I Was Five

He was sixty,
But five still.

He was a man, grey and balding,

But blue and red could not make purple,
And his A’s were awful U-ish.

His pencil had no ridges, it being

Fat and yellow like his fingers.

Why was mine so thin?

Outside of the school room,

His bellowing, his off-tempo skip,
And laughter-induced slobbering--
All five.

That smile was five

Disguised in costume
As a greying grandfather.

He was the only adult to

Play Tag and play it terribly,
Not knowing what was “it.”

I didn’t know why.

No longer five,

I know.

Cat Lady

Meow mix resonates heavy in her living room,
                Hanging with the sting
Of urine that does not leave the nose easily.

Six bowls like volcanoes vomiting cat food

                Huddled in the kitchen,
The names of one, two, three, four, five, six

Past husbands who, now neatly labeled in

Matching Comic Sans

And lurking in silent furry bodies, rub their

Heads into her legs, purr in ecstasy, and

                Love their provider
(That’s all she really is, ever was, or can be).

But Ronnie will leave, chasing pussy with

Angular yellow eyes and manicured claws.

Charles will impregnate an alley cat prostitute,

Bring home his litter; force her into motherhood.

Richard will fold himself up into a dead fur ball,

Round, hairy, and fat. Bradley will learn to greet

Her only at the crackling of catnip like his namesake

Could only respond to beer bottles chattering.

Due to overfilled testes, Vincent will get testy,

Claw her face while she thinks neuter, neuter.

Benjamin will walk right out the front door she left

Swinging open while bringing in the groceries.

Blue

Another ocean poem: Danger! Danger!
            The danger of people being water
Built up in oceans--A blue collection of hands,

Feet, and shark fins mimicking the Atlantic.

            How much better they look out there at
A comfortable distance from a rocking

Chair on a beach house porch. They’re

            Magnificent at such a separation
With their color exposed, a startling blue,

But how terribly sad they look in a single

            Paper cup filled from the faucet;
Such a pale shade they can’t really

Be called a shade at all. They’re clear,

            And you start to see the emptiness
They try so hard to disguise with blue

Densities; compacted nothings practicing

            Friendly waves that seem to say,
“Come swim. There are no sharks here."

Crossword

14 Across: “Disappointment.”
Grumble, slurp, grumble…
This coffee is disappointing.

It needs sugar. Life needs sugar.

Empty tea-cup eyes need sugar;
Something to sweeten the bitter
Disappointment of blank stares.

12 Down: “Vacuum.”

That loud machine declaring war
Upon cats and dogs in dusty homes.

Or the outside universe of nothingness--

Impossible to familiarize with
In a world buried neck-deep
In the self;
All too singular with
Me’s, My’s, and I’s
To include much else.

8 Down: “Dealey Plaza.”

Kennedy emptied his head
Like spilled spaghetti sauce.

Blood and patriotism on asphalt

Horrified thousands of anxious
American couches. Keep it singular.

Grumble, slurp, grumble, grumble…
Me, My’s, and I’s, and crosswords.

Potato Soup

My eyes fell out in July,
Landed right into my
Potato soup and buoyed
Ooey-gooey eyeball
In a hot steamy brothel
Of chopped chives
And pubic hairs.

Without eyes,

My heart sits like
A loaf of cornbread
To be washed down
By more water
And more blood
And potato soup.

The heat pounds

Its way out of my
Back, And I wish
I could remember
Another recipe.

Knitting Lessons

I’d like to tell
My sweet grandmother
We have plenty in common.

She knits scarves,

Multi-color sweaters,
Wool socks and gloves,
Snow caps.

I knit webs of

“Stay with me’s,”
And they come out
Looking more like
Genitals and orgasms
With a lot of empty
Spaces.

They’re all gifts

That no one wants
To wear.

What A Year

January begins with
A six person smooch.

Faulkner reminds me

Of truth in February.

Bradley Cooper looks

To rent my prison cell
In March.

April dresses itself in

Floating dog head
Horizons.

May flowers

Don’t ever
Flower.

June tosses footballs

In dog shit backyards
And tells me
I should really
Pay attention.
 
July sparkles as usual,
But it’s hardly clean.

August requires
Gallons of Lysol.

September plays

Boy Meets World
On repeat,
But it never gets
Any funnier.

October is horrific

As it should be.

November fills me

With dead bird,
Tips me over
Empty.

December pulls

Love-me-nots
From obnoxiously
Bridal bouquets.

A year,

Car wrecks
Appear pleasant.

Hands On

Halloween stores
Are running out of
Sad-faced masks.

Too many people own them,

That and bursting O-faces.

