Rainstorming

You're gonna come down in sheets 
And I'm gonna take it
Because I need it
It's a reluctant pummeling
It's a rejoice with a relapse
Sick gray daze
hazes of rain
beating me, bathing me
scathing frigidity
drifting over me

I measure in inches
what you've given
gathered sand 
to keep you at bay
and pray for more
I've raided stores
And boarded up
for your arrival

Come to me
Flood my streets
I'm gonna curse
And vow 
to sleep through it all
but I'll admit,
I am enthralled
watching and waiting
for the onslaught
peeking through curtains
watching puddles turn 
to lakes turn to seas of 
all that we need
and I will squeal
"Please let up."

And it will pound on
until it's done.

You could always get more than you can handle and be grateful for it.

Shearing Skin

I had lost all hope

I was a fixture

a figment

a ligament contracted

in fists and fits

a misfit unfit

for fitting in

shearing skin

falsely thinking it let them in

 

 

Too grave to give

And given in

Gape gowned to the ghost

I gave way in ghastly grins

It sadly seeps and sways

In sweeps and says

“The cloth that hangs

Is wearing thin”

 

The naked haunt

Who has my heart

He harped and harked

Into the dark

So, to fall I followed

The invisible hollow

That fallow fellow

I met at my pillow

To pluck the plantation

Of flesh-cotton sorrow

 

No sheep can spin

That ripened skin

The fluffs of buff

I’ve given him

And gauged the girth

Of all his grim

On graveyard shifts

At the cotton gin

 

Of my frightly frocks

He dawned at dusk

I hemmed and hawed

“He has a husk!”

Hushed and hidden

Till head hits hay,

He woke me as I slipped away

 

Although remained in his remains

He reaps with me, now

In the rags of wraiths

And raves in tones of razor blades

Too visible to vanish

and too vanquished to be vain

 

We traipse along

the brim of night

showing our skin

Our dark burning bright

And haunt the fringe

of flocks in flight

 

and frighten the fowl

with hues and howls

how we flash and flaunt

our cacophonous cowls

and dive back to the morn’s burning sun

with jaundice yellow yowls

and our skin undone

 

Each midnight I mend

The shredded shroud

and cackle as I count it down

My hope, it seems

In seams, so soft

Are cloaks where I’m

no longer lost.

I am a paler blue than you are used to

I am a paler blue than you are used to

I am milk from the breast

The blind man’s eye

The morning sky

 

 

I am a paler pink and it’s not like you think

I am the dead man’s skin

The winter cheek

Wheezing life, oblique

 

 

I am twisted spine wrapped in barbed wire and twine

The clink on dinner glass

The old barn in the wind

Weakened, thin

 

I’m a softer gray than I was yesterday

I am the abandoned school’s window

The late autumn fog

The belly-up pollywog

 

 

Trapped beneath ice

I am a horrid last gasp

The precipice teetering boulder

The secret the dying man told her

 

 

I am all that fizzles

The last millimeter of wick

I am the faint sound of haunting

That is actually nothing blowing in the wind

 

 

I am the last straw the cow devours

In a land of famine

Digested four times before

The final feast is never more

 

 

I am the fraying shroud

on the cold slab

the scratching dry quill

the unfinished words of the will

 

 

I am the ruins

behind the undergrowth

I am the ship on the ocean floor

a splinter on death’s door

 

 

I am a palor of green

A mold on the cheese

I am the child that floats

the hanged man’s throat

 

 

I am a gutter of leaves

after four months of rain

I am slime

I block the drain

 

 

I am ash on a bonnet

the clay on work boots

I am the broken ax

the recipient of forty whacks

 

 

I am all that decays

I am all that stops shining

I am all of the hues

of adieu

Jackson Pollock Dinty Moore Fetal Position

We’re all just one breath away from being rotting meat,

a wick waiting for a flame,

a fetus waiting for a name

We’re all just sizzling bologna in the mercy seat

And a masterpiece ready for a frame

Our artful life,

A sizzling sacrifice

One slice at a time,

we’re turning out real nice

and if we’re patient,

very patient

maybe we will become…

something… Edible.

