#267: To Shadow

i didn't ask to be an american
with weird skin problems

and you didn't ask to be an old man
in a dog costume

but here we are

#266: Tales of Weirdness

can't...stop. but...i must!
must stop...reading all these...
TALES OF WEIRDNESS


like a creature without a soul--
or a head
i crawled, dragging myself through the foetid swamp
the toxic stench of miasmic witch-fart still
lingered in my nostrils!
and my sanity, my very personality
a ghostly memory!

addicted to tales of weirdness
and of inappropriateness
and of sphincter-mouthed corruption
latching lamprey-like on the bloated body of my bride!

   Just took at his eyes, nurse. Nothing.
   He's completely catatonic!
   Driven mad by tales and stories.
   All right boys, he's all yours.

aiiiiiieeeee!

there is simply no exit
from tales of weirdness





                                  THE END

#265: got your back

hey man. it's me.
i just wanted to say
that if you were about to get hit by a train
i'd totally shove your ass out of the way.
or at the very least call out
hey
you fucking pendejo
 get off the track

#264: vipers! jackals! vultures and kites!

ages hence their bones will occupy
the virtual dump which, when they lived
and lingered there, was a spring
a virtual oasis
but which by the time they croaked
they had already choked and poisoned
with their discharge
and their hair

but at least it will be silent there

#263: Death trip

tonight
having emptied the ashes
from the wood stove
with one or two dying coals
into the fire pit


I see at the top of the rise
against the tree-line
the folding chair
aluminum with nylon bands
(I believe it was Karen's)
turned to face the sunset
now glowing blue


and through the thick of the trees
comes echoing
a dog howling and barking
savagely
but far away
the glowing lawn chair


blue, and now in its glow deepening
expanding
exceeding its shape
on the hill, unmoved


while the barking grows more savage
and more distant still
even though
it is I who am retreating

#262: Triumph of death

'Triumph of Death'
is on my wall
in miniature.
this weird futurity
from 1562: a message
from deep in the mine
of beauty's strange cordial
for the eyes

with an oven at its heart
extremities grow pale
in the interstices
the dead
fructify

the shock itself is the triumph:
the fructifying seed

beholding the rate
 at which these corpses breed

#261: Part of me

it is an unfavorable part
that is often angered
within a cavity
a finite space that will always make room
for ill will
and panic

finite, I should say,
but enlarged:
like the heart of a coke fiend