(no subject)

[novapsyche]

I'm slowly adding to the sequence. I'm enjoying it, exploring avenues often ignored.

Confession #1

There is the limp lack.
There is the slumped back
slick with sin, the sin
that did her in.

That water runnin'
up her pump. Ditch-dark
piss-poor water jumpin'
like a sparked eletric

outlet. Don't put
that fork in her
open holes.
Listen, you want

your sins in a basket
like dirty whites, marks
that bleach brings back.
Bleach cleans. Bleach

that poignant
little nettle
and let syrupy goodness
bring you back.


Confession #2

There is the limp lack.
There is the slumped back
of a child staring at her hump-
backed shadow--slow,

a camel through a needled
conscience, a sponge of hooks.
Nails draw blood and the lungs
begin to descend, dragged by gravity,

the sin of suspension, the art of the lie.
Her grin is dirt irritated
into pearl, her tongue a rag
of earth pinned by skin,

the weight an earthball
in her chest, air so heavy
the world slows its spin. She shuts her lids
and the shadow follows in,

lockstep with dreams:
a frayed belt, a smooth stone
lost down a grate, a bus late
with no destination. She wakes

with a cord, a placental ghost,
a parachute above her bed.
The phone rings. The alarm. The host
floods back, sun again.


Confession #3

There the nerves twitch.
Then synapses switch
inconsequentially and slap
across the synaptic gap

serotonin, neurotoxins'
cousin, a misfired gun
shot through, a boson
atom of fun

parachuting into digital
circuitry, surgical
wires layering data
into place, strata by strata.

Mislaid. Patterns
patchwork together, learn
new avenues
of danger, paths accrue

faultlines of activity,
negative electricity
bounding back along
irregular tracks.

There the nerves twitch.
There the lips jerk, stitched
together, then apart.
The logic of a lie is an art.


Confession #4

I held a knife
in a desert arc
above my head, ready
to strike a spark
in the air,
ready for iron-red rain,
blood pennies to drop
in my hand, copper
currency. The blade
tattooed my flesh.
Coins threshed in the dirt.

The desert eyed me.
The heat bandaged me.
The vultures held aloft.


Confession #5

The rat's whiskers are moonlight.
They tickle the neck like fiberglass,
scratching the skin.

The night surrounds the rat like a fever.
The night is a liquid glove
and the rat is lost in its grasp.


Confession #6

Fly with me, fly by me,
I don't care. Take the tongue
from my mouth, fill me
with aerosol lucidity. My tongue

doesn't matter. A hummingbird
will fill my throat and hover
where my voice once stood, heard
but not heard, drawn yet uncovered.

*

The sun frets. I tear
at my shirt, aroused
by the raggedness there.

I am a stranger to water.
My tongue is boundless, my mouth
is false shelter. I lick the cloud,
the coming storm. I pick
at my flagging skin. What
a human shirt! What monstrosity!
I swallow an oasis of dirt.
I strip to my bones. The hummingbirds
nest in my organs. They seek the drought.

*

I lap at my lips. There is water there,
below my nose, such a strange
reservoir, the channel of curved skin,

the tongue settling there like a raft.
There is a drink of self, a bleed
of sweat, an anguished spot of rain

drenching the cheeks. The sun isn't real.
The sky retreats, and the hummingbirds
with it, revealing a mouth of sand.


Confession #7

There is the limp lack.

Behind her, beyond sight,
in a black box, there is her stash,
her last laugh, the frightening bits
of her sad stains. Smells like camphor

and licorice. Black liquor.
Jagermeister, yes, it once made her sick.
She was through with it.

Now to this. This bliss
in a bottle. Stuck in a cardboard
box and shoved across the counter.
Take it, it's yours. It's bliss

for a schizophrenic. It's meant
to make you well, but it will
bleed you. It'll make you feel
like sickle cell.

Comments

[o-lucky-man.livejournal.com]

you are a first-rate poet! Your imagery is just superb. I'd love to hear these read aloud!

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your kind words.

I'm not great at reading my works aloud. I should hire someone.