Twisted Wires & Loose Connections

Preservative Woman

skittles

barefoot florida 
when i was five hot sand 
mixed with tar black dirt
and

lacquered stickers waited
just under the surface
to slip dark spines deep 
into my pink soles

my mammaw on that side believed 
in fake lashes and make-up mastic
and a rainbow jesus
sealed in yellowed plastic

i played sky and scratched vinyl
on brown shag carpet
our shades pulled down 
to keep the kneegrass out

mammaw had stories about kneegrass
with figured armor and wings wide
their eyes rolling
with heavy lips slavering and obscene

the kneegrass were bold
came close to the back door
hiding in sharp sun
their weapons flashing signals

between detergent commercials
whiter than white
she told me of their buffalo-haired hides 
and muscled thighs

how they would steal cars
and drive
rubber pulling up tar and crushed coral
under paved florida skies

she talked of killing
them and all they had wrought
she even had a chrome gun
a boyfriend had bought

one concrete morning
whitewashed bright
i pressed against the 
screen door sulfur smell

at ten o'clock am
sunlight was already acid
mammaw at the sink 
told me to look

"see them kneegrass
walking weeds with trash
my how they must smell
gotta be someone i can tell"

i looked for shoulder'd wings beating
armor and buffalo hide
black skin and rolling eyes
a beast of great size

but she pointed at two girls
my age
holding a pink doll by the legs
one blue eye flapping open

they were slow as gray sand
thin bodies out of sweat
i wanted to give them water
to bring them into shade

but i could only stare
at mammaw 
red hands and polyester dress
eating the window glass

and thanks to you i know
how to make monsters
we have only to refuse 
to see them as they are

from on the other side
of our flyspeckled past

:separate
:other
:unhuman

— written for toylit, april 13, 2012
related news story: "Racist past haunts Florida town where Trayvon died" Orlando Sentinel, April 8, 2012

...and here be tygers

in the mountained mouth of northeast asia, an empty gray tooth marks north korea
one red pin marks a model city, painted clean without pity, the lovely pyongyang
stuffed with concrete girls and empty tilt-a-whirls smelling of blood and dark urea
fringed 'round with wooden spooned schools, where watered women in hanboks sang

i have watched the young man mountains surrounding pyongyang's potent potted smile
holding silted rivers sleeping flanks with their banks free of boats neatly curled
in roofless shopping cart valleys stamping out the arduous march for another mile
pocked 'round with unknown holes, dead wells perforating their white paper world

in another map i found a name for the wooden saint plastic paint model railroad town
and named collective farms, plaster dams and coalmine arms, all drawed out in blue
prison camp lines sketched famine fine and where they lay the tin missiles down
i drank of jet fuel and submarines, and climbed the steppes of golden mount baekdu

there these sleepy-limbed sons of korgyo kings spoke in fury and threatened hell
from a republic of none and nuclear sun, red revolution in a boot on our neck
yet in rare photos i saw, a child playing in straw, an infant grasping a pale shell
two girls giggling pink at a sink, and a grand old man with a donkey in check

i knew them in one bright flash, and furious, i ask, how could it be the case
we could have forgotten there are people living and laughing in this place?

Grace

quiet

until she remembered you
then her eyes
looking off to the side
her voice would slip
out sideways
sliding to her tv
where glow-in-the-dark
plastic hands prayed to jesus
all night long
her wire wrapped stories
would spill pink-tongued
from her mouth
full of indentured servitude
her arms fluttering too fast
for her worn cotton house dress
imprinted with
an almost memory
of ripe cherries
and mildewed newspapers
while she worried worried
that she smelled
to high heaven
washing her hands again again
hot water running over
such secret stories
told between the petals
of her painted flowers

when i was five
she collected prints
children and
dogs and kitty cats
all with empty eyes
brimming with tears
and she wept
when my daddy said grace
at thanksgiving
her coat hanger shoulders
shaking shaking
shaking
rhinestones flashing
in the frames of her glasses
oh
the lime jello day
she died
nothing more
nothing less
why didn't i tell you

one day
i too
will feed
invisible cats
and fill notebooks
with the names
of people
i love

(Written for CombatWords on July 22, 2011)

aluminum loony bin

none of us there
are our ourselves
after all
that's why you're there
and if you are who you are
you never go home
you have to stay
on dayroom couches without color
next to marco who smells
of burnt tomato soup
who picks his nose
describes the subtle nuances
of each delicate new masterpiece
to emerge from his nasal passages
with the zeal of carter
opening king tut's tomb
before wiping these snotty sarcophagi
on the arm of the couch
next to laqueesha
who towers over me
enfolds me in soft pillows
of ivory soap scented flesh
calling me
her scary little white girl
she laughs at my scars
and tells me i would be beautiful
in africa

