From Worm-Food

You could have waited,
waited until I dried with encrusted maggot saliva.
It might have comforted this plant food
to gain the closure of a year in the ground.
For the love of all things sweet and salty,
give me time to bond with my earthy abode
before you go defiling my former one.
Lady Mock-Mercy says, "She would want you happy."
She's a cow.
I say you were happy even before you killed me.
Happy with her. At least grant me the pleasure of witnessing
the suffering caused by your guilty conscience.
Go, you coward! Leave me to wallow with my beetles,
they make much better company than you,
passing gossip between the three other graves before mine
where your previous lovers lie.
I never liked cockroaches, but now,
they don't look so bad.

A Ruptured Cord and Mind

My face looked into a mirror and descried nothing.
It searched for reflection, but nothing appeared.
No eyes, no mouth or ears, not even a nose
or the mole on my left cheek.
I witnessed all of these before,
but now they were invisible.
The shadows pooled around my feet like their blood
as I withdrew from the looking glass and cried,
the sound of a radio announcer bludgeoned my head
as they interviewed B4.
She felt cold and was afraid of the dark.
"I would have loved her," she said.
My head pounds. Would that love have replaced this rift
in my sanity? Too late to find out.

The Stranger I Know So Well

My dear, when I first glimpsed you
leaning against the frigid firebricks, my toes
turned to ice, and I heard running
nerves in my head bouncing
back and forth.
The sting of your cigarette lingered
on your shirt,
little pieces of ash clung
to your black chest.
They tempted me as I surveyed
scattered patches of sky between clouds.
Don't think you fool me. I know you
are here, with me now in my mind.
No ebony dragon of hatred possesses the fear of
my soul. Back off
and stop your smug flirting.
Shadowy beasts always eat themselves
alive.

The Color of Pomegranate Seeds on the Border

A young man rocked back and forth in a pile of plastic rubble, striving to build sense from what stayed. The smell of fake cinnamon and sugar surrounded him, a hint of warm vanilla drifting loftily. Instead of pyramid or skyscraper dreams, he recalls a chocolate hovel on the border of Georgia and Alabama. A fallen bicycle abandoned to stand and fall on its own in the dusty drive, next to Converse All Stars and a rusted desk. Chalked on worm riddled wood, the equation 9+18+22= scrawls, the answer never found. A purple basket with a black-eyed baby, clothed in a sky blue onesie stood in the dirt, neglected and overturned, a black widow stitching her webs into the soft folds. As in childhood games they imagined, Godzilla finally arrived to smother them. The sound of silence stained his world pomegranate-seed red, like a failed dye, attempting to color them caramel gold. All that remained was infinities jest laughing at him in the form of thirteen crows.

From Gossipping Do-Gooders

“Get some self-respect and a day job.” That is what you wrote to me. Have you ever had self-respect after face planting in the dirt? No one in their wrong mind you hire us. Look at us! just look. Twilight urchins scraping our way across the stagnant stone city. Why should any denizen of the daylight community look at us, that is, unless they want to eat us in place of teatime crumpets. Civilized cannibals. Indeed, most honorable Mr. Darcy, savages dance quite well at masque balls attended in shadowy hours so their brighter alter egos escape the crimes committed in ritualistic rain dances when the god of lies is appeased and sends hurricanes of abysmal “truth” unto the happily living Nightshade Commoners. What is to be done for us who can’t ever find our way to the world of eloquence and false propriety, born into the pit of hell, our home where the cries of damned infants ring loud and clear through the night. There is no room for self-respect where wolves prowl streets both night and day.

Hots and Chicks in Poisoned Jeans

I learned of pants
named after a girl
called Jean, who was blue until
A postal bird bleached her white,
and tore her in two. Then she became
amputated Jean, too short for her mother,
a giant.

I heard poison
is good fun. A man
named Al called his wife
Hol and told her to roast
barley in steamy water
and disinfectant to create
poison that releases the mind
from the criminal restrainers
Common and Sense.
This pair are very un-chilled.

I ascertained lastly that beings
are divided between Hots and Chicks.
Occasionally Hots meet Chicks
and suck faces.
The Chicks burn
and a collective brain called
The Society eats them for dinner.

This is the projected goal for all Chicks
who seek to enjoy life.
I conclude to conduct my life thus.

Antelope on the Other Side

Twigs beneath my feet and hands, just fresh earth, moss, and uncomfortable nuts. Above, I hear obnoxious buzzes, and below, scritching legs and curious antennae. A creak here, a squeak there, from softwoods with bugs crawling in and under the dry white bark. I am close, but further than some from my forest. I trap a scent from the wind. Strange yet familiar, perhaps antelope? Have I ever seen on before? Squirrels and dogs I know, but antelope? Sometimes instincts must override reason, It's antelope, whatever antelope means. They smell of grass, sweat, and their own crap. Why does that sound delicious when I just admitted they reek of New York City sewers? The hunt takes too long. Fly, March, Stalk, STOP! Antelopes in view, at three o'clock. Ready, set, graceful mad-dash, and now it's in my grasp-- Whack! Ow, that hurt. New goose egg for the count as I look through the clear prison wall. So much for fresh antelope. Hello nasty little girl, my name isn't Tigger. Don't take my picture.