#071/100 Mud

fill me with mud to stop my body from burning:
small, circular veins bursting down my thighs.
clad me in a cold, iron amor while i lose such
compulsion of colors, shivers stripped of their
shine on a lost night. the last snowstorm took
the locks off your gate & icicles slid down my
fingers. since then i've been running to where
the sun turns mourners into surf, dried traces
on sand & dirt of one's choosing. pick it up,
my new disappearance. throw it to the side.

#070/100 Trees

my heart is emptied & these long, weeping leaves will take my place.

#069/100 Departure

i have no words for this departure. we shall not meet again.

#068/100 Pussy/Empress

when our slit love rains down the solitary pole, your fate is burial in mud.
in a realm of moist suffocation: your eyes bulging in a toy princess's oath
of eternal love, her breasts her cunt a warped net over your bloody face.
breathe trash breathe death breathe the laughing skeletons, which hover
above your burial site to dance a curious dance. 'here lies a young man
who choked on pussy juice,' they chirp. 'see the scars on his back from
a candy-laden whip.' & i, now a passer-by, shovel dirt over your grave &
tread until the soil bleeds. your princess can come & clean it up like she
always does. spank you like a servant to her mother Empress Dowager.

#067/100 Search

'just checking to see if you've been lost' are my parting words with you before i tread water, dry grass & muddy dusk to the other end of the village. call it loss. call it departure from time long gone that is more than the sum of its parts: punctured despair, slit love in its wake & words raining down the roof. 

'where are you going?' you ask. 'you're always getting yourself into muddy water.'

it's a dark night while you watch me, a moving figurine of fearlessness. you'd stay by the fire in your house & i'd stay alone by the water.

#066/100 Burial

...because in China, you could get buried alive.

we've heard this all before from the prophets of the castle--

spread your arms to fall over the railway track, smoke veil for shattered flesh, blood-stained seats & windows. when dust kisses the ground, the wrecked carrier dives into the massive hole that has been dug by the police officers and workers. shovel it into the underground, so that nobody would hear the muted cries for help or see fingers protruding through the dirt.

in the realm of involuntary goodbye, a dead woman puts her hand on her belly & is thankful for the end. my child wouldn't know me if he was ever born, she hums to herself, feeling half of her head missing & her own words wheezing through the bloody void. 

her child is named Ocean. now it'd keep rocking inside her, while more & more bodies crash into her resting place, when husband is throwing Hell bank notes into the wind & calling her name: come back, my sun. but all that's left is the ocean raging within & she must shield herself from more dirt & blood, until she is resurrected from this place.

#065/100 Searchlight

under the searchlight i'm hiding beneath flowers 

     & the revolution will start. it will crack your shell & mine 

          oh such delusion--i'm only pressed against the floor to inhale

               dust in a shadow pantomime. the deep purple 

          will tear down dew to reveal your form 

     again & i cannot--i cannot fight it.

#064/100 Priscilla

inspired by Lisa Kaplan's 'Day 59' & Bryan Caroll's 'Entry 42'

'ice coffee is cheap when it's not branded with a green mermaid,' he says & slides the cup of coffee across the table. the aroma takes angular routes & changing shades of bronze & red. priscilla can't follow with her eyes wide open in twilight. she isn't used to such intrigue in the human world, or the kiss of steam on her new-found skin.

'what would i do without my tail?' priscilla looks up, alarmed. 'give it back to me.'

against the windowsills her skin grows paler by the minute, until it turns into a translucent glow that merges with the shine of her wet, black hair. when she touches her arm she stirs dews, ripples & rising halos. soon her eyes are the only traces of her left, sparkling like black crystals into an alien hollow.

he watches priscilla melt into air before him & takes a deep breath of joy. on endless nights he rescued her from the waves & embraced her tail, waiting to hear that she'd love him. all that she did was flipping to escape his grip. green is for fairies and dark blue is for him: a man with damaged eyes, floating down the water that is him, only him.

when priscilla has vaporized, he pours more coffee into his cup. he'd drink this coffee down to the last sip of the love of his life. that would be his ocean.

