From “more flinching”

 

2 COME ON IN, WE’VE BEEN EXPECTING YOU

like a clue

we found PEOPLE

in the KITCHEN

in the SUICIDE VEST

with the KALASHNIKOV

such beautiful, desperate weapons

their faces

had to be covered

so we didn’t fall in love

piteously

with the self-same wretchedness

we see in mirrors

a worryingly familiar scene

we’ve lived in will live in

the carnage

going on

behind closed doors

being told, regurgitatingly, “you only get one shot!”

but is it true

you only get one shot

when you get a loaded magazine

& plenty more

where that came from

in the MUNITIONS DEPOT

which I picture in Arizona, right

beside a render farm

and to the left

THE CLOUD

that backs up

and up and up

up

to where

are there edges, Bobby?

INTELLIGENCE tells us

to test the power of names

by naming things, for one thing

to name is to guarantee the end

like a starting pistol

BANG

            you name

                            it         it’s

                         !

                 smithereens

4

I am so indifferent

to the limits

of feelings

I can’t tell the difference

every time someone lifts my flap

the unwashed salad

the unheated leftovers

the sanitary products are standard

but bear no relation

to what I expected

to feel overlaid

with various forms of filth

don’t you sometimes feel

like getting wrapped in a dog towel

and buried in the hardening ground

under the Canadian maple? Do dogs

need to approach death

and back away from it

like I did when the vet injected

deep pentobarbital & his bowels

ejected across the floor tiles

I was there

to inhale his fur and weep

for my benefit

I am not independent

of my feelings this way

of talking about feelings

has fooled each one of us

                             I’d rather be given CBT

                             by a border collie

when there are fewer words around

my arms around

his only

adored and stinking

neck 

dead

up my nostrils  

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

6 JUST A GENTLE REMINDER

A LOT OF WORK

goes into making sex alluring sex

is just this and that

but it seemed, for a moment, that a new

climax had been won when

even the sky fingered me

with a slobbery insistence when

we were retching with so much desire

we created a whole new atmosphere

grabbing at sex things /

using the sick bag to be actually sick in

now the shower curtain is transparent

it’s a way of saying, “I want you too

to have this experience

so that we are more alike

like a sign that life struck once

in a slippy-bits marathon

that began when our eyes were magnets

yanked to each other’s fully-charged

crotches at a picnic

when it was essential

to make every enhancement

to our ‘connection’ by getting seriously indecent

beside the Bluetooth wireless speaker system

until even the trees had to dash inside

to pour ice in their underpants”

while I choked up playing the scene, as we lived it,

united by our pursuit of arrhythmia or

satisfying itches to that

catchy bridge section in Chopin

(I couldn’t wait to come

with Chopin through his melancholic meadow

(not that I approve of background music

(I prefer to foreground the piano

by massaging it loud and all over

until the top layer comes off in my hand

and the pedal squeaks for humanity

(I like to FEEL a piano as an instrument

of interruption and consciousness

(though I also like to take light swims, to get away

from what I FEEL (today I felt

jelly beans resemble kidneys))))))

which throbs like everyone grieving

 

 

 

 

7 HERE, HAVE A NEW PUPPY

said the Russians to the French

to soften the dog-loss

but mostly the dog’s image the image

is the greater likeness

except we never seem to run out of images

sometimes something in an image

runs through me and that is very common

as is reading about something

that’s happening to someone outside of me

until I know someone outside of me

without any knowledge

it is a test for my knowledge

to hang around until morning

practically all mornings are news to me

practically all knowledge is news to me

practically all news is images

going very fast around the world

so we have to guzzle them

like wrapped food

— hot and on the run —

in one end and squitted out the other

[pics or it didn’t happen]

until I’m fat with implications

and containing not a sausage

 

9

I love a good weepy

dog-meme as much as the next crybaby

and nauseate irregularly

when the gifs load automatically

his hairy body

into my hairy body

unfairly the dog

becomes the shape of 2:13 p.m.

