A Good Sleep

You and I sure can dream.
We dream with eyes closed
listening to the words of the waves
laying on a beach in Costa Rica.
Driving around dreaming
of small towns deep in Mexico
where gringos dare not go.
We dream of good sleep and long love.
We dream while staring at fat gray clouds
over green mountains
or sitting across from each other
at a breakfast date
of strong coffee 
and sweet cinnamon rolls
where, at least one of us,
dreams for a kiss
while the other
dreams of longer smiles
and an unburdened life.

Sometimes we dream together,
well, not together, as in the exact same dream
but where we are tangled up with one another
in sheets or silence.

These dreams keep us awake wondering,
looking at maps, reading books 
and researching other places and possibilities
with other people.
Maybe someday we will dream
in the same direction.
Then we can finally 
place our heads on one another
and sleep well.

Necrophilia

. . . necrophilia is more prevalent 
than most people imagine.

—KAREN GREENLEE

straddling his pelvis,
a moaning mortician 
rubs her clit against 
the stolen corpse’s cock

she seduced corpses to summon Azrael

groping the corpse’s tit,
a student cums

a bereaved nun 
kisses a charred femur
and then masturbates with it

jerking off 
while devouring a cadaveric tit,
a mortuary assistant

after strangling him,
with her bare hands,
she rides his boner
until she cums

Published on Pornhub

I told this girl at a bar that
I got a poem published 
in a journal
and she said
‘that’s nothing
‘I’m published on Pornhub’

and at first 
I thought
that’s not art
but I went home
and looked her 
up on 
Pornhub
and admitted 
to myself
damn
that’s talent

Eye of the devil, Fear of the dark

Laconia, NH. Bike Week.
Things go sideways 
or the dead 
make it to paradise.
You’re dating the horror girl from Salem 
who reads palms
She’s Tiresias
She’s Hecate in Macbeth
She has a tattoo that says
Eye of the devil, Fear of the dark.
The Viking asks if she has any sisters
the weirder, the better.
The Viking doesn’t have a bike
but in the spirit of Bike Week 
crashes his jet ski 
into the Back Bay Boathouse.
The moon is an 8 ball
and our eyes march like 
pink flamingos.
I hear the boys at Loudon bleed the engines. 
I hold the table until eternity strikes,
my heart weighed against 
a single feather. 
One by one
some guy in leather 
is nailed to a St. Andrew’s Cross. 

Agnostic Behavior

Cloven skulls of
bovine beasts
Megafauna heads
housed upon the shoulders of men
Bison brains and yak
Bullhorn embellishing their codpiece.

Mythic cleaver

Obsidian pommel—
an heirloom to temper
MY FEAR  
I take his skivvies
and wipe
MY ASS
Cleaning
MY BALLS
with his beard.

He spared me, the fool!
That hare-brained rectal pollop   
And meanwhile
I grew to nurture
MY MIGHT
Resentment fermenting to foam, 
hissing oaths to make
Lunchmeat
of his brawny pecs,
tremendous glutes—
jigsawed fragments of bone.

Squatting, shitting
beside his vacant husk,
I scribe in scrimshaw  
MY VALOR
across his ribs
Porno pictographs in his secret cave
Lusty and violent,
terrible to behold!

Maidens weep
when the best man falls—
when he and the other fellas are dead
Women throw oaths
hurling stones in
MY FACE
as I raise
MY HANDS
to block
MY EYES
guarding the fact that I grieve among them.

In Flight

Floating 30,000 feet 
thinking about her.
No contact again—
good mornings,
I love yous,
sweet dreams,
what are you up to’s,
hellos—
nothing.
So many days
we were the first and last thoughts
of one another.
I sit in aisle seat 26D
sipping a $9 Vodka and Sprite
focusing on her,
fighting the desire to look at pics,
when a curly haired window seat boy
of about four
opens the window shade
points and says,
still in the sky!           
He is right,
even after touching down,
some of us
will still be stuck there.

long thin skirt

Chet was a sawyer
on our wildland firefighter hotshot crew
a local from Camp Verde
who at first didnt like me
because I had long hair
a college degree

his hair was short
tho he had no desire for the military
but did plan on
working for Border Patrol

