GOD CREATED US THIS WAY

Our spiritual father
Pedophile and whoremonger
Was from a town in the Tiétar Valley
I don’t remember if it was Arenas de San Pedro
Candelada, Piedralaves
La Adrada, Fresnedilla
Casavieja, Casillas
Or Santa María del Tiétar, Avila.
In his talks about religion
And about spiritual love for the Beloved Jesus
Always told us
That the Church mandates celibacy
But that this can be ignored God’s disciples
That is, we priests
Because God is magnanimous and accepts
Bisexual priests
Pimps, pedophiles, and faggots
Just as he accepted his Son’s love
With Mary Magdalene
And his love with his twelve disciples
With the exception of Judas Iscariot
Who turned out to be a sadist
With the mind of a serial killer like Cain
Who sold Jesus to the Sanhedrin
For thirty pieces of silver
Because as Pope Francis said
“The Devil entered his asshole.”
He also told us that
When they went on missions throughout the country
 Preaching the Gospel, prayer, and sacrifice
Through villages, towns, and cities
Stables, and corral
Many of his brothers in the faith 
Fulfilled Jesus’ command when he said:
-Let the children come to me.
Others had sex with the chickens
With the donkeys and mules
And others with the mournful widows 
Who had just buried their husband
And vice versa.
He also told us with great effort: 
-The entire celestial court of gods
Goddesses, demigods, whores
Angels, archangels, cherubs
Celebrate Priapus and the lust of the donkey. 
That God created us thus: 
Woman, love and spittoon
And man, a combat member, terrible and fierce.
To the man to spit
Spit, phlegm, phlegm
Spit, spit, cocks
Through the throat and penis
Into the woman’s cunt and asshole
And the passive man.
Who, then, when he rested
After completing these two rare works
That we have in plain sight
He began to suck
The big toe of his right foot
Without warning anyone, exclaiming:
-Thank the flower
But I shit in the flowerpots.

Cut me open

Cut me open
and I’ll bleed wine and—
well, I don’t know if it will be shadows
or starlight.
Maybe the dust and gases that nebulae are made from,
unassuming alone, but with the power to
create or destroy.

My tears would track acid down my face
if I still knew how to cry,
and there’s always more poison
ready to come out of the wound.

Was it supposed to stay inside?
Was I supposed to hold all the darkness in,
and keep the world just a little bit lighter?

The howl building in my chest
between my heartbeats will
take out a dozen out city blocks and the 
northeastern power grid.

There’s something inside, and maybe
it’s the wine,
maybe it’s the blackout, and maybe it’s
the energy of my heart beating 
and pumping blood
that destroys everything it touches.

There’s something inside me,
and maybe it’s the tequila,
and maybe it’s all the adventures I haven’t had,
and maybe it’s my soul.
But if a soul wants to escape,
ought you to let it go,
or find a reason for it to stay?

There’s something inside me,
and maybe it’s an angel,
and maybe it’s a monster,
and maybe this body is all that’s keeping it contained,
because sometimes I think I can feel 
the nuclear explosion building
in my ribcage.

Sometimes it quiets, but it never falls silent.

It’s waiting.

And I don’t know if it will ravage the world,
or only me,
but I’m not sure I care which happens.
Let it take me either way.

***

Previously published by The RavensPerch, 2023

Voodoo Lilly

They call her, down at the bar, Voodoo Lilly. 
Sees clear through you to the back window. 
Tells exact who you are. 
Flips an eye into your mind.
Steps out into the air. 
Leaving you bare. 
Clothing in a hamper. 
Mother in a camper 
in Portland, in November, 
can a soul get any damper? 
You run, in mad love, 
out into the rain, 
another man insane 
for the needle and the smoke 
and the Mona Lisa smile 
and the dipsy-doodle eyes. 

Voodoo Lilly sends over a wise guy. 
Who enlightens you of the 
contents of your wallet. 
Leaves a broken nose and a bloody kiss. 
Voodoo Lilly nails another needle 
to the weather vane. 
Screeches to the deaf: 
“Love the seeds all green in my pod!”
The barkeep – tipped off – 
appears from nowhere. 
Sops, with a logo napkin, 
five trillion corpuscles up. 
Says with a grin: 
“Our beer here gives the blood a bath; 
cleanses the mind; 
teaches the soul to roll over, play dead.” 

Voodoo Lilly sees through you 
like a traffic cop a U-turn.  
But what she catches through the window, 
that keeps, when open, your ass chill
in this hot mess, 
scares the pants off the bar. 

