Me, a Roach

This station I spent

3 hours online trying to find

and here I am, a memory trumping a map

the one I haven’t touched since summer

we house sat for your brother

 

My first sight of roaches

flat, credit cards breaking into our kitchen

cameras, witnesses to our brittle laughter

we took a hammer to it

chords made from the same instrument

now struck hungrily

but to a lesser effect.

 

I walk for hours, a marble in a pinball,

machines whirring around me,

hair blown up, foreign

antenna

they lead me to

the drone of bees

and find it here, the air conditioner still

a window shade.

 

The dust refuses to settle,

those dishes still in the sink

lines of poison traced by

tabular feet.

I am one of them

Preparing to be imprinted by

A DNA overhaul

A Walk that Splinters

A hat, some fake fur to drown my face from eyes that smell like did I see you this time last year, and it’s not snowing glad it’s not snowing mist instead cloaks itself in frozen coat tails dance like it’s new year’s, it’s always new year’s, some fat baby crying tell its mother to shush I want to hear the distress of being bundled up too tightly.

Feed Me

I

Bare legs dangle over the side of a bed

Sheets replaced with a cold sweat

The eyes on the ceiling won’t stop staring.

 

II

Disposal system stomachs

Coquettish in desires for pink milk

I denied it once

To the result of harsh words that nearly

Burned my chest to embers

 

III

Reason relieves me

Of any worry pertaining to

My tumultuous twenties

But reason has requirements

Premises not to be left

In bathroom cabinets

Instead place them in

Tongued crevices

Ink tattooing buds

“I will recede”

 

IV

Reason only travels so far

Here in a quarry bed

Trains crashing upon the shore

Central station swallowed by

Frosty waves carving sirens

He and she hand in hand

I drink and stave them off

A blue liquid mace

Wielded poorly to deal

Shallow wounds

 

V

I shall never close my eyes

Without veins

Wreathed across my vision

I need a sharper edge

To remove this

Padlock, serrated madness

Flooding at the first hint of a break

Feeding the Horses

They drew hoof beats

Like lines of sidewalk chalk

Replaced by iron

Cleaving paths through wheat.

Eight hands,

Vying for chances to hold reins.

Control, a masterpiece

Led to water.

But these hands did not clamor

For the opportunity

Of touching Mother,

A casket embrace,

Lined in malicious,

Velvet eyes

That gleaned jealousy

From every chalice available.

And from grails unholy

Threaded hands poured

Vile substances in troughs

On hay,

Oats,

Grain.

 

Six eyes watched

Two stared vacant

While carts performed their

Carcass tasks.

A Last Line

The horns blew solemn

Dirges to torrents

Arpeggio windows

encasing a play

on words and awakenings

of strings under ribs

Rubbing raw eyes

on discordant frames

and trembling scores

pieced by child hands

on spiraling paper

descend

a parable of lights

dance on aching waters

a crescendo of whale cries

plummet to sands

of careful goodbyes

Waltz

Periodic table rotation

Dine around a dance of flower beds

A sliver of shivering water

Follow wrinkles in legs

Drench rusted nails composted

Derailed cabins that dressed you so well

Torrential downpour of garden stakes

Driven into hearts to climb

Picked to dusty footholds

Ruins of cornea constructs

Emerge in this temple

Anointed in mists

Sleep in darkening caves

A sacrifice to each

Of hollowed statues

Hallowed to fit in bones

To whom we pray on bended knee

And rake the reapings

Of foreign soil

Hail Fangs

Torn ligaments that denote crutches

Hands that clutch branches weaved in webs stolen

From palms that once held lifelines

Connecting to poles leading to the orange west world

Grounded in writhing snakes

Fangs sunk into the sun at twilight

Bitten dry to sands of ant hills

Teeming over a carcass so pure

Body hung high, hailing flailing ships

Stone-white skin piecing God in the sky

Finger-drawn clouds melt to rain of yellow venom

Wrinkles, rivets, streams

Down a face impassive and tasting

Licked lips of half-parted wisdom

Pressure of a breath on creased lines

Read to exist and pages crumble

An alchemic mixture of parable recourse

Trickle down a throat destined for no words