Autoflagellation

HARD 2GET huffs up my neck, sharp 
as the knife of the scribe who scrawledon the wall of Gomorrah, which he 
smuggled to Avignon for Pope John 
XXII (so smooth he could’ve 
had him, in sissified Buddha-arm 
sleeves), then headed to Southern 
California to meet sex-addicted 
hookers and their clients at the Lost 
Oasis where he must’ve got his 
knuckles tattooed like that.

“I’ll make you squirm like a 
pig on the grill,” he said. Like a 
girl on the pill, you heard—as much as 
you’d like to have gone back in time,
just to say you won.

After-dinner swig. Krack. The bloody 
edge of a black eye. You never knew 
what you would learn, what you 
must decide upon.

Your tears smell salty on his breath, 
and his foul taste from the last over-
lubricated orgy will make 
you cry even more. “I’ll take you 
to the beach, where the brown sea and thrashed 
sands’ll remind you of your insatiability.” 
He says something to you about tanning 
beds and cancer. You can’t concentrate. 
Everything comes back to you: sprawling
naked on a barstool with your heart 
hammering on your bladder as you tried 
to remember what you’d been 
researching at the library.

“…you want it in your fat beautiful
mouth before I put it in your fat ugly 
broken heart? I’ll knock that whoreface out 
of you with the force of a yellow firehose. 
You’re fucked, now and forever. And if you ever 
see me again, you’ll know exactly why. No 
more advertising—it’s fucking time.
You’re gonna have to suck the 
foaming top off of mine.”

On and on he went, little chains of 
explosions and gallons and gallons of 
concentrated fillips. When you’re fucking 
that high, you can’t take pleasure in
just pleasure. You want to…you want…
to punish yourself. So you give 
yourself to his manic jabber.

“You gotta give it all 
to me. It’ll feel too good 
to be true. But it will. 
You don’t know much, but you 
know that. A hooded creature with 
keel-like teeth has taken your 
heart away. Yeah—I can feel your 
nova vigor ebbing. I see all your 
wounds. You don’t know 
who you are.”

It’s too much. The cracks in your 
timeline start forming all over again. 
Shadows strain to give birth to 
the unknown in front of you from 
the should-have-known 
behind you.

Misery is a Blue Mountain

Misery is a blue mountain
And black water runs putrid
Along her sides.
The birds who nest along her walls
Smack their smudged wings together
And their birdsong is derisive laughter
And the word No.

The sun never appears.
The rain never arrives.
Her body is weeds and mud.
You will not smile
And you will not cry.
You will stare into her face
And she will not acknowledge you.

Helpless and immobile
Before this impossible blue mountain
With putrid black water
Gargling down always
Along her sick sides

If Your Loneliness Were a Flag You Could Wave It

If your loneliness were a flag
you could wave it high 
above your conquered lands.

If it were a car you could paint it metallic blue
and drive it over the cliffs of hell
into a fiery sea.

If it were a ship you could fly it
into the heart of the sun.

If your loneliness were god
you could curse it
or petition for mercy.

If it were a stranger you could turn it
away at the door.

If it were a heart you could stop it.

If your loneliness were love you could steel yourself to it
toss its letters, unopened, into the trash.

If it were a law
you could break it
or strike it down.

If it were a house you could
set it aflame and watch it glow 
from distant hills.

If your loneliness were your mother
you could pack your things and run away
make it suffer for the years of pain.

If it were a ghost you could banish it
back to the Netherrealms with a spell
or a charm. 

But your loneliness is a song
and you have an ugly voice.
The neighbors complain
every time you try and sing.

at the hotel california

you’re the one 
that put the dead 
head sticker on 
a cadillac
 
ironic at best as 
you always hated 
don henley and 
never cared to 
stay at the hotel 
california
 
of all the assholes 
in this town
 
you only wanted 
to be the coolest 
one
 
the kind of guy 
that peaked in 
high school and 
missed that stage 
of life where an 
early death creates 
a legend
 
now, only a footnote
 
a funeral that can’t 
be made to on a 
tuesday night

ghosted

I stumble through 
luminescences of rain:

awake at dawn, sweetened 
with salt, 

palms crusted like 
my knees, 

whiter than white. when 
river redgum roots snake 

and tickle my 
unsandaled toes, I gasp 

apologies and soak the sludge 
with my own blood. 

moth-haunted and fly-
haloed like some pale 

swamp-goddess of 
degenerate creation, 

I spit dew from my 
rosebud mouth and curse 

them more for taking the canoe
than what they 

(falsely) 

thought was my
virginity.

If It’s Funny, It’s Funny

I’m having a rare bull session 
with some old buddies
and her name comes up—
“Dude! You too?”
Yep. Seems we all knew her.
Intimately. 

Of course Reno was 
a much smaller town, then.
If a girl got around enough
she could really make a name for herself.
God knows I tried to make one for myself.
It’s how we became semi-famous
before social media.

Maybe somewhere, a group of women
sits down over margaritas, and 
one mentions this dude she used to 
know….and another says, “I remember 
that guy! All he did was talk about 
his ex…then he got too drunk to fuck
me, and passed out on my couch!”

Then a third chimes in, and says
“I was seeing him for awhile, but 
he left me for some bar skank.
She was married, too. I wonder how
THAT worked out.” and they all 
laugh.  As they should. 

Perforated by Sirens is a poetic collaboration between two friends written during the height of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. The book manages to fuse two distinct perspectives, with Mark being in Bristol, England and Danny being in Bergamo, Italy. Bergamo suffered one of the highest pandemic casualty rates in the world.

A5 saddle stitched chapbook. Lovingly handmade, hand stamped, and hand numbered. Limited to 25 copies. Printed on an old Canon laser printer we found abandoned at a dump site.

BUY A COPY HERE

Holiday Feast

Although alone
on Thanksgiving,
I still like 
to celebrate 
the holiday.

I have
some turkey,
preferably wild,
poured in a glass
over ice
with a splash
of coke.

And I keep
going back 
for another
helping.

Devotion

Here I kneel
in deference,
simple silence,
a wordless prayer,
an act of devotion. 
In gentle rhythm, 
head rocked forward,
eyelids closed, 
hands hold legs
to steady stance.

Touch is tantamount 
to taste in grace.
I asked you to stand,
tell me your fear,
read me words.
Stroke auditory buds,
as blood pounding,
in matching pulse,
I slide my thumb 
inside your ass.

Slang

“…a scurvy-looking cove sitting with a couple of doxies,”
I read in a detective novel set in 1719,
digging the eighteenth century patois, 
fiction my escape 
from the sledgehammer of horror
of the year in which I live, 301 later.

A sketchy-looking dude sitting with a couple of hoes.

I look up from the novel 
at the television screen,
where the current president sits
with his daughter and his wife,
a bloated, scowling man
with fake-blond hair,
candidate for a stroke,
his cosmetically-enhanced companions
all counterfeit curves and color.

I turn back to my novel,
to the eighteenth century,
not so different 
from today, I concede.