Topical

Topical 12/7

There are these faces and these eyes and we look into them every day
We never understand what they mean

I’m watching the news and they are talking about war and tax cuts and Elizabeth Edwards and the x y z of the x y z and I’m thinking about how far I could throw a television out a window

And what movie staring Robert Downey Jr. I want to see this year

These faces communicate even less but we feel more somehow
And we never understand what this means

Maybe it means that Robert Downey Jr. is somehow very important and the diseases and the wars and the xyz of the xyz are blips on the radar that is everyday or maybe that television should be thrown away

Plump

Plump 12/6

Opening – the press
            of trunks
becomes
oppression of space

All that air –
            filling
everything

Multiserver

Multiserver 12/5

A finger in a jar
bends at the knuckle
in its liquid home
wrapped in amber
some mosquito in a movie
it bends then flexes
its nail grown horribly long

The skeleton of the hand
hangs in a museum across town
‘This is the hand
of saint so-and-so-and…
who was…
then left for…
the halls of that place
are haunted still’

What was left of the body
was buried in a hole
in a field behind a house
somewhere unknown
there was no marker
and there were only
two people who knew
and both of them are in
some holes of their own

Especial

Especial 12/4

On that shelf in that bottle is this dark liquid that was made 200 years ago it smells like smoke and fire and alcohol and the shavings from piñon wood it was originally meant to be a cure all a sort of snake oil something to be sold from the back of a cart by a man with a booming voice and a red coat on maybe there was an invalid who suddenly could walk and see and feel again after tasting the salty water that might have had something else in it but mostly it was water and ash and some charcoal and maybe a bit of juniper and now this bottle won’t open and the stuff has condensed until it is thick like oil like tar like molasses and it actually might do something for you now might actually cure it all it might even take away pain hell it could kill you

Skank

Skank 12/3

– could take your money – all your worth
is in that wallet

            by the bedside – with a watch
your cell – bet I could sell that

to the papers – sure someone would care
for the affirmation of your taste in men

– could print those dirty photos – your
almost famous face

            break those hearts of those
starlets – bet she’s a lesbian anyway –

that’s why she keeps with the guys who
vanish – seen it before really it’s all so

typical of your type –

young and stupid and rich

– could take you for so much – already
have – I get to sleep here

            there’s that – I don’t see
starlets in here – and my photos in your

expensive phone which makes me some
sort of lady of the manor or something

            and you let me hold that award
while I fuck you

Nitramine

Nitramine 12/2

Got this 5 day load – got this dynamite in your hand

Reserve

Reserve 12/1

Kiss me but
don’t move your hand south of the border

I want to remember your face like this
eyes discovering me

The first man on shore in the New World
on the surface of the moon

I want to
remember the wanting before we forget