I won him over
by always getting up early
in fire camps
to help out
working hard
but mostly by
singing and playing guitar
when we were back
at our barracks

his girlfriend went to NAU
in Flagstaff
had let her hair grow into dreads
wore long thin skirts
sometimes drove down
to our district
on the national forest

one night
Chet + some other guys
were going to play poker
he came over to my barracks
asked if I/d
keep her company
play her some songs
so she + I sat out on a picnic table
under the ponderosas
barefoot
while they gambled inside
I did sing and play some songs
but mostly we talked about books
college
music
while the guys got drunk
and yelled and laughed

I finally said goodnight
grabbed my sleeping bag
went out in the forest
for the quiet
she went inside

fire season picked up
we went to California for a month
came back got laid off

I drove up to Flagstaff
before getting on I-40
to head back to Chicago
driving down Aspen Street
saw her walking w/some girlfriends
almost stopped
to walk over + say hello

quit firefighting
the next summer
but moved to Flagstaff
never saw her
never thought to look for her
until decades later
now

Lots’s Lot

Father and I debated who begat the gatling gun. 
I said it could be anyone. 
Father insisted: Bob Gatling, 
or some other son of a Gatling. 
When I failed to lick his boot, 
Dad got under the collar hot. 
Began to holler, me no daughter of his. 
Reached for the 16-gauge blunderbuss. 
Doesn’t take a lot get Dad to pop off, 
and he had not an hour before 
chugged a pint of Popov, 
the vodka that set America free. 
But I trumped his rump. 
Yanked outta my boot the cutest little derringer, 
and gave it to Dad, 
one .45 slug straight to the heart. 
Dad tumbled over, 
dead as the E. R. A., 
and I hit the highway. 
It was either Mexico or a baseball bat. 
I was not about to have begot 
whatever devil Dad had, 
three months ago,
in the dead of night, 
in my womb sowed. 
Out of breath, bathed in sweat, 
stopped at a mom-and-pop for a can of pop. 
The tube behind the register 
bragged they had already overhead 
choppers with searchlights. 
Wolfed the pop; 
dropped empty in recycling. 
Stepped outside, and into – 
automatic-weapon-fire erupting – 
history – flatly, 
in the Bible, denied. 
I lay still in the gutter, 
eyes aimed at the sky.

Flag Stop

On the way to the crusades 
I met a boy on a green Vespa. 
I’m doomed to be no one other than myself. 
“It’s Portofino,” he said
and there’s something about the color
that resembles the Christ of the Abyss. 
The last thing Mother wanted before she died 
was a chocolate milkshake. 
It shouldn’t come as a surprise. 
People like milkshakes 

and me… 
I’m as doting as a saint.
I’m in my holy years crusading West Beach.  
I wear a robe of laudanum, 
say goodbye to small mean men. 
The sky is gynecological, 
low and sheer 
and strapped 
with unforgiving clouds. 
Am I leaking 

no, I’m crowned. 
Back slang, bourbon neat 
at the Hale St. Tavern;  
all the yoyos with money
and the prosiness of life,
“You look awful,” they say.  
Beverly Farms with its commuter rail to heaven: 
A flag stop only. I scrounge and serve 
my round blonde head. 
My papers suspect.

Hooch Love

Gina liked her bourbon the same way I did:
a brimful waterglass, with a couple of ice cubes hanging on for dear life.
we’d already emptied a bottle of Jim Beam. she brought the blow
out; we snorted a few lines, cracked another bottle.
“are you gonna come by the club tomorrow?” she asked. “work’s more
fun when you’re there.”
“we’ll see,” I said. “depends on if I can finally get the Muse to cooperate. the bitch’s
been avoiding me for a while now.”
“perhaps, I can be your new Muse,” she smirked and her hand went straight for my crotch.
she had no subtlety, no finesse; those were reserved for work.
she swigged down her drink, then shoved her
tongue down my throat. she clenched her fist around my prick, forcing my
blood to migrate south despite the alcohol in my body offering some resistance.
without wasting a second, she climbed on my lap, still sucking on my tongue.
I was hers to do as she pleased and she fucking knew it—she had no qualms about
taking advantage of it.
my hands went straight on her firm buttocks, burrowing under her mini skirt.
she sat deeper onto my crotch, grinding with a purpose, and I sucked on
her tongue. clothes started flying, landing on the dust- and coke-covered floor.
with her, whiskey dick was never a problem; she knew how to get me
all hard and ready.