Tag Archives: Poetry

rebound

27 Tuesday Oct 2020

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Call it braille. These scars. This ferociously

opened flesh. You say that you know something

 

about holy texts, at least one, maybe,

that bad translation that you keep calling

 

Word. Yo. You’ve yet to touch this. If you can’t

touch you can’t read and my secrets won’t be

 

handed down to you. The last who could chant

every line aloud is gone. Her dead sea

 

called. She answered. This is one text that knows

it won’t be rebound, recovered. Some verse

 

and code and syllabary are better

lost. “Show me,” you said; but I keep my clothes

 

on. You can’t read me, call these words a curse,

or trace my broken spine with one finger.

tsk

08 Thursday Oct 2020

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At last: dawn. Crows in the trees wake. The trees

wake. The virus inside me stirs. Somewhere

 

lovers feel breath on their necks. Smell of sleaze

and gods. Rough taste from the roughest affair

 

is a blessing, too. Somewhere but not here.

Here? The chemistry inside me hates me.

 

My mouth fills with a taste: I’ll call it fear

of hints, of the things to come. Irony:

 

to long for longing. The one truth I know

I can’t have. Only this virus will claim

 

me. All the rest tsk over my health then

move on. Dawn won’t last even as the crow

 

caws her love. I despair then fill with shame

at my regret; the one thing I called sin.

plague

02 Wednesday Sep 2020

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This time nude in the sheets isn’t a turn
on. To wake after a long illness. To

rise with no more ache in the lungs, no burn
in the breath, no pain in the bones. The flu

made its home in here, much how I suspect
gods would when they take over; possession

being nine-tenths of the law. Prayers to protect
all fall mute, hushed, until windows open,

bed sheets stripped, hot water washes the plague
stink from us. I still love to coax and tease.

Yes. Bliss is our birthright … even when it
does no good. This sick sweat. This rotten egg

fetor. My prayers were simple: just a please
end this. Make me well or make me spirit.

ha in hell

06 Thursday Aug 2020

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Some scars glare. Split chin? Prat fall on acid.
Trippin’. Others I don’t show. Those half-healed

holes in my chest where nipples once rested?
I still keep my shirt on. Nothing revealed

but scabs peeled. I’m crafting a puckered grin
across my tum-tum, this beggar’s belly,

as if I’m trying to spill my guts. Skin
parts just like a zipper’s tug easily.

Again: skin you’ll never see. What is flesh
but a host of nerves that scream? A bit crude

but I’ve learned to live with it; I’ve cut my fat
and carved each nerve ending out. Nerves end; fresh

slices soothe. Not like you’ll soon see me nude
and ask: ha in hell did yee survive that?

lunacy

25 Saturday Jul 2020

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Your mom said good girls don’t go there. Bummer.
Last year you and four other girls dropped out

pregnant. Now you do, often; your daughter
snoozing in her crib, your hips crotched, girl scout

skirt pulled to your lips. Charmed, I’m sure; you smiled
at my tongue’s path from your C-section scar

down through phat flesh. You got, “daddy defiled
me,” inked above your ass. Bedroom-boudoir

with your bizarre mix-tapes. Cigar-sized spliffs.
Death was the breath that you sucked from my lungs

as I dived face first through you. Flesh slapped. Skin
bitten. Fingered and fucked. I miss those whiffs.

Scent of lunacy. Reckless as cum. Tongue’s
crow. We say gang-bang. Your mom says love-in.

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.