in me on a Tuesday

if we accept the world as totally fucked

there’s a lot worse coming

than dog hairs in macaroni cheese dog hairs on pillows dog hairs in rented flats in bathtubs in my hair in my dog’s hair in your short & curlies between my teeth in coagulant soap bars

some people are revolted

by dogs and dogs

are not up for revolting

I am revolted

when dogs are lacking

what if he did lick my cheeks

by which I mean “buttocks”

which were coated in whipped shea butter and

heavily comestible

it’s obvious he’s related to a father

he never knew

because we found all his needs

and perverted them

into a kind of inter-species loyalty

or the usual master-slave hierarchy

before laying down the crisp breakfast bowl

of the rest of his days

which gave us carte blanche to rush in anytime

and smother him with kisses

without getting socked in the eye

(unlike when I tried the same on Johnny (who spat my tongue out

      (& no one blamed him)))

when maybe all he wants is

just to go on

being less and less

subtle and alive

the way life becomes

very well known after its termination

 

 

12

If rigor mortis sets in

it means there’s somebody who needs it.

It means that somebody

is drained and not awake

and deems any speckles of life unusable

and he is dead and dead

all dead in the humus

of trashed bodies shoved down there

dressed in made-up relationships.

What’s your favorite part?

Mine’s every part

with a maggot in it. Maggots

mean that life’s still leaking.

It’s like magic

when his dead voice

is nauseating

and I can’t see him

so he might as well be invisible.

It’s like magic when he isn’t

and doesn’t have anything to say

and I can’t bear to listen anyway

so I just recognize my fingers / all

the injuries they’ve inflicted

while my skin drops off.

What’s worse than a maggot

in the EAT ME

GLOVE-BOX DATES?

Does the 5-second rule apply

to something that drops dead?

Is it true he might come back

and crack open a piñata

blue alcopops, bombay mix, karaoke, and a pint of nostalgia

which is like thinking in another language,

I mean, how it feels, not what it means.

Half a maggot, the memory of

mange marching across his fur

describes a lot of other feelings

the feeling that someone else is taking up the whole room

the feeling that no one could help me now

or ever whether I was on several edges

my hot core and noggin facing this hammering world

of brainlessness and sweetbreads

was always a favorite word.

I don’t know what it tastes like but I know it’s terrible.

a:ldskjfa:lkdgjsa

meaning

I’m so overcharged

that all I can do is literally slam

my hands / head / breasts against the keyboard.

Wherever there are

corpses there are maggots.

If we dig him up will he be wearing a jacket?

LOOK OUT

for the milkier, gentler solaces

which for all we know                   for all we know

could be the wind

or Chopin’s noise (still hammering the background) —

who’s seen it? Only its aftermath

is visible what’s not visible

is the aftermath of my screaming

 

 

20

you can catch me on the

     FLOOR / DOG / SYRINGE

periphery of the dying

and dead scene

     FACE (FEMALE)

maybe my whole life

carting sensations to the center

mopping shit up with towels

     SKULL / COFFIN

(there are feelings for these things)

while public petting

     CAR / PLANE / ROCKET

bodies leak it’s no surprise what I give away

     ONE DROPLET

you can have when the vet twirls off to deal

with some bloody business in a kitchen

     KNIFE / GUN

the hug-a-corpse scene gets deep in

the hold of what I am

     PARTY POPPER / WASTEBIN

is what I’ve not yet been

 

 

30

Who concocts the smell

of dogs which smells like

an extreme close-up

of the world oozing

in at the edges.

Full as an ice cube is full of liquid.

I mistook it for solidity.

The world is too full of smells.

Though it’s impossible

to see the top of it

they crawl between my legs

in the shimmering fuzz

on top of the plant

stickers of evenings

tongues held out

pocket-friendly air fresheners

strikes on our nostrils.

They come at me streaming.

Why the dog? Why not

the dog? Was it only a dream

of soil heating held

and stimulated

for his unique aroma.

It’s not a way in

but it places you somewhere

that smells strong

and looks strong leaving

behind us. Hi.