Nothing Tastes Like

 

One wrong look

And you coil

A one-off word

Rattle… rattle… 

Impregnating a moment 

In a comatose afternoon

Lunge

Bite

Venom that tastes like nothing 

And nothing tastes like forgetting

Plainclothes

 

Walking past a donut shop,
I see God, a plainclothes cop
Sipping coffee, much too hot
Damning the devil to hell again.

Smeared on his mustache,
Chocolate crème from a
Freshly-baked eclair.
He switched off the babbling,
Crying walkie-talkie.
There was a robbery downtown,
But he is in this cafe
Working in mysterious ways.

Perhaps he isn’t
Omnipresent. He looks
As if he could be a small boy
In extra-large, extra plain clothes.
Maybe he isn’t divine,
But a plainpope
Taking a break from saving our souls
With some jelly donuts
And mediocre jazz music in the background.

The biggest miracle of all
Is a heavily pastry bite
Dribbling down his chin.

Fatalphilia

 

I see you in rewind,
Film reels spinning backwards
To a fatal first hello.

I pray to my own saints,
Patrons of lost causes,
That you find peace
Somewhere swimming through
The iron fillings in your heart.

My bones will soon embrace
The same ground your bones embrace,
Our organs decaying away from
Their fatalistic melody.

What’s left of me then will always touch you.

Goodbye,
Goodnight,
Stranger.

Grave-Side

 

You,
Parasitic lesser beast,
Gladly feasting
Upon my white, pulsating shoulder
A mosquito more daring
Sinking into a familiar vein
Bleeding out, not bleeding alone.
We are ruins of an ancient place,
Where history fades, softy rewritten
Amended to death and buried relentlessly.

Graveside lover,
Pursuing whatever will hurt the most,
Letting my fingers touch the bruising,
Briefly-
Only briefly.
You crave a comfort you do not want,
Because you have not learned how to
Create beautiful things out of softness.

 

 

Softer

 

He loves me in a softer way,
Fuzzy, soundless, wet-
Like looking through a window
On a rainy September evening.
A second chance at romance,
It tastes like a relapse
Into a hopefulness I stopped
Sticking into my veins
Last year.

Gin and Ketamine

 

I will hurt you.
I will, I will
Wrap up your stability,
Shove it in a sock,
To beat in your skull with.
I will bite you.
I will, I will kick you.
I will, I will claw you,
Claw your eyes out,
Oh, honey.
I will be the worst thing
You’ve ever done
If you let me,
If you let me slip to your lips
Like a centipede in your milkshake.
Black snake eyes
To end your lucky streak,
But you never gambled, did you?
I will be the smell of
Vomit on your new suede shoes,
After you gagged swallowing swords and fire
That came lunging at you
Out of the air.
Baby, if you’re going to live on the outside
You’ve got to
Learn to duck.

How We Go

 

I’ve never been fond of uncertainty,
Despite my dedication to
Marking up anything crystal clear,
A frightened octopus making ink clouds
To forge signatures with.
I kneel and pray,
“Who’s in charge up there,
I would like to speak to your manager,
Please.”

Some days I am floating in a vacuum
Others, I’m stapled to the floor
Of a boxcar filled with things I’ve dreamt
Until they were gone.
I stand up to walk, leaving my feet behind.

When I was quiet, I could hear the future
Exiting between words in a sentence.
I still see it when it goes missing,
Whispering life into a consciousness
I thought I left choking in the corner of a room.

Revenge is not a healing language,
Regret is coagulated blood in my veins.
Love, with a existential debt to the universe
Who loved you so dearly that you were formed
From stardust.

Avocado, Pt. 2

Heart of stone,
Scarred where the knife
Hit its mark.
My finger,
Bleeding from when
It missed.

Avocado, Pt 1.

 

The feel of your skin
Resisting my knife
Delights me.
Avocado,
It means you are not too soft
Inside.

Sunny Side

 

I step off the downtown bus
In humid, too-hot-for-spring heat.
I remember when I first moved
To this side of town and
Put a bridge between my geography.

Here, lines of skateboarders
And littered trails by the river,
Buildings filled with lives of every color.
I wander past cemeteries and parks
Both appear green on the map.
A train rumbles
In the distance with my thoughts.

I’ve learned a dozen roses will survive
Eleven days in my car with no water.
An unsubtle, browning message
That not even an end comes quickly.