Spectator

I know things that shouldn’t be known

shouldn’t have happened

I shouldn’t have been a child

watching like it wouldn’t hurt me

I know things that I don’t want to know

seen them up close

pleading with me to help them

and all I did was watch

not really knowing

Centaur

Souls in jars

sowing on the counter

and we wake up at noon

eating the cereal boxes

tossing on the televidual

letting him speak his wicked

artificial rape flavored face

and we wake up sweating

sewing our eyes open

running around in sermons

with palms begging

forgiveness if not forgetfulness

and we wake up alive

whispering show tunes

eating dirt again

cackling back

when cackled at

Bleed

I have been a monster

consumed people

mainly women

destroying them from the inside out

taking my pleasure with no regard

confident, arrogant, unthinking

then I was alone in a jail cell for a year

my self-serving ways wormed around in my gut

released to uncertainty

I was the wounded bird

the heal me cripple kid looking for nurturing

tenderness to forgive my monstrosities

clinging to attachment to a reflection of

redemption and practice

at being the beast without consequence

hiding away all those masculine thoughts

thinking they only lead to pain

but riding this empty mono-rail

the pain was the same

Do not mistake my tameness

the why I hesitate

as unknowing

I dare not too.

it is knowing

that I can destroy you too

and would enjoy every bit of it

but maybe it’s my

turn to be destroyed

so I can

be a born again

masochist

dangling from meat hooks in your kitchen

I have no center to give

it was a lie

all I have are edges

sharp edges

to bleed on

Mesh Matched

Today I released 1500 lady bugs onto my garden. Shook them from their net bag like a salt shaker all over my plants. The little buggers went to town on the aphids! So I sat, rolled a smoke, and watched them crawl around getting away from each other. Spreading out. Finding out how big the world is. And eating something other than dead brothers and sisters ain’t half bad I imagine. Then the miraculous. One sets to fly. I see him buzzing his wings like a boy discovering his first erection. A wondrous new feature unfolding. Up he goes. Hovering at first. Then like an experienced pilot he flies in a large loop around the garden, slowly spiraling upward with each pass. The whole time I am cheering. Saying yes. Giving his voice over. “Oh my god! You guys! You have to try this! It is so much better than I ever imagined.” I exhale smoke and remember feeling like a bug in a mesh bag many times in my life, and then I smile at how well I can fly now.

Yggdrasil

I am the old Oak Tree on the hillside

with roots called parents

and branches called children

where friends are welcome to build nests

and lovers carve their names into my trunk

spending my days

living against the weather

reaching for the unreachable

Boxer Spots

and the clits get tickled to tip-toes

and how this story goes, is

a man once peddled petals to roses

slowly rolling the slip up

and holstered his gun

quick with his wit

and young with his tongue

at the end of which—shot stars— from simple nibbles

only the poets know of the lips to lips kiss in the middle

a place of quivers and arrows and bull’s-eyes

ached, he did, to bring some warmth to her cold thighs

feeling around in the dark

for the last piece of her spark

Gamble

Zing. Click. (laughter)

Zing. Click. (laughter)

Two gacked out gangsters play

woops-I-shot-myself-in-the-head

I leave because I don’t believe in luck

I need red vines and a cool breeze

too many fallen angels these days

littering the sides of drive-thrus

no boxes to fill in

no thesis to conclude to

not another round of orally ovulating the dead horse

fuck

pretend you’re not trying to say anything

and you slip up and say something anyway

does that belong to you?

lilacs always dry darker than their mother’s day brightness

we hung them in the windows, by their ankles in the spring sun,

White roses veining blue with food coloring in the vase

waiting patiently for some sort of solution

a solid if not stable way to end all this

happiness churning around inside me

this mass of unused happiness

mere fruit rotting on the counter

I blame Mother’s Art Supplies

pulverized not so much this time

this mind, a sack of meat, won’t work someday

I am in a hurry

to tell you all what happened

but new shit is happening

happening all the time

and one day

it will have all happened

all of it.

Happened.

and perhaps I am insane

why wouldn’t I be

I must write to find out

digging and rooting around in the soil

building books

cordless books for the cordless people

bring all your lead-based paint-chip children

suck some warm kool-aid down with me

and remember Chernobyl day

shaving our heads to look like cancer kids

handing out fliers on dying to the already dead

and enjoying the multicolored

pain filled rainbows

one last breath at a time

because I don’t believe in luck