Code Blue

What exactly do people have against the dead?
They don’t pick fights or treat others dismissively,
they’re quiet, they don’t litter or play music past 10PM,
and they prefer to lie quietly in their coffins, with no
demands except to please keep the air cool and circulating.

People have even been known to scream upon
coming across a dead body despite the fact that no
harm could possibly come to them; some folks 
turn away from the dead at funerals and wakes,
which is particularly rude since great pains
are often taken to dress the dearly departed in 
their best attire, and to employ makeup artists and  
hair stylists to ensure that they look their best.

And horror movies and post-apocalyptic television
shows only serve to increase the prejudice against
the dead. It is a well-known fact that a very low
percentage of the unalive actually become blood-
thirsty zombies, but despite this well-researched
information many still panic when a ghost stops
by to pass the time or to say a simple hello.

The one way that kindness is shown is often
based on hypocrisy, the notion that it is uncouth
to speak poorly of the dead. Even Hitler has many
defenders who point out his vegetarianism and
claim that he really only wanted to build a better
Germany, in other words, make it great again!

An exception to this code of behavior is disgraced,
former gallery owner Andrew Crispo, who, in all
of his obituaries is raked over the coals; Crispo
was responsible for only a handful of deaths as 
opposed to Hitler’s millions, but nobody seems
seems to have anything good to say about him,
and we have not even touched on the many
ways necrophiliacs are stigmatized. Some of them
are even arrested! Does anyone take the time 
to ask the dead if they objected? I think not!

A true democracy is inclusive of all, whether
or not one can find a pulse or hear a heartbeat.
We must remember that until all us are dead
none of us are dead, we are simply floating
in that place between breath and suffocation,
hiding from the unknown, embracing a world
built on false knowledge and blind hindsight.

SHOW ME DEM TIDDIES

I was really drunk
and I told her SHOW ME DEM TIDDIES
and she just laughed
a nervous laugh –
uncomfortable
but aware that I was harmless.
She didn’t say no
but it obviously wasn’t
a yes.

We were alone in her place,
in the kitchen.
She was drinking 
but she wasn’t drunk.
I tried to compose myself
but then I said it again:

COME ON, I said,
SHOW ME DEM TIDDIES,
I JUST WANNA SEE EM
and that time
she sighed
and lifted up her shirt,
removed her bra,
showing me dem tiddies.

I stared at them,
a drunk attempt to memorize them.
I really liked them
and I told her so.

As she began to put them away
I wanted to ask her 
if I could touch them
but, even as drunk as I was,
I knew she had already
done her good deed for the day.

night shifts

I hear them 
late end of the 
graveyard shift
thumping the window glass
leaves cracking outside 
under their faint steps

do they wander with purpose
these ghosts?
are the blind trails 
of purgatory
fenced in? 
the walls hidden 
the walls 
never known 

the distant howl
of the way to go
the traffic flow of the living
echoing in the long night
or echoing 
imagined 
in the lost mind

teasing sprinklers
dropping dark thoughts
like lone thick rain drops 
leering 
from my roof

I don’t think they see me
I don’t think they want me
but I think 
they think
the same question 
that calls me
awake 
this late 
in between 
days 

what was that? 
what 
was
that. . .?

Neighbors

It’s my neighbor.
It’s the one my landlady warned me about.
It’s the unemployed anthropologist.
It’s the one with the 5-tier shoe-tree
outside her door
because shoes are forbidden
from entering
her home.
I see her sometimes mounting the stairs,
or in the check-out line in the grocery store,
or down by the trash cans,
and she returns my hellos
never.

I can hear her through the bathroom wall.
She’s masturbating again.
She does it under the faucet.
She does it in the evenings around 8.
I exit the bathroom,
go into the other room,
and start going
over the piles of German
bureaucratic paperwork I’ve been bombarded
with lately:

Sehr geehrter Herr Powers…

I wade through a couple pages with the help
of Bing Translator,
then take the plug out of my laptop,
take it and my piles out onto my balcony,
and sit down
with a bottle
of French red.

It’s warm out here for a September night.

I can hear dishes clanging in the Italian restaurant.
I can hear the muttering of Germans on the sidewalks.
I can’t hear my neighbor masturbating
from here,
but after couple minutes, she appears,
a lonely
silhouette
on her balcony.

I’m done saying hello
to her,
I tell myself.

I slouch down a little more in my chair,
take a big swig of wine
and attempt to conquer
words like Unterhaltsberechtigten
and Zahlingsmodalitäten, and Vermögensverhältnisse,
but it’s no good.
I can’t go on.

The night’s too beautiful to waste on bureaucratic German.
Should I answer some of my unanswered emails?
Should I start in on a poem?
Should I have a couple drinks at one of the bars down below?
I look up.
My neighbor is looking.
She looks away.
She goes inside without acknowledging.

She’s right.
Small, superficial
courtesies
aren’t worth the trouble,
and we know well enough where we stand
with each other.

We don’t.

