hothouse

13 Wednesday Dec 2017

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Spankings seem cruel. But when you bend to bare
yourself to me with your ink—one word stamped

in black, “RUIN,” above your derriere—
when you drape yourself on my knee, thighs clamped

tight with tension; then, yes, this will be cruel.
So rough. So sudden. That first splitting stroke.

You know that I find whining sobs shameful;
only kids caterwaul. Drench the floor, soak

your thighs, if you must, but keep count of each
welted slash left upon your upturned ass.

Correction’s hothouse. Discipline’s garden.
Pain blooms as divine comeuppance; this bleach-

in-the-eyes pain, add a-touch-of-teargas —
that’s why you’re here, you and your prayer: RUIN.

Quote

quote unquote

08 Friday Dec 2017

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Tell me about a complicated man.
Muse, tell me how he wandered and was lost
when he had wrecked the holy town of Troy,
and where he went, and who he met, the pain
he suffered in the storms at sea, and how
he worked to save his life and bring his men
back home. He failed to keep them safe; poor fools,
they ate the Sun God’s cattle, and the god
kept them from home. Now goddess, child of Zeus,
tell the old story for our modern times.
Find the beginning …

first stanza of Emily Wilson’s translation of ‘The Odyssey’ (2018)

bene faction

08 Friday Dec 2017

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We are unnerved by pleasure; it frightens
us when it comes. It comes. I call. I’m out

side your door. I come with waif’s weed, urchin’s
greed. I hunger the way that the devout

hunger for a balm to their holy mess.
Call us a holy fuck. Blunts shared between

two: alms, bene-faction. To kiss. To bless.
To claim. I’ve driven far. I want obscene

things. I want to ruin you. Now re-frame;
I meet you at the door, children on their

way to school. We smile. We are familiars.
Familiar is good. It’s still the same blessed flame,

chaotic nerves, fire. I will take either:
as fuck-friends or as curious strangers.

ruin us

04 Monday Dec 2017

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“Once more, but with gore.” For two weeks after
I kept my shirt on, changed the bandages,

daubed the stains. “Abuse me,” we say. “Yes, sir,”
we say. I’m more than besmirched. My glasses,

knocked all ahoo, cracked. My scabs, when I stretched,
peeled. “Sour me,” is more than a dare. “Ruin

us,” gets used a lot. Love, what is far-fetched
that one day I’ll just burn? What bursts molten

cannot be put right as it flows, as it flames.
What you demand just now leaves me distraught.

You know better. But this ends with my squeals,
shouts, pleading to the gods. The healer claims,

“troubled water, troubled soul.” But it’s not
soul that your nails cut, just flesh and flesh heals.

theur elwis cum

01 Friday Dec 2017

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You sit, dripping on the gunwale, nostrils
flaring, your hemmed dress covering your knee

while I cut guff-rope from off your ankles.
“Ah’m chilled,” you chatter, “teur t’ bone, duppy.

Gi’ uz yaw rawny ‘eat.” What dead returns
when called? The boat bobbed on gray-green Haitian

waves. They had tried to snuff you; but salt burns
with ropes, entwined; fat moon with sickly sun,

enlaced; living with dead, conjoined. This, too,
is faith. I hug you. You cough up a lung,

laugh, stare: “duppy, ah knuw you’d cum.” You wince,
shifting back organs: “theur elwis cum.” True,

I do, for you. Your lips are cracked, your tongue
black, so I row us back to Port-au-Prince.

][][
Notes:
For the record I am not using any sort of Haitian accent in the poem, it is actually Yorkshire. A duppy is, traditionally, a malevolent spirit from the Caribbean (see: Bob Marley’s Duppy Conqueror, for popular use), though as with everything that people insist on making black and white I delight in the grays.