#063/100 Cemetery (II)

This was a dream I had on a Saturday afternoon. Edith and Arnold were my classmates in high school.

***

The playground glistens in late afternoon haze and my companions--Edith, the girl with a pumpkin-shaped head and Arnold the womanizer with rosy-colored cheeks in our high school days--grab me by the arms. My skin is dissolving while the playground wears a palette of grey: basketball stand tainted with grey and red paint dripping from the net; grey benches calling through a gust of wind; dirt rising from the soil in a grey fog, where silent lives of bushes drain out of their confinement. Flowing to me and my companions from years ago.

'Stay here and watch over the grave underneath the pine tree,' Edith says. 'The girl's parents want you to do it.'

'But I don't know that girl, do I?'

'It doesn't matter. You'd get paid for the work.'

I pull my arms away; Edith and Arnold burst into a wild laughter, their faces distorted in the fading glow of the sun against a grey sky. Soon darkness falls and erases their faces; there are only gaps and stale air where their throbbing bodies were just a moment ago. 

I walk down the playground. The concrete splits and starts turning into a swamp. I tread carefully--my job is to stay with the grave until midnight when it is time for me to catch the last train home. The trees are reaching out to stop me, to tease me with a low drone sound which I know, in my waking life, to be their late-night music parade. I must reach the end of the cemetery and take care of the tomb stone before the night ends, or the trees will leave their dwellings to bury me with their trunks and leaves.

At the end of a serpentine path I am brushing dark leaves off my face. I see moonlight on fluttering trees, then the sea, and a ferry at the pier. I have been transposed to a remote island; I have been rescued and I must now run to catch the ferry.

#062/100 Skin

uncross me i'm crawling out of my skin/tattered slices of your face unseen/
behind me soft landing/false shelter of our world divided/such aroma kills/
me & your shell unravels the hammock drifts/explosion by your window/
burn me kiss me as i run plead exit/green mud pond demise without you/

#061/100 Token (II)

to preserve my dream i hang it from a bedpost for a woman
platinum blonde to lift the drapes & say: 'come to my side
where we'd wither into a mercury color.' her ocean blue
eyes are the night's sirena. i cannot wake up or crawl
back into my sheets. she walls me in & kisses me
& now
               i'm hanging i'm hanging i'm hanging.

#060/100 Token

#059/100 Dwelling

 

related post: Little Mysteries 

#058/100 Thief

i'm weary of the prison of words & human presence--including my own--so i go around to steal leaves from different trees. their touch makes me feel alive in another world.

& i keep forgetting to sing or speak to them first. that makes me a thief.

#057/100 Cemetery

i stole these flowers & gave them to a 2-year-old toddler. the inscription on the tomb stone did not say whether it was a boy or a girl--the first and middle names were given in initials. i saw a little boy, upbeat with wild eyes, oblivious to death the moment it ripped him open to inhale his soul, to lift it from the destruction & darkness of war in a foreign country.

half a century later i gave him these flowers & wished him well. here, in my hometown.

#056/100 Rain Dance

inspired by Katie Bentley's 'Rain dancers'

the rain dancer has a pear-shaped tear at the corner of its eye,
crystallized mark of lost shine. dark blue hide sizzling on sand
so dry. my feet are starting to crack. the broken bird shakes its
feathers & looks to its companions, shadows at the far end of
the desert. crowns of joy, airy robes in a newfound kingdom:
grey clouds are born unto accordion music, a tapestry of rain.
i'm burning far behind. the lonesome rain dancer cries. come
fetch me sweep me into your whirl.

#055/100 Mountain

inspired by Sandy Blanc's 'Tree on Mt. Major'

we like how the trees are bent on our way up to the top of the mountain where nothing is ever what it seems. the heartbeat beside me, steps burning soil & rocks, skin peeling off trunks & bare-faced trees waving: 'leave. don't leave.' 

at the far end of an invisible river a tree god is playing drums & the water flows through our feet. crushed shells & bones & hide of a dead hummingbird to fool me. 'in seven days we'll reach our stop & you'll believe what i've told you,' you say.

i turn to look at you. your face is air--it does not exist.

