schweinefleisch

 When Jimothy was a fat kid, he didn’t get made fun of at school. This might have been because he was funny or because he was ale to beat someone down with his heft. In reality, he probably only looked like he was able to beat someone down with his heft. The day he went to the doctor and they told him that he was over 100lbs, he felt weird shame about it. He didn’t cry or anything, but he felt guilty for a good day or so. After that, he went back to Salisbury steak during lunch, including potatoes and gravy.[i] He increased in size as the years went by, bench marks of various kinds passing as he aged. He graduated from elementary school as a double chin was starting to develop, reveled in mathematics as he grew into a size 40 jean, and had some trouble fitting into the chair/ desks in college. He fluctuated a bit after that, but remained mostly the same size as he was when about 23. His size and physical description had very little to do with his life otherwise.

Sometimes Jimothy did not feel very sexy, though. When he masturbated, he would close his eyes very tightly and massage his buttocks so that he could get a sense of what life might be like when touching another cohabitant of the material plane. He did his best to keep a tidy workspace, so to speak, tissues at the ready, nary a wad or loose thread to be found strewn about. Other than these moments, his acquaintance with his body was nil. In the shower, he spent hurried moments rinsing and lathering and rinsing again for purely perfunctory reasons. There was no pleasure in the act of bathing as there might have been in, for example, a Dove commercial wherein the model lavishes herself with a plastic loofa sponge. Jimothy tried not to think about this when he masturbated.

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[i] To be fair to the lunch ladies, it’s important to note that it can be tough to try pleasing the palates and appetites of a school’s worth of idiot children seeking food and know-how.

Letter to my Mortician

If I had the ability, I would apologize for the smear I have left on your steel table. But, since I do not have the ability to give voice to my inclinations at this time, I will lay patient while you perform the task that you have taken on, in service of this body, which I used to inhabit.

Every dead cell you manipulate into position is grateful and yielding. They thank you. I thank you, inasmuch that I am able. My mouth is wired to a gentle smile, restful.

Tubes drain me of blood and various waters. Tubes fill me to brimming with the substances that will preserve this flesh. A kind of simulated plumpness ensues, which belies my distinct lack of motion and life. Disinfectant permeates all, for your protection. Though I would have wished to be stuffed with dried flowers and herbs, I cannot begrudge convention, especially given my current state.

What meaning would my life have had to you if I were meeting you just a few weeks ago? This husk, this slough house, a vehicle of bile and putrid phlegm would have been a conduit of love and ideation. But, the bloat you slit is not the seat of my intuition. It smells like a dead fart. Thank you for expressing the contents.

The years I had were bright and warm and beautiful. If only I had chosen cremation.

The Desert Witch Iterates Herself

“I do not live in this hole in the ground, I live in this body which floats very near to but slightly above the ground… for clarity, I should iterate that I am not truly contacting the ground with my bare feet inasmuch as I am simply not capable of such. None of us are. This fact is not supernatural, mostly philosophical, but I use this as a method by which I gain meaning from my life. I do not twist in this wind, for I am not the thing that the wind twists, though I sense it.

“Furthermore, the distinctions between sensation and being, yes they are discrete, but they are so often lumped together. The thought:  ‘What I sense is a direct result of my personhood.’ and:  ‘What I sense is the only truth.’

“No, I say. The sensate ‘demi-self’ is the version of you that lives hungry and twisting in the gully of your throat. One’s own self is divorced from the display or the signifiers of ‘self,’ amorphous, odorless, without mass or temperature. I, myself, my self, live(s) in here,” she touches her breast, “where the pumping blood and the wisp of my soul present one another with facts about their existences.”

She tilts her chin toward the rocky outcropping in the distance, where the dust from the desert obscures finer details. Wordlessly, she goes.

the Excise Chamber

Kid, do you know anything about science?

I've done everything I could possibly do to educate you about the ways of science, but you have proven to be a useless pupil. This is unfortunate because everyone had such high hopes for you. No such luck, babycakes. No suck luck for you. There is only one option, and that is to the Excise Chamber. I'll send your pineal gland off to the pet store.

It was time for you to be reincorporated into our lovely little group but you did not appreciate the rigors of our rites du payssage and, as such, you will need to be jettisoned. Kablooey. I have to admit that there were times, little guy, when I had such good faith in your ability to thrive. But there is nothing left for you except, yes, the Excise Chamber. Quit shivering like a gelatin.