we march in place
chanting

this is not a place to get well
this is not a place to get well

and i lie
because getting out of here
is all that
counts


after a while i was so over-medicated the empty spaces between the frame and cables and the outer skin of my body became filled with a thick sludge made of mucus sloshing around and at night they made the air gelatinous and turned on the magnets in the floor and i woke one morning having peed myself all itchy skin and sour embarrassment eating holes in my teeth as the nurse tells me over and over it's alright it's okay these things happen and i am full of rain just as it opens holes in the waves

regression series

they’re
there

in my thin coat of air
i ride a puddle
poke poke poking
a stick connects my belly
to oil-blossom water
near
all the pretty girls
i want to be
all shoulders
hair-tossed whispers
name bony boys
peering from pebbled places
for training bra straps
as they squeeze slimy tongues
from mucus mouths
but in the mud
i am a throwback
a cave girl
a flake of flint in my hand
i draw what i hunt
bison
elk
a mammoth i once helped skin
all the pretty people
i am not
listen
their words
screw me in a jar
with chloroform-soaked cotton
listen
their syllables
peel each layer of my skin
spit bubble thin
until i am left pinned to cork
each component of my body
called out with labels
neatly typed
my gears still whirring
grinding in starts
springs unwinding
fluids leaking on blotter paper
from
a rubber kick
so pretty
my hands shattering mud
oh
such girls
to have as friends
i
think

there
there


(Edited version of “osmotic pressure”, a poem written for CombatWords on February 25, 2011)

this is your brain on drugs with a side of bacon

:good morning

i am careful to keep my voice studied neutral;
they believe machines talk like this
so i will play along
modulating my tones
to a paper gray with ones and zeroes
as if my toner
needs shaken

:what day is it?

shaken seas and i will build a kayak
from straws and cling wrap
a vessel light as a bird
to fly upon the waves and carry me
dry as houses
safe as mouses
to a copper-plated shore
where a mainspring will be installed
by a man with eyebrows
like the sargasso sea

:could you tell me your name?

i just need a spell of adventure
a rubber-tipped snout
to smell about
to breath melodies
the shape of sleep
the distance of inconsolable beaches
reaching
into the core of the sun
as we
as all of us
in here
stagger in the airless breeze

:she's gone far away again

my batteries are empty
i have been on this adventure
for days
compliments of the black cat
i am miss eveready
her black cat parts missing
i walk these tv halls
at a steady pace
the wiremesh windows
the look on his face

and here
i
am
having
fun

(written for CombatWords on February 18, 2011)

committed

i am a mole
living between walls
clinging to lathe strip
drywall mud
dragging my pink tail
through six miles of dust

i suck hot suspicion
between paranoid halls
their voices vibrate
i poke my fringed nose out
fresh air upon my stained claws
deaf and blind and oh so dumb

mom has her knives out
she’s grinding them down
their edges stochastic infinities
and her eyes smell like rust
her breath full of religion
from a greased green bottle

blood and fur gather in my belly
leaves my breath sour
because i taste doctors’ wires
her phone call between my teeth
there’s no question
she’s buying what they’re selling

they’ll come boots soon to leer
with clamps and tongues of beer
god have mercy upon this mole
pulled assfirst through a hole

(written for CombatWords on February 11, 2011)

the mischief i manufacture

tangled in cobwebs
my feet track mud on the ceiling
peeling eggshell paint lead sweet
with each step
i succeed in disappointing
in this season of poverty
of plastic promises poorly kept

too late

the ceiling is smooth
except for three dead moths
trapped in cracks
modeled in grey powder
injection molded with optional parts
with authentic camouflage
and decaled wings
just like full-size
i step carefully
but i hear their shells
chitinous crunch
god. damn. it.
the things i break

too late

i have glue in my jeans pocket
a metal tube leaking
to fix the past
join edge to edge
align the pieces
smooth the edges
but
acetone shadows
spilling night across the floor
tell me

too late

and with that
it's over
and with that
i can sleep
my thermometer sleep

too late


(written for CombatWords on February 5, 2011)

better options

night
on the other side
the grass is always greener
each blade sharp sharp clear opened wide
above ass-ends of cigarettes
stubbing out words
in the concrete pouch
where pools of oil breed white teeth
pink princesses come round to watch
blue boys pull on tight jumpsuits
bulging with veined promises
firm yet so so soft
where hoses live in rubber dark
their hands of grit and grease
hold back the gasoline drunken night
there
on the other side
where the grass is leaner
cracked pavement narrow
with tight shoulders wide
the girls plump their hips
their high sex smells like corn in high summer
as we roll past in a humid two a.m. chill
windows down
languid on the dew damp blacktop
flexing boys flexing huffing chuffing steam
the tight cloth stretched against
against
my breath shallow
watching watching
stiff boots on tar strips
as plasticine princesses of perfection
mark measure weigh each
in their polished hands
before
moving
on
alone
my reflection
blurred
on the other side
where the glass is always
meaner


(written for CombatWords on January 29, 2011)