Little Metal Four-Legged Bug Avec Deux Grandes Pinces
Sitting alone in the corner,
your body a red canister below wings forever frozen,
your pinchers raised, ready to fight.
Sitting alone in the corner,
your body a red canister below wings forever frozen,
your pinchers raised, ready to fight.
In a deep ditch
Of a stream
Folded up
in a field beside a barn’s wall
Like a Raggedy Ann doll,
A doe,
Collapsed..blood oozing out of her mouth
Headed for healing waters.
Dead—–
Over the road bank
Beside a stream
Heaped up
beside a wrecked truck’s open door
Like a Raggedy Andy doll,
A brother,
Neck boken–blood oozing out of his mouth
Headed for healing doctors
Dead—.
In my dreams, a meteorite breaks my way, says Rock.
She sings like a statue. She laughs like a mountain.
When I wake, she goes back to the world she came from.
In my dreams, calculations cover me, says Paper.
They tell a story that ends with men
handing my green friends to other men.
In my dreams, I cut paper, says Scissors,
into the shape of my mother, blades far apart,
Doctor, doing a karate move called a scissors kick.
Having
been paid in cash,
he wasn’t eligible for workers’ compensation
from being injured falling off a ladder.
Rent became unaffordable.
He moved
into a shared a room.
Who drank my milk, ate my food?
He left.
Moved in
with his sister til she COVID lost her job.
Not wanting to be a burden ,
he moved out.
Slept
in his van until it got towed
due to unpaid parking tickets.
Found
an encampment.
For most of the drive there are nothing but fields of soybean and corn that stretch beyond the horizon.
The landscape is peppered with farmhouses and billboards reminding me when life begins and that the end is near.
Whoever says the world isn’t flat has clearly never been here before.
I light a cigarette and inhale as deeply as my lungs will allow. Taking in as much nicotine as possible so that I can stay awake as the scenery rolls on like ending credits.
There is a buffer between us now.
At least three hours of distance.
My departure is a defiant and gorgeous act of resistance.
As this bullet speeds forward, cutting the wind with abandon, barreling toward the unknown I whisper a prayer for you.
Maybe you’ll get out too.
Although my hips may not agree, nothing tastes better than Kentucky cooking
biscuits cut, smothered in gravy
tomatoes sliced, baked into pie
turkey, bacon stacked as hot brown
pimentos spiced into balls of cheese
peaches canned by a friend’s mother
tea so sweet, it makes my teeth ache
smoked oak inhaled in old-fashioned
cobs of corn pepper pans of bread
green beans snipped on porches
ham hocks simmered for burgoo
beans I don’t set and never will
potatoes sliced thin, fried with bacon
apples from orchards, cinnamon spiced
sausage rolled, baked into balls
cream cheese, powdered sugar
swirl within pumpkin rolls
barbecue brisket melts on the tongue
but devil an egg and you’ve got
me for life
Unless you are personally being abused,
immersing your mind and heart
in the hatred of others
and mocking/celebrating
the death
of another
living
entity
however corrupt the system
is choosing
to be part of that system
climbing into a
submersible
to its dark,
wet,
demise.
Fire:
A) your eye begins to see the smoke
there is no flame
only the left over smudge
of yesterday’s burn
now a mere horizontal smog
B) all those sexual fits
as if it was the most important
thing in life
being vertical
being released from certain
tensions being being being
a spent bean
buried in dirt
C) the radio says the fire
crews have been called off,
river fog was enough,
from the front porch you cling
to logos & comedy
think of all the Becketts
who dwell on Blue Lick Pike
If you’re tempted to commit suicide,
a friend once told me, you can always
just vanish.
Ah, I said, but I lost my magic wand.
Not that kind of vanishing, dumbass.
I mean just move away, across
the country maybe, where no one knows
how fucked up you are, where you can
disappear in the crowd. If you do it right,
no one can find you. After a while
they’ll stop looking for you, they’ll forget
all about you. It’ll be like you never existed.
My parents wouldn’t forget, I said.
They would never stop looking for me.
Don’t flatter yourself.
Eventually you’d be dead to them,
as dead as if you pulled the trigger.
But living the rest of my life
among strangers! It doesn’t seem—
They won’t always be strangers.
You’ll have a new name, a new hairstyle,
a new wardrobe. Become someone else.
Remember what Rilke said.
What did Rilke say?
You can change your life.
Killing myself would be a lot less work.
But who is it you’re killing yourself
for? It’s not for you.
Who is it for, then?
You know who. It’s for them.
And you know what, fuck them.
Sure, you’re a mess. Sure, you’re making
their lives miserable. But let all that go.
Just pick up your shit and get out of town.
You don’t know where you’ll end up,
but at least you’ll be alive.