Voodoo Lilly blooms, after sunset, 
in the mirror beside the rye. 
She drains, of a wee hour, 
the old moon of all blood. 
Spins the Bar Nun into a chapel, 
demolished to build a parking lot. 

Voodoo Lilly is a lot safer 
than a gun to the head. 
A lot saner than a full moon 
wolf in the bed. 
Oh, no – Voodoo Lilly 
never quite wants you dead.  

When The Den Became The End 

I got blitzed on pills 
that stirred
upside-down skies 
in a club
named The Den.
Its speakers towered 
like pagan stones, 
and pulsing lights were strung
across four dance floors 
sparking fire on staggered platforms and bars
where the thirsty 
licked their lips like windmills.
Stomping ten miles 
to vibrant deep house 
I could see 
the sunshine in wet flesh
and hundreds of eyes 
flashing red and cobalt blue.
Dark moods hid in the shadows 
so I took more and more drugs 
to fight the sonorous gloom.
When The Den became a bar 
called The End,
everything but the name 
remained the same—
black walls,
broken toilet doors
the array of luminous lights.
But in my mind 
there was a shift.
Missives and sermons 
of madness 
appeared in the cracks
of the ceilings
and head-to-toe mirrors.
My mind was gone—taken 
by otherworldly forces.
So, I moved on 
to new pills, legal pills,
built to hook me to the floor,
to sweep my breath 
into gentle rhythms 
and cool my hot thoughts.
I would sit in The End’s overrun smoke garden 
hidden beneath foliage,
comparing the old and the new,
the past and the present.
I learned 
a good drug is hard to find 
and most times there is no choice
at all—
you get what you’re given 
and you must simply adjust,
even if it means 
sitting in The End
smoking 
another cigarette—
waiting for them to damn you, too.

Corvettes & Cigarettes 

It was the spring you read Daughter’s of the Wasteland 
and melted your pantyhose to your legs.
Maybe April 26 (or 27th)
“English majors 
can discover the correct date”
because the Red Sox stole home for the first time in 16 years 
     (thanks for the stanza, Jack. I owe you beers) 

Material is the message and I feel so inspired
in the darkening state of the Republic, 
all them titties  
and music videos about human trafficking.  
Put some pencil on it, mons Venus.
Let’s wake up handcuffed 
     a little wisp of tiger, LA woman. 

We saw the warlords at the park again.
They used to be charming but who will save art
in times of crisis. 
Caravaggio stabbed a guy over a bet on a tennis game. 
Well, there it is: 
femoral artery bleeding corvettes & cigarettes, 
     cruel fate coming on like a sunset

Oof! West is East, too. In that regard.
Split fountains. Warm vodka in peanut butter jars. 
I’m blown up, walking crooked
I had $20 on Caravaggio all along—
Now what are we going to do 
with all those dogs 
     guarding the gates of hell? 

edge

she sleeps on the
edge of the mattress
never intends to
that’s just where she always is
when she wakes up
doesn’t matter much
not like that mattress is on
anything higher than the ground

it’s been this way for too long
always on the edge of something
but never quite there
always stagnating
never any kind of 
cleansing resurgence

the cigarettes are stale
the subway piss is stale
the exhaust always 
looming in the air is stale
the tips at the club are stale
the men’s half assed 
entitled advances are stale
the lonely bourbon afterward is stale
the edge of the mattress is stale

everything about life is

so much so
she begins to wonder if maybe
it’s not life
but her

she thinks she can remember a time
when things made sense
and when they didn’t
it didn’t matter
because it really didn’t

now nothing adds up
and everything matters
and nothing is right
and she’s not sure she understands
the words fresh and clean

Greetings from Planet Rim Job

He kept sliding behind the motel door
like going into hiding again.

As though he were melting 
into the room.

People forgot he was there, 
and went back to talking
over the music.

Everything sounded muffled behind the door.
The LSD from that house across the street 
from the Barrie Jail was top notch.

Two tabs on the tongue,
and you were gone.

A boxy television on mute, 
scrambled porn beamed in from
planet Rim Job.

Sweaty feet
spelunking down into the 
ratty carpet.

A red giraffe trapped 
inside a cave painting.

Cigarette burns
through twin bedspreads.

And every so often,
a head would peak out from 
behind the door.

And a few would remember,
before forgetting all over again.