#054/100 Nausea

inspired by Kelli Costa's '002'

she is the glow amidst the tree storm, waves brewing across the far end of the forest. no one reaches shore to look into her house through the solo window, where she is rocking in the nausea of solitude. drum it to the violent sweep across the table, to broken porcelain cups, a soiled bra & her hair on wooden floor boards. bloated water bride, gurgling hot agony. tap it on her tears. tap it shut it close.

the lullaby strummed on a flying guitar has gone shattered; it is emitting smoke all over the room. she throws her body against scattered pieces of furniture, screaming muted scream like a ventriloquist who has lost her dummy & can only mimic her soul. when all the lamps & chairs & drapes have fallen, she crouches underneath the window & weeps. she has no strength to set fire to the forest. she never will.

#053/100 Empress

inspired by Billie Williams' 'sand patterns'

for her you would breathe dry sand until her calves
draw you in. such concentric patterns of a dark hole
awaiting--scratch that black ink on paper, stamps of
a lifelong jail at the end of the maze. quill your name
your schizophrenia on her legs, flapping up & down
to squeeze you into a marital nest. it's growing thorns
& bloodstains are crawling up the wall, to next door
your neighbor Empress Dowager. the mother to end all
mothers, on duty to watch you misdeeds. she'll order
the burning of your quatrains--poetry you spun when
breathing dry sand was a drug, & you had no idea that
purgatory would not cleanse but fucking last forever.

#052/100 Shadows (II)

He burnt his shadow on the wall before he left. A silhouette of his slightly bent back, unruly hair & a small suitcase. The moment it happened, she was sipping tea on the couch with the day's newspaper on her lap. She did not look up when he gently closed the door. She had lived this scenario in her mind too many times before.

***

She burnt her shadow on the door. The contour of her hair fanning across her shoulders, bent elbows & a finger to her lip, a touch of anticipation forever frozen in domestic sphere. The shadow grew deeper shades as the day slid past, seeping through cracks in the wooden floorboards. No one would mind the abandoned ghost for a long while.

***

A child marched into the room with a bucket of soap water & a large yellow sponge. She scrubbed her parents' shadows while she savored the bubbles foaming between her fingers. She would grow up to be the girl neither of her parents wanted her to be: a destroyer with a cool, cool heart until she burnt her own shadow on someone else's wall. 

#051/100 Pussy

overhead     overhead     overhead
     her pussy a bass clarinet     echoes you hear every night
          the past stinking years     thump your marriage bed cold
               ice cubes splitting your testicles     so unused in the world     forever sucked
     into the same hole     go clap     get a rush of blood to your head  
          her lock & chain     curfew & scream     you can never abandon me
               surround sound through your bones     little hands protruding     her pussy trash
sign here     sign here     sign here

#050/100 Pond

we told you not to swim in the muddy water--lung smash in chalky bubbles, molten horns engulfing your descent & yet you scream: 'i can swim to stay afloat when every one of you weeps over what i'm getting, such poetry you'll never know.' so we begin to weep at the blood fountain & shards & shattered flesh erupting in the pond, while a serpent splashes her tail to seize you. colors drip from your lean, youthful body & you're now a grey corpse in a nest from hell. & we cry at the sight of your fingers through the ripples: 'we told you not to do it.'

#049/100 Rocks

#048/100 Bats

Can somebody tell me how I can stop cutting myself into two halves so that I won't:

                         a/run away                         b/stretch my wings

to brace you? At the gate of the cemetery I'm toppling--a lovely moonlit night!--& trees are sprawling into bats. You're the biggest of them all, faceless evil across the sky:

                           'you've come too late, my child

                           tada tada tada'

                          *                                       *                                        *

Spare me your pity as I turn half-human, half-bat & you sing:

                           'you look like a face shaking off

                           one mask for another to hit the party'

Since you abandoned me & escaped to the other side, I've been wandering in & out of trees, looking for you. I've never been good at begging; I wasn't brought up that way.