We’re all just who we are,

ready to ignite or snore

We’re all just in our justification

intentional splatters carefully placed on canvas or concrete

dropped from birth canals on to the street

and forced to feed

We’re all just another creeping creature,

We’re all just walking stew with a beef,

sealed in skin and grief

A cauldron ready to be ripped open to release steam

Thermosealed comfort food ready to eat

We’re all just a pouch of flesh

A pocket of remorse

A vessel of paint

A flame getting faint

A fledgling main course

We’re all just a grip that hasn’t been grabbed

A morsel that hasn’t been stabbed

And if we’re still,

Very still,

Maybe we will be fattened consumers too

Just like the thing that eats you.

The Red Hours

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve got 8 legs

I’ll be busy all day

wrapping guys up

having my way

sucking them dry

till their skin’s shrink wrapped

round their spine

 

I’ve ate well today

got eggs to lay

and I’ve saved the corpses

they dangle and sway

in my widow web

what gets caught is mine

 

It’s still dark

and I know

there are many more friends

oh, it’s far too easy

to lure them in

if I show just a little

of any 8 legs they’re

bound to have a happy end…

 

Come join the party

where the boys all hang

You’re the dish for the dinner

that’ll cure hunger pangs

I’ve got a gossamer trap

and a daft pair of fangs

 

So I’ll feed on you

bound, you can’t move 

my hourglass tattoo, bobbing

red and smooth

will be your last sight

at the final close of your eyes

 

I’ll rest on silk, satisfied

you’re so much better

than all those flies

and I’m so glad

you decided to 

crawl by

 

 what gets caught is mine

Vines

I want to be smothered in blackberry and ivy in the inebriated drips of this honey thick heat,
Every barbed tendril puncturing my stifled body,
Oozing my sticky-sweet juice, slathering your whole.
Cover my all, take me in!
It seems all I ever learnt of love is how to succumb.

Inspired!

Reverb

when you touch those strings
for hours after it reverberates,

adrenaline shaking me delirious

like holy spirit epileptic manifestations

in the aisles of your rhythmic temple

romantically cleansed in the murkiest of baptisms

                         

you sing,
and it carves me hollow,

scraped clean, empty,
guts and seeds, stripped bare to the rind and lit up smiling

   

every note

standing hairs on end till I’m a forest

lost in the bewildering wilderness you croon

these heart wrenching choral confessions

that unfurl in wooden ribbons

from your oaken diaphragm roots,

rising up and out, scratching and grabbing air

growing into every open ear,

holding attention boa tight

your gnarling lyric branches

weaving through every orifice

choking the sun with sweet darkness

 

 just keep me captive

tethered and chained to your next word,

my lungs asphyxiating

in the black ink lagoon

you’ve spelled your lines and measures with

I’ve got it bad, this malady of your ballads

I want to manifest all your everythings

tie myself in strings

and set myself between your knees

the devil will believe me

             

I want to zip the flesh down from my neck

peel back my ribs and beg for another hit

your bow, in viscera slicing strokes

each horse hair cut, gut weeping enchantments

you play and we offer blood

I’m not sure who’s sacrificing

but I’ll give anything for more

there is no coming back to real life after this

this narcotic need to feed on

more scores

 

Seasonally Affected

The doors are closing.

A slit of light remains;

mere moments until

it rains.

Then,

I will hear the loud clap

of locks

me, shocked in stocks

imprisoned

picking at my own skin

for ink

hatching marks

scratching in the dark

mumbling refrains.

Blood fills the tank

Flood in the dank

chambers

drowning in my own

gurgled breath.

Only the rope

with the noose

holds the truth

if I want to escape

me.