The agonized dramatic

Echoes ‘nonreturnable’ in a
Convinced nobody’s closet
Between fancy dresses
And Gatsby gloves
And a few OOOOOH’s.

“Oh, but it’s real ecstasy,

A man and a woman,
A man and three women,
The whole damned world population,
Real ecstasy.”

Ecstasy that leaves you

Standing in line for a
Customized latex pout
While pools of semen
Crust up your bed posts,
And nothing else.

So I’ve learned how

To get real ‘hats off’
Being real hands on
As the only person
In the room.

I’m good at it,

Self-pollination,
Letting the pollen swarm
Factory-fresh agonies.

It’s my greatest trick yet.

Three

Three keys hang
On my wall.

They don’t unlock

Anything.

No treasure chest,

Secret room,
Bound heart.

Three Robin’s eggs

Sit in a plaster nest
Upon my wall.

They don’t birth

Anything.

No feather fluster,

Daughter,
Son.

Three swans swim

Upon my wall.

They don’t eat or breathe

Anything.

No water treads,

Flipper foot kicks,
Happy honking,
Or any real grace.

Three lovers sit shelved

On my wall.

Three protected apes

With eyes, ears, and mouths
Covered like I can’t with
Only two arms.

They don’t do human

Anythings.

No palms to lend,

Hearts to swell,
Love to serve.

I sit and watch

Inanimate trinkets
Not move.

Like Ladies

“Like ladies,”
She says, “All good ladies.”

Dip your hands in bowls of

Dead cuticle milk most stagnant
Until old nail beds dissolve
Into new flowering forms
Like spinning teacup skirts,
Like slippery eyelashes,
Like ladies.

Move men

Like Monroe’s windy thighs,

Like 21st century weaponry
Like Kennedy's nuclear erection,
Like ladies.

Harvest garden guts

For him to grow,
Like seeded fruits,
Like hungry ovaries,
Like ladies.

Stitched neatly

Under every
Neatly stitched dress
Is a sad-story-Sally
Suffocating under
“You’re so hot”
Muggy sex breath;

Loving and fucking,

Fucking and loving.

Black Widow

See,
The spider doesn’t
Fall far from the web,
Like the apple
And the tree,
Or peach,
Tomato,
Person…

Dad’s got the bite.

Brother

With spider web arms
Can’t catch a single fly.

Well, this morning I woke
Eight-legged spine limbs,
Black rose stem arachnid.

Latrodectus spine crawl

Carried me to the bathroom sink,
And I’ve never been so fearful
Of running water and sink drains;
They’re quick to swallow, you know.
The mirror taunts Black Widow chants
Telling me I’m different now
With my red hourglass back tattoo
Counting me down.

The phone rings interruption

And I’m not even sure where my ears are,
And Doctor White-Coat said I had poisons
That I probably wouldn’t have
Had beetles not gotten busy.

Well he gets fucked,

But I’m sure he’s never been fang-fucked,
Because he’s still living and lining up
With all the other busy bustling beetles
Who won’t admire my web.

I’m a real weaver,

And I don’t mean
Charlotte shitting web shows
For Wilbur.

I mean I can weave.

I can’t control
The wanderers wandering
Weathered into my web.

I can make them bleed

And turn them liquid maggot milk,
But they don’t love.

So bolted bound beetle head
Peeking under cotton web-wires
Can’t have a heart for a spider,
But I have plenty stomach
For wriggling captives,
So I say,

“It’s a real fang fuck-fest.”

Nothing At All

Phosphorescent star shapes
Beam their cookie-cutter beams
Of pale green outer space
Against a ceiling.

I stare,
And I wait.

I might be waiting for

One to jump
Real rocket flare
For a sad wish.

I might be waiting for
The tape to give,
Letting one loose,
Ninja-star neon
In my left eyeball.

I might be waiting
For nothing at all.

I might just be looking

At an 11-year-old’s starry night
Of plastic space shapes
And nothing at all.

Persian Rugs

Laid out sacrificial not-saint
On meditative Persian rugs,
You are less.

Thread spins hair knots

Of not-saints deep into
Not-saint rugs of meditation,
And you are less.

8:00 PM coffee

Soaks Persian tendrils,
Matting down mats
Of even less.

Maybe

If your eyes bulged,
There would be more than
Old genie lamps filled with espresso,
And carpets that can’t fly due to
Not-saint dead weights.

Flamingo

I can’t bend my legs
Like real flamingos do.

Permanently perched

On a rotation of tenants,
I am sun-drained pink
Fooling blue water waves
Of a green lawn.

Had my feathers

Been made of feathers,
They’d be tufted and pestered
By the same reoccurring car alarm
Of each forgetful resident
Like a sing-song bird
Got its throat stuck
In the sing-song,
But instead they lay
Flat monotonous plastic.