You understand our precepts and processes, but you fail continually to abide, little hellion. Now please enjoy your disincorporation, by which I mean that you will be separated from your body directly, kitten. Posthaste.

The Excise Chamber, the room located directly below us here, is dank and full of insects which will bite you. This is the Tenderization phase in which the little creatures will cause your little bits of skin to become like gel, so that our instruments might navigate underneath. This is all in the name of what we stand for, which you have not stood for since you were able to shake away the amnion. I apologize, but I am required continually to remind you of your intense transgression. This seldom happens and it comes as a surprise to us. But the Excise Chamber exists for a reason, and you will see your torturous voice piped out through the vents just in the corner. From here we will monitor and know.

Day one

The air was dense as though an instance of disruption, such as a spark, could set all of the air on fire. The mouths of people, the lungs, filing suddenly with heat and plasma as the chain reaction sets the whole world alight.
But why? Why did we bask unaware in this sense air? Was it apathy or stupidity? It was some slight at the dinner table which caused mother's hackles to raise like an ocelot perched on an electrical wire. Some question gets raised regarding gratitude/ingratitude and the world proceeds to melt with gnashing and pissing.
She cleared the plates in silence, resenting everyone and wishing for great harm.
In the shower, she turned the water suddenly hot so that she could fill the room with steam and breathe it in deeply. She was breathing and applying soap to herself, rinsing with the singing rag and a very red hand, massaging the gingerly aching joints.
When she was finished, she was burnished and pleased. She lay in bed, drying her body and sensing the greatness that was to be bestowed on her in due course. The pictures on the wall displeased her and she recognized her superiority to them, nodding and stretching. What possibilities did she not have?
After breakfast, she sipped hot, black coffee. She did this not because she needed something with caffeine, nor because she enjoyed the heat/coffee flavor sensations. She most enjoyed expunging th flavors of breakfast from her mouth. Any time she had eaten, there was an opportunity for her breath to distract her. She disliked having the flavor of food already eaten in her mouth. This was not an empathy response such as, "I cannot expose another being to my garlic breath." She simply required her mouth to be clean at all times regardless of nourishment taken in.
Macaroons most acutely elicited this response. She used mint chewing gum to counteract the confection which stung the back of her throat. She ached slightly in her molars and tonsils.
She brushed her hair out to silken smooth and hung her highly-draped garments on her shoulders. She belted her caftan and put on a wide-brimmed hat and a felt poncho. Last, a silver ring in which was set a point of quartz, fitted perfectly on her left index finger.
At the office, she was known for her sharp tongue, which contrasted her friendly and slightly "floaty" demeanor otherwise. The Art Department knew her reputation and felt by turns guarded respect and resentment for her. She sat at her desk, lavishing her mouth with maroon lipstick. She pressed her lips together with a smack and blotted them on a tissue. She laughed.

Baby exists in a vacuum

Baby exists in a vacuum.
She is a projection of all her
mommy's
and poppy's
hopes and dreams of her well being.

They do not expect for Baby to have scurvy.
They do not expect for Baby to be a dancer at the thong ballet.
They do not expect for Baby to be a little boy.
They do not expect for Baby to go die in the bracken.

They feed Baby an orange
They feed Baby a cracker
They feed Baby an apple
They feed Baby a cracker
They feed Baby an eggshell
They feed Baby a bird
They feed Baby an orange
They feed Baby to lions

Poppy, give Baby this tiny wool bear
Poppy, give Baby a set of plastic keys
Mommy, give Baby a book full of kittens
Mommy, give Baby this blanket and bedspread

Baby exists in a vacuum.
Mommy, Poppy, teach Baby how to be alive
Poppy, Poppy, inscribe meaning for every utterance
Mommy, Mommy, make Baby into a cake

Baby, make Mommy lurch for survival
Baby, make Poppy spit up his bile

Swat at the hand that reaches for the hot thing
After her feces, please wash up the linen
Do not take milk baths, do not have sex
Do not make cookies, do not buy pets.
Feed Baby Feed Baby Feed Baby an orange
Feed Baby a cracker
Feed Baby a cracker, feed Baby a cracker

Feed Baby to wolves
Feed Baby to lions
Feed Baby to a pig
Feed Baby to cops
Give Baby a tazer
Give Baby some mace
Give Baby a dolly and dresses and lace