Longing 

Woke up today
and missed you
more than the 
manageable amount 

a person can get
used to living 
with a ghost of the past 

but haunting 
is haunting 
and it takes its toll

I called in sick
to work

sat on my chair
with my construction 
clothes on,
just off the phone 
with the site manager 

still holding the banana 
I force feed myself 
each morning 

just after realising
I can’t cope today

I look at my bed
that has no sheets—
unable to sleep either.

What type of person
doesn’t even put sheets
on their bed 

me, I don’t 
and I wear my hoodie at 
night sleeping because
I haven’t renewed the gas card
and the house is as cold 
as somebody’s garden 

All the money spent 
for drugs and booze—
anything to carry you 
from one day to the next 
even though time will come
it will drop you on a hole
covered with your own feces.

One night 
I suspect
crossing a bridge 
I won’t make it all the way
to the other side of it

There will be a splash of water 
one cold night.

“Somebody dropped in!”
they’ll say
but they won’t be able to see me.

Shutters drawn.
Thin blades of morning 
grey light 
cut through the darkness 
of the room 

Sitting here 
and I miss you

so much so
at times 
it becomes a longing

a feeling I’ve heard
can poison a man
over time 

and how the time 
has passed

years have run away
from the both of us 

years apart
like a barren wasteland 
of time that will always
sit there
between us

all the hours 
of longing 

Sitting here
and I miss you 
as outside 
the black of the coming night 
is the same depth of dark
we’ve grown accustomed to
since childhood

and how I wish 
you were in my bed
asking me to be tucked in

the most beautiful 
woman in the world—
you in your pajamas
curled up next to me
on the couch 
on those cold nights 
of winter 
or those hot nights
of Mediterranean summer 

ghosts of past happinesses 
are hard to silence 

I think of that bartender 
at the local pub
that opens at eleven o’clock

I contemplate of calling 
for some opioids

It’s the same fight
time and again

trying to smother the longing
before it smothers you

cutting your losses
with a sobering acceptance

adopting a scorched earth 
policy on your own heart

#vanlife

in berlin, he’d been a curiosity shop 
employee, a background actor, a maker of old people’s 
porn,
a documenter of unexploded ww2 munitions.
he’d also written a few short 
stories and started an online fiction and poetry 
zine with me. it was a bust. all of it. none
satisfied, nothing paid more than minimum wage 
if it paid anything at all.
so, he moved back to canada and got a job 
as a flight instructor. three weeks later, he washed
his hands of that too. “shadiest place 
I’ve ever worked,” he told me. 

but with the money he’d earned, he was able to buy 
a van, 
outfit it with a bed, a dresser, and a toilet 
that was a 5-gallon paint bucket 
with a blue foam ring duct taped 
to the rim. 

his plan was to go on the road 
with the van and document the experience
on his youtube channel. 
his first video, called #vanlife, was an instructional 
about setting up the van 
and his bucket. 

it was mostly about his bucket. 
after that, he took to the road, tooling 
through british columbia and stumbling 
upon a little village called lytton. 
there, 
he met an old man in a diner who asked if he’d 
panned for gold 
in any of the local waters. he hadn’t, 
but the idea appealed to his romantic 
cowboy nature, so he did some research and 
after deleting his #vanlife post
bought 
a frying pan at wal-mart and spent the next month
squatting on his ass in a frigid river.   

it was a bust. just like curiosity shops, 
and background acting, 
and old people’s porn, 
and documentaries on unexploded munitions 
and fiction writing 
and editing
and #vanlife had been one. he packed up, 
left lytton, 
but not before smoking one last cigarette 
and flicking the butt out the van window 
which normally wouldn’t have mattered.
but that summer there was a heatwave, 
worst there in recorded history. 

well, it might not have been his cigarette. 
but something – a pine needle, a leaf – something 
caught fire in that part of lytton that day 
and now the diner 
where he met the old man longer exists. 
the old man might not even exist. 
lytton hardly exists. 

the whole village went up in a roaring fire. 
but my co-editor 
made it out of there with a half-pack of smokes, 
and his frying pan, 
and his crap bucket,
and no plan. but he didn’t need one. he knew 
something would come up.

Lusting after vacuity

The silence of empty spaces
& the desperate eroticism of loneliness.

I find complications malevolent
& complexities a nine-level torture saga,
a sermon of my vilest sins,
so I lust for vacuity,
to breathe free in a vacuum,
deliver a monotonous eulogy
to a hall that’s blessedly devoid
of impassioned mourners.

Instead, a feckless crowd of inebriates,
their disdainful glow & seedy aura
bereft of compassion but vibrant with 
the dead-end reciprocity 
of the terminally resigned.

These are my people
& this is my lust.