Apparitor

Happy Halloween everyone!


Apparitor (Pope Lick Monster) 10/31

Right-hand man of the devil
evil goat demon thing with
slick-backed hair and hooves

Jump from high on the trellis
as the train comes and you
can leap through the window

Into another universe into
a space between heaven and
hell and maybe that’s the point

Maybe he is taking souls
is stealing people from Kentucky
for some evil purpose

Or maybe it’s all made up
a myth written down on paper
and in the minds of man

Ghoulish

Ghoulish (Jersey Devil) 10/30

She is pushing and she is moaning and she is in pain and it is her 13th child and she is swearing to the heavens and to hell and the baby’s head is bald and red and shaped like a horse with two deep black soulless eyes and then a neck and arms and it has hooves and wings and is covered in wiry black hair

It makes a sound like nails on metal on chalkboards wet shoes on linoleum and grabs its mother by the leg and bites into her ankles and suckles blood like milk and the doctors are speechless and the mother is screaming and the universe tilts out the wrong way for a moment before it crashes through a window and into the sky

Parathyroid

Parathyroid (Con Rit) 10/29

And all things that fall fall into the gyre of river beneath the Tower Bridge and spin for eternity plus your age when you first felt sea salt in your hair

The great lymphatic system of the continent stucks itself at the Thames Barrier and newspapers collect until they are putty against the metallic sails

Up and down go the footsteps and the small waves of high and low tide reek with gray a dog plays in the lines between water and sand

Another is a head only in surf and it rises and falls becomes a thing unlike dog is serpent is giant and menacing will come up to London and eat

Regurgitate

Regurgitate (Dover Demon) 10/28

where
            am
                        I

I            was walking

and then
            here

with these fleshy            men
walking
                        pouring
light from
                        wheeled
machines
            what is
                        that
noise
                        who
            am
I
if I am not
            where I was
where I            know

Backlist

Backlist (Chickcharney) 10/27

& on the rocky path I will meet you furry-legged and nodding

& if I treat you well I will be blessed with good tidings and fortune

& if I mis-treat you a fog will lower on my life and my eyes will fade

like lights along the east river at daybreak

like rusting wires on the tracks in Altoona

I will melt into history and never be thought about

Consume

Consume (Kongamato) 10/26

The universe is a broth
spilling from the open beaks of giant storks

We are but bits of meat
floating in the periphery of such beasts

Remember when you were a child
and you wished you could live with dinosaurs?

Here is a target painted on your chest
and a rope to hang yourself with

Loop it over the pick of the bird’s beak
and knot it under your apple

What flavor is the universe?
mostly dark and reeking of the Cretaceous

The scent of asphalt bubbling
and the call of seagulls off the coasts of Africa

Duplicate

Duplicate (Flying Rod) 10/25

And in the sky the parachutes are falling
like seed pods in September

Across the clouds a blurring line of light
a plane and a flock of birds

It is a dragon a fish of the air

It is the drama of things you don’t understand