Their so-called hate and sin.