The Devil's Fridge Magnets
The man from the institute stopped by.
His feet smelled funny, like a blight of
failing potatoes.
Excitable triggerfish on the television
scramble
buying up vowels and stealing consonants.
The curled paper of old letters, clanking
whiskey stone breath.
A persistent leak from loose-lipped faucets.
The devil's fridge magnets caught in sticky
inversions.
A pillowcase full of child's candy come to
rest in the corner.
The carpet torn up with deep shank stoolies
found out.
And in the street, screeching cats chasing
each other
up inscrutable telephone poles.
That car up on blocks like a tall man's last
ride
out of town.
Tunic Tumbled
There is a need to know that the barbarous
lick their wound too,
that the wretch in vile silences finds a
noise to clamor despicable minds.
Each barb of the tongue raised and ripping at
stinking flesh,
couched miseries presupposed in a mutinied
whipping boy darkness.
Cat-'o-nine-tails! – your thrice-wound
bellies of undimmable feast and flog.
Doubled over and sweat through comfortless
cushions, jugular diving
pillow on the kink, digging for those
well-barnacled miseries that
soon find themselves attached to every man of
moods. Not that one
sees the others: for that is the crutch of
the blinding principle,
fruitless earth-mole scavenge. Ticks
and spasms – this faltering foul
earthquake of a man.
3:20 am
3:20 am
and I am already
drinking.
Releasing farts
from a slow bodily
prison.
Watching the dark
turn into dark,
a living wage
I am told.
Chiggers
through the berry-bush
and a plunged toilet
brought back to life.
Some first of the month
off-site tyrant
with a hellhound beard
that chews at the
scraggly fabric.
And a warped shoe mat
by the door
with winter salt
calcified imprints
and broken
laces.
Poverty
never leaves
you.
True as Raman noodles
brought to boil.
Like a roommate
that demands ice
in the icebox
and a bed
by the failing
heater.
A History of Quick Goodbyes
That tarantula of chemtrails
could be making spiders of my nerves,
could be walking banana boxes back to father
produce,
in denim dive, on chain link lean,
flicking comets into the bearded lady street.
Those turning wheels of the child welfare
van,
nothing but a history of quick goodbyes:
how many does it take to make an exodus?
The palmist with the broken orbital bone
says I'm in for one hell of a purpling,
whatever that means.
Could be a false flag floozy,
could be rattails over wheels of cheese,
over panners of gold, trying to beat the
amber,
another bottle when what you really need is
sleep.
Fernando's Comb
Fernando kept his comb in the interior pocket
of his jacket.
The exterior pockets were an easy invitation
to pickpockets,
where foolish change purses and balls of wet
tissue resided.
The important things had to be tucked away,
like this comb Fernando
had cherished since childhood. It was a
last link, held everything together.
Its black broad spine was reassuring.
Fernando could feel it's sturdiness
in the craftmanship, the angular grooves in
the right places.
Its smooth black body over the raised
stippling of his oily pores.
Some people hummed to themselves to provide
comfort,
for Fernando, it was heartening to pull the
comb out and run
his fingers across the bristles. It
gave him a moment to assess
the situation, know the people, map the
places in his head.
And that crafted nest of hair, the feeling of
the comb through
each follicle, teeth across his tingling
scalp. Leaving tiny bits of himself
everywhere, to be discovered by those that
noticed just as he did.
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