plan b

shake that ass, girl

i pointed at the scar on the radio that
thrashed through the living room faster
than a bottle of gasoline lit aflame
with a jet pack on the back.
melody swiped from the jack daniel's bottle
and slapped across the face of an understanding bouncer
i quit long ago my darling child
hope and delusion so tender and mild
if there was ever a chance of quiet in march
i guess i'd sit out on my back porch,
sledgehammers and hobknobbers on the case.

the wind

"and a wind from god sweeping over the water"
-Genesis 1:2

hand extended,
she stoops forward,
petals off the trees,
snowed-upon dress,
curled hair,
femme noir,
arms long,
curved,
childish teeth,
hand pushing,
hand forward,
smiles,
stilts,
hands extended,
turns,
smiles.

one of few, one hopes

"Were you but lying cold and dead,
And lights were paling out of the West,
You would come hither, and bend your head,
And I would lay my head on your breast"
--Yeats

bread rises over kettles
and i sit on my lost morraine.
i overlook a lake so dead
to be the sea it'd die again.

big betrayals come piece by piece;
to know this is enough.
by and by i'll have said my peace,
if only to myself.

the water boils while yeast
burns into ceiling lights.
a wind slight upon the cracks.
the sun crawls across the ice.

the Christ sat upon his cross,
turned his eyes to God,
let out a sigh of Judas' breath,
spat up clouds and drops of blood.

night by night, hatred trickles
as whiskey, thin as whisps.
i vomit over curdled milk,
and my mother's gilded kiss.

big betrayals come piece by piece;
to know this is enough.
by and by i'll have said my peace,
if only to myself.

blue dot.

"Allow water no outlet"
--Sirach 25:24

"Es-tu l'oeil du ciel borgne?
Quel cherubin cafard
Nous lorgne
Sous ton masque blafard?"
--Alfred de Musset, "Ballade a la lune"

in a crowded room the dots float in pairs,
green, yellow, brown, grey, steel and frighened pairs.
the mists skirt the corners. the dots dissect
one another, point at dry canvasses.

the paint, embedded in fabric, complete,
formed from puddles into shapes and shadow,
obfuscates pale, woven, flat, bland planets
that rest beneath the crusted, cracking paint.

one dot, blue, paired together with a dot
less blue, this second a polluted bay
filled with debris, the lone clear blue dot
and its silent twin browse the gallery.

they brush by their ugly paired neighbors, rash,
scattered. the blue fades. the paint curls. goodnight.

never has been a fierce, brutal rapist.