To Have Loved Mary

Today is Sunday and I’m going to the ocean
or maybe not. Definitely not doing the laundry
or maybe I will. Moss and even a small tree
grow in the rotten stubs of the pier pilings.
The city is Seattle and it has a macho airport.

Give me the comfort of a moose knowing its
water supply. The mosquito’s acceptance of its position
among a million mosquitoes. The pool of stagnant
water that remains one with the mothering ocean.
I drift on the air, less than a seed, a bacteria.

Or I am human, big dick, big brain containing
universal philosophic affidavit. Pleased by
the churning of my tongue, sexual enlightenment,
devout prayer, gourmet dining. I swear
it is best to be alive and to have loved Mary.

She and I / Light Breaks Through

Don’t bother me
when I’ve shovel in hand
Hot emotions are hard to control

She has got to go
+ the mirror said so +
Find a new place to rest her head

She lets people have their way
and drags me down
Today, I am taking charge

I let in a strange visitor
Fearless and free–
the merge was successful

She and those pills
are buried together
and I must show my new friend around

~ my mind

TMI

Five years ago I
took an ax to my
pecker.

Fact is I
was tired of the fucker.
It ruined the line
of my pants.

Could have
used a saw but figured
an ax was quicker.

Placed it on the block,
took a swing at it
(it looked like a picadillo,
fresh from the deli).

Then, Lordy, it piped
“Hey, Pete here, what
have I ever done
to offend you, man?”

“To start with,” I said,
“You don’t piss straight, then
you lie down when called
to get up

and get up
when discretion
would serve both our needs
better.”

But we made up.
He and I talk most
weeks, we do the
best we can.

Five years on
Pete’s a reformed
character, a model
of continence.

Will You Buy Me? (I Come With a Warranty)

Catharsis on knife-edge,
The hungering perversion
Resides underneath the dust
Of suburban decay.

The nude body,
Salaciously splayed deliciously
Upon a busy market,
Men and women and children
Bite their lips like anorexic cannibals.

They scratch their skin
As their own existence becomes an irritant.
Morgue cock, funereal cunt
Like a monolith, heralded before the people
Has them in awe.

Screens exhibit operations;
Dissection of the penis and the vulva,
Sleazy and sexily so,
Promoters vocally advertise
The infinite usage of women
That they have mounted
Upon dirty obstetrical chairs;

Men inspect the vaginas,
Asking the sellers about the measurements
And tightness of their holes
And whether the subject could
Have anal sex or not.
The anus is spread before them
And proceed to analyse the potential gaping
For rough anal sex.

Each subject is a different model
Customised for certain sexual needs and deviancies.
For those who desire a subject
For such extreme fetishes
Are taken into a nearby dome where more subjects
Are exhibited for interest.

Women tease the male models
And humiliate them regarding their size.
For girth and length inspection,
The sellers are more than happy for them to
Apply some stimulus to the male organs
To see if their product facilitates their needs.

Beyond the markets,
The homes are infested with the dead.
Subjects tossed to the side,
Next to their bins,
Awaiting for collection
So that they can be disposed of.
The streets smell of decaying flesh,
Rats scuttle amidst the bodies
Of fetid decomposition.

For those who do not have such commodities,
Rummage the alleyways for the dead.
These less fortunate individuals
That can’t afford such desired subjects
Go on to fuck the remains.
Some of them take the bodies home
And make use of their innards –
“Waste not, want not” they mutter…

The buyers keep their warranties
Should their subjects die,
However, if murdered by their owners,
The warranty is exempt and will not be able to redeem it.
Some owners have their subjects for a lifetime
But the markets try to deter the owners from doing that
As flesh needs to be capitalised,
The cycle of flesh must be constantly
Purchased, subjects are always advertised
To lure in potential customers.

“Keep your receipts and returns can be valid.”

Some owners make their subjects
Into messiahs;
They dress them up and make them godlike
And then go on to proclaim
That their subject is a deity
Willing to suffer for their desires.
Their sins consumed by the flesh of subjects,
Plasticised like cheap crucifixes from a bargain basket.

The consumption of goods eroticised for the good of man
And the future of the economy in safe hands.
Sometimes we forget,
We are also the goods that makes the greedy hands
Rub the coins erratically in their inhuman pock

Way Back When

I’d undo my school trousers,
she’d be wearing her short
school skirt and we’d find
some discreet place and let
our hands freely explore
one another: we barely
spoke: there was nothing
to say: our eyes screamed
as our innocence began
to melt, our fingers wet
with lust and something
we didn’t understand
but couldn’t stop: we’d
lean upon each other,
feeling guilty about
something we didn’t
know of, but we were
damned if that was
going to stop us.

Modern Shelves

Base lives
Based on lies
Disguise
Tiny moves
Amongst the forests
Of old gods

The words of
Dead generations
Carved
Into the wood
Like sigils
Flashed behind
The lids of our eyes

The force of legs
Forced to walk
Into fires
Made of printed words,
Alight behind stop signs
And directed turns
Without touch
Without loss
Without flames

Witch trials
Tried on lies
Try to hide
The hidden hooves of Pan
In amongst fat tomes
Of underwhelming prose
Underneath cages of thick clothes
And the grey,
The thick, constricting grey,
Sitting atop of the
Sucking
Fucking
Laughing
Violent
Truth.

