Wake Up

Here I am, spitting the fury dragons out
at you.
Here I am, grating your skin
down to truth, scratching away your faux colour.
Revelations!

I lift your sweat stained sheets, rummage beneath and
cut you off at your ankles. Then, I feel for your knees, and
when I find them
I nail them to the perfect imprint beneath your
clammy body. I move upward, farther upward to your
stomach. I wish you had a womb so that you
could understand the
torture of what I am about to do.

Life lurks inside you, thousands at a time,
all patiently waiting in line for just one chance!
I brought a blow torch for this.

I watch your skin bubble and slowly drip out of
character, down your sides and leak into your sheets.
You still sleep.
You barely flinch, snorting oxygen like a pig.

I move up from your melting pot, straight toward
your chest. Your ribs have been a great protector!
I have grown my sharp tongue out, praying that
it would not come to this.

I have no use for your heart.
I only want your eyes to open and see
me sitting here next to your truth.

The Drums Began

and then they left their home,
one by one, the salty fluid pouring
into each other, God called
down to Margaret that morning;

“I know spaces between stones,
that, years ago, repressed me.
A harp was broken by an angel,
and now you shall go empty.”

Drums beat wild; a spell of evils
cast up from Hell’s almighty.
Can I exist, just as this?
A nightmare in a body?

I was given a black trail,
a tricycle, and blindly
left my post beneath the drums
to find captivity.

I listened from a noisy Inn
near the Mighty Mississippi,
its waters shook all voice
and took it selfishly.

So, I went, to a purple mountain,
to visit Mighty Oak Trees,
but my tears tried to drown
me there, drip, drip, dripping.

Heaven became worth it when
I had realized it hardly,
every stone and every man
awaited hardening,

I sat in line, in silence
with them, picking at my knees,
when fire grabbed a child’s limb
and she screamed in agony.

I found that I was not an
Angel, the devil had been dwelling
in wine and liquor and
my heart had, all this time, been failing.

Blackbird Song

I have let callous hands
unzip my heavy breath,
free me of metal,
cold restraint.

I have talked to wind
chimes short of frost,
of shine, and let
windy hands slap falling
leaves off
their easy limbs.

I have laid in blue bed
skies, covering mortality
with surging white mass;
pillows for eager
eyeballs. I popped each blue ball,
socket clean of collagen,
of cell, blackbirds emerging,
fleeting,
feeding on my sight.

What they must have seen!
What images must be coursing through
silk ebony feathers!
It is, surely, enough to take
a blackbirds
sight,
enough to pluck wispy wings
from a torrid
feathered friend.

The Desert

Weeds are sleeping. High Noon. The Desert opens its dry mouth.
Legs wobble over loose gravel, barely stirring the lethargic,
thirsty Earth.

The arid land has an asphalt tongue. I sit on it.
I melt to it.
A plastic shadow. Dried up. Destroyed

by the sun. Liquidated
by a watching light.

Red bugs have armor. Guardian’s of flight. Protection
from the land.
Turtles carry
shields,
and teeth. I evaporate.

An old actor rocks on a blue porch. He doesn’t
know the desert like I do. Never has sunk in its smoldering
August sand or been whipped by flaming winds.
He rocks.
Protected by shadows that do not melt, shadows
that create the desert.
He rocks.
Whiskey in hand.
He rocks.

I evaporate. Into the weeds.
To sleep.