False Start

The sky was harsh and bright blue, nearly white at that hour. I stopped to look at the sky and imagine the relief of a shadow from a cloud or bird passing overhead. Light beat down on me with its full weight, sinking between each cotton fiber and bathing me in heat. Any movement could make my skin touch the heat from my heavy clothing, singeing and clinging. There was no relief from it. There was no life no heaven or respite. I could not possibly be the broad sweeping ocean that I intended myself to be. I was lost as a gull, drowned eight miles off the coast. That gull, at least, had the pleasure of bathing in a cool sea of salt and life. Here there was concrete and dampness only from the salt within. The salt of life creeping out from the wringing of the heat.

wolf (erasure)

The distance is illusory, certain, quiet.
It takes you secret, selfish, connecting.
Foolish nothing:  fools laugh of sugar and knowing.
Curel naivete, unfair knowing.
Embedded and phantom, balloon.
My younger self is illusory.
Look, dear, it is impossible to see.
Clumsily.
We sip cool water to do something.
To say nothing.
This latent heat in a gesture.
We are, presently, exhausted.

Virginia Woolf talks about love

http://ahorsenamedfroufrou.blogspot.com/2010/07/virginia-woolf-talks-about-love.html

throat [erasure]

I open, I want

to issue from my mouth

like a scent

memory to a nostril

I think, I build

silent mountains from air;

[draw] water from oceans

of [cellophane]

[facsimile]

I coat my throat

with honey, aching

with gravel and hurt

babbling [clay] proxy

homonculous:

[which language do you speak?

[do you speak to me]

rest, rest

[I shed, I cloud

[over gray overcast

[fishing for affection,

[frothing and aware]

gullet

coating my throat with honey

after shouting across the canyon

you find a small instance of gravel

in the viscous

in the fire

in the tooth you extract

with your bare knuckles

like mussels you open

sweet meat, organ

in broth you sop with a crust

and you wonder why

you, the magic babbling inventor

did not tie a tin can to a string

to my ear to my mouth to

stretch across the canyon

I shouted across the canyon

on a string

The Bull

Come at me.
Silly man in sequined trousers.
You stand over there, prance around, talk your complex words,
taking your uprightness, your bipedal bounce for convention, regarding it as superiority.

Come at me.
I'll be the king of your circle of dirt. Wave around your stupid cape.
I want to rip your ass to shreds do not discount me don't you dare.
I do not dare to eat you, for I am an herbivore, but I will stamp you to a mash with these hooves.
Fuck you.

Your friends are fags.
Come at me, coward!
Do you need to signal the path to my brain with little tusks?
Pull out your stupid little epee and brandish it with your prissy hand.
I'm tired but I'm not dead.

Your puntillero will get the last bits of me. I will breathe my curse into his face. He will dream of my gore tonight, and my meat will feed hungry men.
Hooray for your triumph over this beast. This is my last paseo.
Ole, motherfucker.

the shipwreck and the beachcomber

I will be the shipwreck if you will be the beachcomber
who, bewildered, would pick up the wood
blown onto the beach
and see gemstones and gold coins
and bottles of dried exotic herbs
and place them in your pocket,
unsure of their names but understanding their value
as "precious" or "special"
as I sit, shipwrecked, under the surface
spilling my glut into open water
several miles out.

Every day you collect the wood
from my shipwreck,
placing the plank fragments the wire basket
in the crook of your arm and stacking
only as much as you can carry in one trip
only as much as you need for a night.

The treasures you find find their way
onto your windowsill, peering out at the seafoam
or peering in at you as you peer through the gem
translucence, seeing yourself reflected in the facets.

You burn the wood
in your wood burning stove
and you curl around the fire you make
with your afghan around you at night.

Fish populate me.

The warmonger and the beast of burden having a battle of wills

I will eat the sun.
I will eat the sun and the moon.
I will eat the sun and the moon and all of my grandchildren.

the boy with a hole in his stomach, again

The boy with a hole in his stomach, Noe, wound a tuft of wool up, dunking it into hot and cold water alternately to make it into a felt ball. He rolled it around in his hand until he got tired of doing that.
The gray lamb sat next to him and asked him politely to kiss it on the mouth. The boy with a hole in his stomach, Noe, did not see a mouth on the tiny ball of felt, but the gray lamb persisted:

"Make one if you didn't have the foresight to make one already."