You Got Moxy, Kid!

As a writer, or as in any noble pursuit,
from time to time you find yourself
at a point of desperation.
Which is not a bad place to be,
creatively speaking.

On the contrary, being within
these confines seem to activate
a whole new skillset for the individual.

It will make you think differently.
It will make you do abnormal things.
You’ll do what you need to do,
say what would normally go unspoken.
You’ll say what you feel.

For the stark reality is
desperation doesn’t give a shit.

Desperation is the divorced child
of opportunity and talent.

The bastard child of restlessness
and hopelessness.

If desperation was a house,
it would be a single-story ranch
on the corner of Impossible Way
and No Choice Loop.

Desperation finds a way
because there’s no other choice.

It does not care what it looks like,
sounds like,
tastes or smells like.

It prefers to work alone, but at times,
you will find it amongst its friends
chance and luck.

It don’t care about anything
but doing the deed.

Desperation rolls up its sleeves,
pushes talent aside
and does it his damn self.

It seeks out the how and where
and says fuck the why.

It cares very little about your
inconvenience, or your opinion
for that matter.

It pinches its nose, grabs a shovel
and scoops up the steaming pile.

If there isn’t a shovel, he’ll pick up
great big handfuls of it and hurl it
in everyone’s smug little faces.

It doesn’t care.
It doesn’t give a flying fuck.

It takes to the streets and demands
to be heard.

It will march all the way
down main street
to the steps of city hall
to get it done,
Grassroots style.

It will kick in the door
snatch you out of bed
and drag you by the ankles
kicking and screaming into the night.

It’s relentless.

Desperation will either make a fool
or a hero out of you-
your choice.

There’s a razor’s edge
of a difference anyway.

It will either get down on one knee
to propose
or leave you bruised
and bleeding in the gutter,
wrists bound with electrical tape.

Any given day of the week,
in every city of the world
you can watch it play out.

Desperation is the single mom
working three jobs to keep the lights on.

It’s what sends the unemployed dad
out of state looking for work.

It’s what makes the quiet kid
stand up to the bully-
fists clenched; knuckles scraped.

It’s in the eyes of the wrongly accused
or wrongly incarcerated.

It’s on the lips and faces of those
who can’t stand another 12-hour shift

another soulless, bone-
grinding week of menial work
affording only a meager existence.

It fills the bars on Saturday night
and the church pews on Sunday morning,
and sometimes
it is hard to tell the difference
between the two.

It is easier for a man
to stomach failure
than to die with regret.

Pay attention to the man
who has a limp in his walk
and a tremble in his talk,

for that man has wrestled with
success and failure
and his body bears the
scars to prove it.

He has searched
the alleyways and bars,
roamed the midnight streets
howling to the muse for inspiration,
cursing the night
for giving in to the sunrise
of a meaningless new day.

Ozone

The wind tickles leaves without moving them and
Your clothes cling cool and damp to your skin and
You’re still too warm for comfort and
All the trees on this block seem unfamiliar and
Your shoes scrape rough against smooth concrete and
You’re sure you’re not on the right block and
You scan the clouds to see if the moon bleeds through and
You try to glimpse lightning rods on deserted roofs and
That song you don’t know just won’t leave your ear alone and
Someone disappears around that corner just ahead and
You’re sure you know her but she never wore that dress and
A week old newspaper clutches at your ankles and
The air smells like a lake you remember but have never seen and
A bus hisses by red and orange in the darkness and
You only want to reach your home safely and
Fall to your knees to pray for rain to pray for an end

Colonoscopy of God

Oh, my lover,
Vertical cosmos of salacious flesh!
Foetal Adam writhing in
The curves of your thighs,
Chants of distaste;
Fragments of apple
Dressed in maggot vein.
The heart of your desire unchaste!
The seeds that you’ve planted
In our mother I despise,
Vermin gnawing at the thesis of faith
But despite the deafening cries
And the butchery of Cain
We can all pray in this
Wound of fallacy.
We’re the colonoscopy of God –
The anatomy of a bad idea.

Breathers and Breakers

Can we just stop talking about trade tariffs
sex scandals
diseases and typhoons?

the world will repair itself
one plastic water bottle at a time
we are a species (I think)
a clan
that sat under the moon a billion years ago
in mad wonder
now we pack pistols and blades

I saw a woman lying
on the ground
in the subway staircase
she wore a hospital ID bracelet
she had grey sweatpants
with blood caked and muddied at her crotch
I knelt down to touch her
to see if she was alive

I wanted to ask the wretch what happened to her
how did she ever get
here

she felt my hand
and lifted one glazed eye
she drooled in anger
snarled
and mouthed fuck off

I stepped back
and thought
this was once someone’s child
that was carried in a belly
maybe she was loved dearly
or not at all

all the gray whales are dying
their carcasses wash up on the shores
of Oregon and California
scientists huddle together on the beaches
to autopsy their plethoric bodies
to understand
find a way
to save
preserve….

the human body is an uncanny mystery
I can barely roll out of bed in the morning
half a dead whale inside this skin
a lazy eye
dead mind

this wretch got out of a hospital bed
blood oozing from the sacred place
of her once ripe body
to lay full out on a dirty subway
cement ground
people scurried about
not one person gave a shit

all I want to understand is
where all the recycled garbage goes
and if that
is what’s killing our gray whales
these days