Tag Archives: Poetry

propers

16 Thursday Jul 2020

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Salvation? That honor brought nothing but
the blues, the way the gods use to sing them.

The gods are vast and weep, call us, “poppet,”
and, “doll,” and croon. Certain folk still condemn

the blues as Moloch’s music. Certain folk
are fools. Salvation? Before I learned my

proper propers. Before the neighbors spoke
of me with a sneer. Before first goodbye,

my friends were all, they say, pretend until
hormones left me scarred and askew. Then none

of the holy wanted me. When gods dump
you you learn certain folk preach divine will

the way the devil preaches salvation ––
with the lie that the gods want our worship.

oodles

07 Tuesday Jul 2020

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I’m the deep that scares you. The dark that might
take note of you as you’re peering down. Down?

Drown. What monsters lurk deeper than sunlight?
Neptune’s grisly progeny; though they’d drown

in your world, too. Are your fears as crushing
as my love? At twenty feet? Your lungs burn.

Thirty feet? Panic drags you back. Yearning
isn’t enough. You say that you’ll return

but swim with eyes shut to the sea’s grace.
I have taken note, risen from the deep

for you, for all who come to me. Your fear
is like others who’ve yearned for my embrace.

There have been oodles who’ve taken this leap.
I can swallow you too. Show me sincere.

chompers

06 Monday Jul 2020

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3 a.m. Damp heat. Crumpled cotton sheet.
Other broken grins wallow through my night.

Other teeth. Other sighs. None here to bleat
out their bliss at each mouthful. None toyed quite

like how you toy. Once more you failed to find
me in my dreams. Or maybe I failed you.

It’s the same. We’re apart. The heat, combined
with pain, keeps me awake. My scar tissue

seems to draw others. You know others touch
me, run fingers over your work to guess

as to the source of this fine mess. Of course
they’re not close. I use to smoke Mystic Dutch

to soothe where your chompers had been; fine mess,
indeed. Now I’m sober, sleepless, morose.

only

21 Sunday Jun 2020

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“I said, I’m scared of moving on. I said,
I don’t wanna. I said, I don’t want you

to leave me. I said, I don’t want the dread
of you being happy with someone new,

or how you look at another person
the way that I look at you. I said, I

want it be you forever. No one
else but you. I said, I think I’d die

if you were happy. I wanna. I want
to be your one and only. I wanna–”

I stop the voice mail, a frown on my face.
I hit delete. Some mistakes live to haunt

us, some to drag us to hell. I’m your karma,
I see, a hell made without hope or grace.

cleft

11 Thursday Jun 2020

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There should be a word for when a cleavage
is laid bare, unbosomed. Moments ago

you bent forward to unbind the bandage
that kept your flesh in place. I’ve rubbed aloe

oil into those ridges those bindings left:
ridged bruise that ooze. What good is this magic

if it can’t salve you each time you pin, cleft
and strap down? Voluptuous magic. Thick

magic. Curvaceous. In the bath, after
work, you tell me about your day. One day

you’ll be a queen crone and then we can heal
from the need to conceal. We learn other

words when we do. We’ll be boss. We’ll slay
when we unwrap, unmask, unconceal.

roughhouse

07 Sunday Jun 2020

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When I lurched from the old-timey, baroque-
ass stove, when flame claimed my lashes and brows,

when a third of my scalp went up in smoke.
Odd how our flesh reacts. You say roughhouse

is fun. Hot wax feels scrumdiddlyumptious,
you say, lighting the candle. Suddenly

my scalp’s scars come alive with pink, wet puss
as the skin peels back, as I sit for three

days with open wounds until the Peace Corps
doctor can drive to my post. I forgot

that pain. My flesh, though, still loves to remind
me, in odd ways, at odd times, that I’m more

scab than baroque, that I’m slow at being taught,
that these scars are of the runnyrot kind.

][][

Note:
Scrumdiddlyumptious (wonderful) and runnyrot (horrible and painful) are gobblefunk words made up by Roald Dahl for his book, The BFG (1982)

sub play

20 Wednesday May 2020

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You said you don’t like kink, but when you do
you like bondage, group play, the stench of fear.

You’ve read about sex clubs and Masters who
love pain. I’d try that, you blush. With you, dear.

I’ve got off on fear, too, but my nasty
are in war films with submarines; that scene

where the crew despairs while the enemy
drops depth charges on them. All those obscene

faces in the dark, aghast, sublime stink
of dread. That’s an endorphin rush that no

sex club can match. Sub play, indeed. That’s not
kink, you say. That’s just hellish. Which is kink.

I think all perversions that lets us know
life is blessed are both dangerous and hot.

Notes:
For those unfamiliar with the term, a depth charge is a bomb designed to be dropped from a ship or aircraft to explode under water at a preset depth, used for attacking submarines.

for grace

06 Wednesday May 2020

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“Just don’t bring home a white boy,” your father
bid. So you did. He was flippin’ flippant

when he said, “the devil is in my daughter,”
but I was, too, daily. We’d had blatant

need for veils: your hijab, my sonnet. Place
for grace. Safe space. Each poem was a road

home for us: “Fuck ass, let no wrath erase
our path.” In my bedroom more than faith flowed

where my tongue teased. Each kiss a phat freckle,
salvation. My palms on your breasts. Until …

fissures from your father’s need to control
us: his, “modest virgin,” her, “infidel

b-boy” – men who sew their woe; men who kill
joy all because of their own broken soul.

coddle

27 Monday Apr 2020

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In the end it’s barely there. Touch of heat.
Spark of grief. Why won’t such a tiny prick

set me gangling? Not the first to treat
me like this, but … it’s a bit bombastic

to say the last. I mean, a night not fraught
with pain is kinda weak sauce; and, my dude,

you don’t show me much. Is that all you got?
Stubbing your cigar out on my chest? Rude.

Tied down? Duct-taped while Dylan & The Dead
blare? That’s not torture, twitchy. That’s just tripe.

Count the scars. I don’t coddle amateurs.
It’s why these fingers have no nails. I’ve bled

better and you promised me a huge fright;
so damn proud of that tiny prick of yours.

schemes

26 Sunday Apr 2020

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You get sloppy. Your thoughts muddled, jumping
from hint to hint. How many evil schemes

have you half-hatched? One more undertaking
undone. Friends try to joke but something seems

infernally wrong. You’d bet your scrumptious
cloven hooves that lockdown out in Hades

is like this: promise of having promise
squandered. Even this poem does not please;

started weeks ago it sits on the page –
sneering – go on, make one more droll blow job

joke. You think you’re a horny devil but
you’re more Sucka MC. Your old-school rage

doesn’t age all that well. You’re quaint. Both slob
and snob. Say it. Sacred smut. Arse biscuit.