The gray lamb nosed at the dirt distractedly. These kind of things happen, of course. "Best to not feel too badly." Noe did not sense that the lamb very much cared about how he was feeling, but he kissed the tiny ball of felt anyhow. With a fecund little pop, the ball of felt opened into a flower, shedding pollen on his nose. He didn't have allergies, so he didn't sneeze. He was slightly grateful for that, but he wondered why the gray lamb asked him to kiss the felt ball. The gray lamb didn't really have a reason probably, and it was walking away into the woods, where it lived. It was dangerous to follow, so Noe placed the flower into the hole of his stomach and sat on the ground until the sun rose.

He didn't stay awake the whole time, but he instantly forgave himself for drifting off. He walked home in the wee hours of the morning, when it was blue and the leaves clicked together delicately with hard frost. Noe was not cold, since he had worn mittens. He did not need to stop for tea, but he began making breakfast the moment he got home as the walk had made him hungry.
He always missed his parents, like most adults who are made into orphans during their 30somethings, but for whatever reason Noe seemed to be thinking about them more at present. He felt a hollow forming in his heart, like usual, but he was disturbed to find no thread of thought that had led him to reminisce like this.

He found himself, once again, without context, which gave little punch to his emotions or actions. He sat on the couch, eating his perfectly runny eggs with toast and jam, deflated.

my poetry is a lot like my eyes

one stares straight ahead and one drifts to the left

if you try to hold a snake
it will wriggle out of your grip

if you move your hands over the snake
as it slides in a direction, it will go nowhere
while moving constantly near you always

trying to always slither away into some dark over there

sucker

do you love me or the memory of me

when you slap theatrically at mosquitoes when they bite your neck or the small of your wrists

and ankles in the grass

Pitching a tent in the wilderness

underneath a wild switchbush full of thorny bramble and hairs of stinging nettle or fiddlehead ferns that are edible but difficult to know how to cook due to unorthodoxy

Oh my god:  leave me alone

have a sandwich when you look at me

don’t tell me a story about sandwiches

don’t say anything to me that you have already said

keep it fresh, keep it fresh

the sandwich do not go to the beach

to the sand

strand, where the beachcombers go to look for gems and shells

from shipwrecked mollusks (the dead, the dead)

eat me by the water in small gulps under the sodden logs and planks full of lichen and barnacle

scratching at naked thighs like a clam on my naked thighs

gore

nose your supple proboscis into my ear and, ductile, make it swim in the folds

the folds

of my brain which are sodden with sex

memory and sex

dreams of the beach and your sandwiches

and the last effigy of your self worth

that you sacrifice at my feet, Raymond Cline.

I don’t hate you because I refuse to hate everyone. I refuse to hate anyone. It isn’t a special designation. Do not become a delusion of grandeur, please. You possess no virtue. You possess no virtues.

Who are you, with no hair, to wear the comb I bought for you with the money I got from the watch you bought the chain you sold your hair for.

IT isn’t enough ever, more is required.

You aren’t what you claim

you aren’t what you declaim

you aren’t what you claim

to be or to possess, that is.

Detritus

I lied when I told you that I ate the bursslees sprouts

unheimlech

don't look away
       look away
       look away

When you were laying in bed I was burning tiny holes in the sheets with a lit cigarette

Hello darlings,
Where are your cavalcades and/or your legions of menfolk who, which know what is there and has happened to amongst things where the other where the other where the other

Indicate the ininfinite possibilities of my personhood until which point you have not got a thing a thing a thing a thing a thing a thing a thing

I am made of 20 peaches
your cast iron skillet is full of grease
Do not eat anything. Eat nothing. Don't eat a thing.
When you look at me, please make every effort to hate me.
Catch a whiff of my hair and hug me from behind.
Let me wear you like a coat.
Drop and give me eighty.
Realize your organ. It pumps blood throughout you.

"engaging in a fantasy" carrot cake
add thyme, fresh ginger, cinnamon

Mercy

mercy is the promise of power unexherted
an inexorability which is not exercised
and maintains supple ligaments in the gentle hand

you
fold your arms sagely and nod at pissants
who live at your discretion and fold
away at your whim

sip a cup of herbal tea and know you can destroy me
but you don't because you love me
but you don't because you're amused
but you don't
and you show me mercy

the mercy of a benevolent creator that could blot me out
with the swiftness of a thumb
as an ant on the pavement
but you don't

you are a lamb who goes carrying thumbscrews in your mouth
weaving blowtorches into your fleece
and crushing flowers under your cloven feet