The first robins’ egg

will dry it up,

no giving up

when the sun

shines once more.

The door will swing wide,

I’ll step outside,

squinting, weak

and likely unfit for release.

Mellowfluous

On days like these

ink creeps down the confessing page

rain slides down the windows

and blood weeps slow through my polar veins

the coffee perks and drips in sync

and someday soon

all these liquids will efface

amalgamize in a swirl in the palm of my hand

and I will smear them down my sullen face

Maritime Melancholy

Months lost at sea

with all these knots

and thoughts

that will not hold tight

slipping and giving the wind my sails

.

The creaking sway

a lullaby of loneliness

a cradle

a heaping ladle

of maritime melancholy

my flag, a sun-bleached map

.

Is it a voyage when you are lost

and content to be tossed

upon the miles of tumultuous waves

praying for landlessness

hopelessness, a welcome compass?

Deep Autumn Waltz

There’s a madness blowing in the wind

A kind of sadness forcing it’s way in

A single note striking again… and again… and again

There’s a darkness that smears down sky’s walls

A dreary smirchness in ev’ry leaf’s fall

And the settling house, creaking calls… and calls… and calls

There’s a haziness from the farmer’s burned brush

set to drown from the oncoming drizzly gush

And the scarecrow has no choice but stay hush, hush, hush.

Get ready for a long weary shade,

a blanket cloaked in ashen frigid gray,

wrapped around us and bound with rusty chains

Good morning, Dark Stalker

I know a couple

lived so long

long enough to know

 

.

as all the parts

start to fail

that soon it’s time to go

 

.

I can’t imagine their living

with a reaper

stalking their every step

 

.

waiting for their pump

to quit

or the draw of their last breath

 

.

How it leans in intuitively as they hack

hoping to drag them into the black

 

.

The reaper sits in a corner chair while they sleep

when the snores grow silent, nearer it creeps

 

 

.

It peeks as they shower,(do not slip)

soon to be his if they break even a hip

 

.

Oh, the young,

they don’t know

how long they will be

 

.

Hell, a reaper

could certainly

be stalking me

 

.

Those octogenarians,

poor dears,

he follows them everyday

.

It must be haunting,

CHILLING to be

at the ripe end of decay

Sangrinora

Start with the ragged fleck of skin from my slender finger

pulling slowly, like a runner root

Let the fresh air be introduced to dermis

wet with it’s raw awakening

Shuck me like an onion

shedding layers and forcing bleary tears

.

Disrobe my entirety, freeing me from the suit of my bearing

divorce the connective tissue

My fluids and nectarous pith

are ripe like summer’s last plum

Get at that rind like a kid on Christmas morn

for I can sense how great your thirst

.

Cup that sanguinal fluid, wring each limb thoroughly

careful not to spill a drop.

Feel my plasmatic liquor

soak your every last cell

Juice it dry, so you can preserve and later savor

that which deserves to be kept in a bottle

Thee Olde Ruddy Myst

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Like a cat on the piano

in the dead of night,

It is the startling,

waking fear.

 

As scarlet as treasures

for which men have fought,

drenched with the bloody loss

of our adored buccaneer

 

For dreamt foggy conjures

of heavens and breath,

It is the thing that moves

across skin in the dawn

 

The scent in the mist

luring, repulsing

infiltrates and stifles

the lungs with it’s brawn

 

Pinned down eyelids,

imagination hijacked,

cold wash of prickle pain,

paralyzed in silence

 

You’re some sly reaper, myst

grazing my gray matter

with your own ghastly brand

of quiet, subtle violence

 

The cap’n in his rum-soaked slumber

perversely oblivious,

will wake in the balmy morn

To the softest shell he’s ever seen

Scab Chewer

She’s a scab chewer

peeling back those crusty sores

with her dragon lady nails

until the oozing pulp is revealed

snacking gleefully and with malice

on the tender access points

in your armor.

