I’d like to eat some eyes
scalp a head or two
napalm New York L.A. or Kankakee.
When my guts are brick I’d like to throw them
at the window pane of America
because I’ve been sucked inside out and I’m delicate
about fences housing projects barbed wire
welfare gross national products unemployment and my crotch.
Sensitized inside out to the color of Elsie’s pure products
I’d like to put hand grenades in milk bottles
so corn flakes would rip their heads off.
I’d like to defoliate central park so it would look like home.
I’d like to deflower new jersey (though it’s been done)
I’d like to denounce kansas
make window bricks from red neck georgia clay.
I’d like to suck on root quiet
settle the dust
sleep and not get up until soft was waiting for me.
I’d like to move and move and move like a dancer
out of Harlem out of Watts out of the south side
from uptown to down or the other way around
from Appalachia Soweto Dachau Main Street.
I want to get out of the hills
out of the towns
not be the buzz in somebody’s ear.
I want to be yes when my little girl wants
all fingertips on skin
honey and bees in a beech tree
a coral burst that puzzle blends part of a spectrum
electric then magnetic
a wave that crests and crashes on the beaches of america
and sucks the sand down deep.
I want to be a face not pointed at with baseballs.
No more grease paint, wet canvas
or peanut eating crowds that leave after the elephants roll over.
Spin a web so I cannot see the sun
but I will not lie down waiting to be stung.
I don’t want to be less than a butterfly.
Let me sing braids and ribbons without ropes and burning nights
and the smell of flesh curling up to heaven
as tears fall down like wheat before a sickle.
Give me an icarian chance and I will melt or fly over a mirrored humanity.
070177
To overcome the sun
with love, lick her face
and feel her sizzle on my tongue
kiss her cheek
while burning brown
until I melt and run
into her arms
Lay on green nails
and blow a flute
and watch snakes
rise and coil
until the trees disappear
System Failure
The shivers weren’t painful anymore. Past that flesh pumped what was left onto the floor. No one really won or lost. Expectations based on rocks and mud or gold and diamonds, mutual interest or convenience. Maybe it was all kilroy was here. Someday someone will see or sense a memorial and wonder what sort of person fashioned it. He wasn’t quite sure what they said. There was time attached. He didn’t believe he would need it. The philosophy had long past. A tune dribbled in his head. He struggled to connect it. He couldn’t. It was there for a reason. It wasn’t. Lovers live romantics write. Live until they all become romantics. Then there is grey and blue and green reflected in mirrors funneled into minivans and elevators spat out on curbs sipped from cups and shot glasses. Everyone should shave with a straight razor and use the strop between times. He thought he should move. He thought he did. Only the same angles jabbed backed. A shudder. The system trying to reboot. Longer than he thought. He hadn’t planned this. He had planned the other part. The other part was tattooed inside his skin. Each inky pinprick added to a pattern. Each pain added a color. Each joy a connector to the next needle. Pin dancing leaves stains lovers don’t wash out. He had always held the other part. Kept it knowing she would need it until she did not. They seem to think there is some urgency. He though there was not. Office artists will butt over air and evidence. The file is worth reading but not keeping. System failure leaves a urine smell.