A Dead Bird

A dead bird appears in a hallway
like a fragile piece of poetry thrown against a wall
the first act the play of the day
a woman who writes and fucks and dreams
lays naked on a bed of nails
sullies the sheets with the written word
spews her rage onto notebook pages
turns on lamps at the break of dawn
pulses at the howling the riotous song
looks at the cage cuts it with snippers
while snipers parade their latest kill
homeland heartland zealous anthems a prayer
a mountain of bullshit a life of despair

Gifts of Flesh

Each time is like 
The first date
I dress to entice
Paint my face
To attract attention
From the balcony

Stage fright
Though I’ve played
This role before
Adrenaline flowing
Quivering muscles
As I strip you down
But this isn’t a show

Excitement sparking
Like thrown glitter
While I tie you down
Letting my long hair
Brush your bare chest

Ropes straps cuffs
Duct tape sizzling from the roll
Gas mask cinched tight
Immobilized
Cocooned
Encased
Totally at my whim
Not just your pleasure
Your very life
Held in these
Delicate fingers
Squeezing the hose

Do you love me?
Or is this unrequited
Like the air 
Growing stale
In your lungs

There’s a look in your eyes
When the animal panics
A satisfying pop
As your body spasms
Drowning in latex and nylon
You are no longer alive
No longer a person
Just perfect slave meat

But you should know
This isn’t a game
It’s not about pain
It’s not about power
It’s not about perversion
Because when you fully submit
When you fear me
When you love me
When you do as I say
I am utterly your slave

Chime & Thunder

it’s the year you’re reincarnated in Kim Deal’s voice 
the makeup on your eyes is sunburst
our days a bratty buzz bin of melancholy
of crop top cannonball     of pixies in the air

the double denim sky hangs sticky at the fair.
It’s the year you’re reincarnated in Kim Deal’s voice
da ah da da da like colourpop, like strawberry sandpaper 
picked with Dunlop     of chime & thunder at the fair.             

We wait for the last splash but it never     whatever. 
We’re analogue kids passing through digital rain
glasstron at Metreon, vodka in Tupperware
cuckoo with the reggae bong      dancing in our underwear.

You were all nerve     all wave     marshal stack
now I wait in the car, scavenge decades like perfect disasters.
It’s the year you’re reincarnated in Kim Deal’s voice
& I’m still tinkering with the vocal effects

Poet from the alleged sex tape

I sleep nervous
with a mask on
Showered
inky pen
shiny

So when I get the dream
they will know me
and the mask
will keep
reality
from interrupting
going down
on the scene

I haven’t had the dream just yet
I don’t know how many nights
but I prepare

Maybe it will come
like a couplet comet
Streak past
the sonnet’s subconscious
Blasting
Intense end-stopped line ecstasy
Oh it will
Oh I will
when my time comes

So I am standing now below
some bright lights

Tacky sets with couches
Some beautiful Spanish visions walk in front
Super hot ones drinking on the sides
incredible female limber liberated voices
in the back

I say “Welcome..Not my first time, but…”
I pull the mask off
clear my throat
They pull out a video camera
old one with the tape
I clear my throat again
Nerves
They surround me
Maybe we live stream

I am potent
I am ready
I am strong
I am not ever asleep
I am ready for the exposure
all over 

Then
It’s hard
I drink some water
I get the timing right
The movement
The rhythm
A real talent I hear
from the room
where the pipes of inspiration are banging
heats on strong

The passion personification 
is all over the place
Sliding into lines
curves pure and punctuated hard 
No shooting blank verses

Even if it’s fake sometimes
Howling
Other times
Soft
Tender positioning
Thrusts of dirty
censored words
Beautiful
forbidden whispers
Then after like over 2 minutes for sure
Silence

Cut-up 
Silence 
I gave them my whole everything
They even clapped
as the help cleaned up
I felt great
bowed my head
finished up

Some things were passed around
everyone lit cigarettes
No one was asleep not one second
It was great marketing
and  publicity
and mind blowing
legendary industry
though cheap  

When I wake
I fantasize
of watching the video tape
Rewind past to the meaty parts
Fast forward to the laughs
just like if it really happened

All there documented too
The greatest fucking 
reading
of all time

The Medieval Mind

Medieval man, enshrouded in a pall
of gloom, blamed Woman for Man’s vice.
Her burning lust provoked Man’s fall,
Eve’s vulva opening up another Paradise.
Henceforth, all life began in pain and shame.
Grotesque depictions then appeared,
Sheela-na-gigs, the medieval name
for twelfth-century carvings to be feared,
above doors and windows, entries
to European cathedrals and churches
as if they were horrific sentries
looking down from lofty perches,
with gaping vulvas of enormous size.
Some think of it as magical protection,
though it was hard to visualise.
The aim: to avoid Eve’s dread ‘infection’,
to ward off the contagion of Woman’s sin
(as reflected in Corbeau’s ‘Origin
of the World’ in the Musée d’Orsay)
to ensure no man would go astray.

Three Way

I had a dream –
I was in a three way with Sylvia Plath
and Anne Sexton.
Nirvana played on the radio.
Ernest Hemingway stood in the darkest corner
of the room.
He was holding a camera
but he was filming himself and not us.
The camera was shaped like a shotgun.

Sylvia fondled me
as Anne stroked the hair
on my head and on my chest.
I sat there on the bed with my hands at my sides,
too afraid to touch them.
I closed my eyes as Sylvia blew into my left ear,
Anne my right.
I was as hard as a rock.
My body was tensely still.

Then,
in unison, their four lovely lips whispered to me,
“What are you waiting for?”