Sweltering sun rays

Come down in boiling drops
Like rain without water.

I wonder

When I’ll melt;
Pink Pepto pool

Of no real bird.

Cat Lady

Dream hands
Wrap ribbon fingers
Around dream ankles,
Making a real gift
Out of it,
In a dream car
Of a dreaming head.

Rolling images
Of fingertips
And stick shifts
Shake, rattle, and roll
Wet dream orgasms
I don't believe
I even felt.

No climax.

Fantastic dimension
Can't incubate
At the call
Of my morning alarm.

REM falls out.
So do gift-wrapped ankles.

Fluffed feline tails
And sandpaper tongues
Fall in.

Some women
Dream of cats
And wake up
To men.

I dream of men
And wake up
To cats.

Bad Kimchi

The knife gleams
Without light
In the wrong hands:
His.

Perhaps when the kimchi has gone bad,

Or his inner cyborg ranted robotic orders
To drape a red bandana of no cloth
Upon his throat.

It was bad Asian food

Or Terminator programming
That stripped him
Bare buttocks
In the dark corner
Of the kitchen,
Waiting for the
Korean take-out
Delivery man
To enter—
The knife still gleaming.

It was

One or the other
That stuck the samurai sword
In the dry wall
Or yelled “rape” into raindrops
Soaking boxer briefs.

It was

One or the other
That cried tequila tears
Because he wants to fail
And can’t.

"There are rats jumping in my stomach."

Hunger sets
Like jumping rats
Ricocheting off stomach walls
In some indigenous Africa.

I'd like to be
Scurrying hairless tail whips
In your intestinal cage.

I've practiced tip-tapping
In non-air-conditioned stairwells
Because I know you're warm.

I've burrowed
Tunnels in the dirt
Like replicate digestive tubing.

Dreamt of
Bowel-bouncing rodent claws
Sinking into fleshy ducts,
Meandering me far along tracts,
But I can always find the center
Of your pulsating hot spot.

But what really happened is
I put my Moses
In a basket.

Sent him
Down the river
With a poem
And a curable
Disease
To find
His pharaoh.

It took a week
For the waves
To empy out
His last echoes,
Turning me all
Basket case skull,
Brain weave
Brain waves.

Today,
I bathe
In the Nile.

Question Mark

Question marks huddle
Arial black splotch fuzz
In the shape of California
In the high corner of my room
Like pulsating Daddy Long Leg clumps
Elongated.

They’re muddy

And indefinite
And never have
An answer.

They emit the same

Quiet buzzing sting
Of an unoccupied
Phone line;
Empty echoes
Of the hanging ring
When I pick up
To no one.

“Plastic polymer casing,

Or will you have skin?”

“Lover language casts out another.

Do you accept?”

“?”

“?”

“?”

I don’t have

An answer.

Eye decay.

#herdigitalearth

She’s quick to network it in—
Network the trees in,
And the moon.

Cyber space outer space,

Robotic Robin’s eggs,
DSL daisy heads pixelating
And getting muddy.

Geometric earth rim,

Verizon’s horizon
Can no longer be hers.

Mountains

Are just megabytes
That tickled her all
Giggling gigabytes.

Movement made still-life,

Giving the flower fields
A plastic paint cover.

Web-browsing waterfalls

Washing white
Stop moving.

There’s no real water

To wade in.

Only the unimaginative muck

Of her black mud font—
Times New Roman sucking out
All the mystics.

She’s modest.

A little less.
Not much at all.
She’s not.

She only pulls the straps

Of her pixelating
Google goggles
Tighter.

Hashtag her digital earth.

Soggy

The day is soggy
Like his cereal.

Red ants flood death pools

And reincarnate scuttling spine crawls
Across an over-inflated lake surface
Like his bleeding windshield
That perhaps said too much.

Words fluctuate,

Font fast and fizzling,
Freaking the founder I’m sure,
Because they couldn’t find his tongue.

Bold black characters budge back turns,

Faceless and fading like all sweet milk bowls do.

The sand is mud,

And so am I.

Crystal edges gone

Mushy gushy death trap
For the heavy foot
I find to be my own,
Only swallowing myself
In some quick sand self-inversion.

Blue body refills itself

With atmospheric downpours
Like he refills his breakfast bowl
For all mouths in their morning hunger,
And I’m getting softer.

Indefinite is my organs.

Mud-pie stomach-wad can’t hold.

I resort to fasting.

My pockets—

Denim cradles for spoons
Rusting themselves tetanus orange,
Getting awfully heavy,
And I’m starting to sag.

I sink lower.

I guess

I’ll just be mud
For a while.