She is vicious

and no amount of honey

can coat her scales

no slathering of agreement

and compliment

can gain her favor.

She is vile

and prefers to show it

with a devious smile

that reveals the teeth

that are caked with the scabs

of every person in her path

She is a bitch extrordinaire

with snakes for hair

and coal red eyes

who mounts herself

upon the pires of invisible power

and delights when you cower

She spits venom on skin

to make her victims

scab again

and turns others’ words

into ash for a badge on her sash

her nails dragging on the walls

of her lair

are her only comfort

How many have sinned, how big is the prison?

It’s a plug that keeps us from spilling. A plug.

Or amniotic fluid would be seeping, on the rug.

And no one can quite come up with the drug

that heals that hole

that holds in the soul

to keep the world from taking a chug.

 

Oh, that plug, it is made of up of crud

But, fear not, it reacts well to suds

And a very vigorous scrub

will prevent a dribble

on the delicate pebble

that would leave a trail of blood.

 

The path that diverts us is wide

while the one best to choose is a line

and everyone has committed a crime

so God has decided

 our souls be debrided

before we go to heaven to do time.

Carniveralore

Carnivale whore

carnivore

eat that corn dog to the core.

    

Consume with carnal

consecration

Bob’s kebab of quick castration

 

Carouse on careening carousel

cudgel

that comestible to compel

  

Cult-cock clown

go down

curly-whirl round and round

   

Cotton Candy boy-cloy

coyly

cumming carny killjoy

 

Circus seminal strangulation

seedy

side-show stilted satiation

 

Spectral Wisp

If only

I could have

your breath

on my ear

panting hot

but it’s not.

How menthol wintry

shiver shimmery

you sigh

 

Shudder stroke

tickle-drip

vapor trickle

finger tip

encircling

spectral wisp

hulaing

my ivory hips

  

I feel you

brush my skin

surge through

my hair

I reach

into the space

around me

You are not there

 

Saddling the frigid

breeze you blow

gravitating

amidst

the ghastly glow

Ascendancy!

you came

for me

 

Hover always

flitter floating

telekinetic

anemic arctic

taunt me

want me

haunt me

ungraspable

sentimentality.

 

Ornithology

She glides into the night in silk feathered flight

Her quickening heart rises up to sky.

Reaching for the butter’d cup,

surrounded by the mossy muff

and with his ladle drinks it up

unraveling ribbony silken shreds

from her skin

it begins…

 

 

Wings spread, coasting down to snatch

with spoon-billed beak, the catch ,

ribboned silk all around, spirals descending

into the onyx sea.

 

To make seen the water’s rippling,

moonlit,  upon obsidian wings
He brings her, featherless

to the nest

and dines on blood and thigh and breast

 

 

 

And in the currents of ocean, dark

he lifted a single thread from it’s stark,

a silken ribbon to weave

among the twigs and moss and bones,

his throne, a trophy case

a resting place

and her beak tossed among the downy pile

the aftermath of a hungry night.

 

 

 

The exorcism

My demons are getting some exercise

I need to make them good and tired

so for many quiet days

I’ll be relieved of their wicked ways.

 

My devil, doing biceps curls

tells me to go drink with the girls

I talk too much as my brain whirls

and imbibe until I hurl.

 

My imp, I tell him to run laps

my mind, it cramps, and bleeds through gaps

I gasp at such a tortured lapse

and beg for sanity’s firm grasp.

 

Twas squats I ordered Mephistopheles

which almost brought me to my knees

he pulled my skirt and begged, “Please!

I’ll rob your fair beauty should you rid of me.”

 

The exercise that left me vext

came to me in my quiet rest

A nightlong marathon we sext

his searing hand slid to my breast

 

Alas, it was Beelzebub

my soul’s health could join no other club

my fits of craze have no sub

my nourishment came from his nub

 

My demons give me exercise

If I fight they make me tired

they chatter to me on quiet days

saying death rids me not of their wicked ways.