                          *                                        *                                        *

You rocked me on a rock until my spine was crooked. Then you burnt my little feet into hooks, hung me upside down from your forearm by the river. Until a pigeon flew by & squeaked:

                          'drop that pure violet, you black-hearted

                          murderess witch'

The pigeon was a messenger from God or some goddamned entity from above. They had been watching all your sins while I was reborn a black stone.

                          *                                         *                                        *

Your sins are a many-splendored thing, like the way you hopped into a boat with a tumbler & floated down the river. In that moment I knew that he, the tumbler with a cunning smile, had become your child.

                          'a river of blood, I'll feed on nothing less

                          than your sacrifice'

& I knew your waving goodbye was forever.

                          *                                         *                                        *

Nobody told me I'd turn half-human, half-bat in time. I've munched on grass & roots--I was a vegetarian--but the lack of love has ripped my skin. I'm a bird that has shed its feathers.

                          'in the dark I'm calling you, you 

                          little bat gleaming by the tree'

The metamorphosis has taken life out of me. Mother, stop your wicked laughter.

#047/100 Castle

image: Sarah Richter's 'day 43'

sequel to 'Maze'


entertain me with your words     garnished hatred you
     storm martyr     neighbors in concrete     castle lights wash
i'm out of these cells to drown    life unlived in vomit
     crack missile    ghosts shot splintered    stairways go round
flip the sound switch to fall        i'm creator orchestra 
     dipping curve    throbbing shine gristle    curtains glare wide
you can feed me what i need      girl pinned to window
     pronged exit     wind dive blown fast       destroy your pathos

#046/100 Maze

inspired by Sarah Richter's 'day 42'

astound me     you tumbler of dark river     flowing
     down my cheek i'm boiling     at close range soft corner
hustle me        born splitting space vibes     cutting
     me strings hang weightless     over you invisible punch
freeze me       cube heart on suede couch    melting
     hands strike down my neck     lapses mandolins on air
leave me        i'm solider melancholy hot     marching
     maze reborn hysteric ground    to brace your dead halo

#045/100 Fireworks

inspired by Steve Veilleux's 'Carnival Town'

his dream axis spins & shoots phantom fireworks into the sky, slate blue tainted by the last glow of summer. rebellion is the sweat on his palm, the call to the ocean: 'i'll cross to the other side where nobody knows who i'll become.' & the water laughs & chants: 'there's always the future for you to burn, my child.'

#044/100 Pollen

inspired by Cathryn Esten's 'You Belong Among the Wildflowers'

you belong where pollen drifts to seek its counterpart,
airy taint on whispery legs of a bee. you dart on hosta,
a hummingbird's song melting down the windowsills:
the colors drip onto charcoal, record with burnt edges
while i wait for you, all summer.

#043/100 Wings

inspired by Sabin Aell's 'I  felt yellow with the urge to jump...'

i feel yellow oozing from my pores: wide open, anxiously sucking up
the wind. the red rocks & the searing sun have nothing to do with it--
my run started a long time ago, in a house where somebody hummed:
'i'd fold you & fold you into a packet of indeterminable shape, & push
you down my throat to where you could stay forever.' shapes & lines,
they matter to me like white paint on glass panes, the dawning of soul
past our relentless shiver. to be born again i ran to the cliff. here, look
at me, glass-winged yellow goddess. how i shine during the fall &
you know i'd never regret a goddamn thing.

#042/100 Summer

#041/100 Shreds

Inspired by Alma Omerovic's post No. 6

our clay wounds cannot bleed to impurity--
     violence dawning on our limbs     broken in style & loyalty
can you hear your flesh? shredded into beans--
     the jelly litter of your heart stops    throbbing in my mouth
in my gut where submission seeks company

#040/100 Fu Dog

Inspired by Janette Maxey's 'fu dog in the hood'

sunday afternoon lifeline: the fu dog in my hood screams
'come save me from the sun!'

his marble splinters to scorch my skin against the pillow,
shadows between sheets,

cool air to kiss laughing leaves. i drift out of sleep & see
a red band around his shoulders:

he is a gift from the city council, caught in our freedom
illusory & sparse.

#039/100 Crush

the day bends     tortured into     its final position
stale air      blocks we climb     in smoke
to shed     our selves