Tag Archives: #freeverse

noctalimena

two kids live on their bikes
one is standing, pedaling
dead leaves tumble clumsy
across the black pavement
it is not halloween
or anything

each different night
has its name, a shade
of black for its nature
for people have names
of sound, but for nights
it’s different

snugged up in our oo
my skin gets cold creeps
when i’m thrilled, then
you read the braille
on my armbacks
with your fingerprints

just as good as an aurora
is an ouroboros inside
an amethyst terrarium
(inside an alaskan zoo
(inside the middle
of january))

stupid & violent

busy, stupid quarks
infiniplicating like sea monkeys
why? why what.
shh, tilt your head and listen…
IT IS MY SOLEMN
DUTY TO EXIST,”
the whole universe is bellowing
very uncomfortably
loudly (because the magnificent
universe is, on the
larger scales, a bit
of a moron). fact:
nothing can escape a
black hole, not even
your bright idea, so
just, just, just
just let it go, kiddo
you’re gonna die
in that darkness
(because the glorious
universe is, on the
larger scales, mostly interested
in violence)

Get These Please

Two custom eyes
A private lake for looking
A pawn for sale
At the pawn shop
And a nice, fat checking
Account for marriages

Two nice, fat marriages
A bicycle for the yard plants
Your gigantic mother-in-law’s tongue
For our fucking bed
Room and room –
All the room in the land

After that, some time
(But not that much, Jesus
Hurry up, please)
A couple of daughters
Who are just frighteningly smart

And a literal sun
(For a Dyson sphere)
Just one of those, though
Like a small one
For fun
A boxcar of American Spirit

And get yourself a Pepsi
Or something

life is a gift say thank you dammit

the buffalo
the baby
the king of the jews
i worship what i kill

i can almost smell the ocean
through the bleach

and at this
i take the greatest offense:
my life’s the second
half of a sentence
uttered by a pair of parents)

don’t worry child
i said don’t fucking worry

there’s no goddess of the bonobos
who punishes the chaste
and the onanist
and the barren

you don’t have to make
babies, bison, sense
none of it

but you don’t get
to not want to

teeth

the seraphim
standing sentinel
at the chain-link fence
round the jungle of eden
are not vegetarians

just picture god’s
mouth water when
she thought of sizzling
lamb fat at the altar
remember that angel of death?

probably certain people
have hearts lighter
than god’s – well – no
i guess god has the power
of self-absolution, tricky tricky

if anything in heaven
if one single thing has
a mouth, just knock me
out, i’d rather sleep through
eternity than listen to more chewing

decortication

the acolytes of science
dictate i cannot reach
emotional maturity for
another couple decades
(by no fault of my own
(by way of my y-chromosome))
so i sob in the meantime
and laugh and sob and
grip my fists in anger
and if you asked me why i
felt some way, i couldn’t say
i might peel my own artichoke
to measure the shape
of my very own heart
but how do you reassemble
an artichoke?

That love which cannot fail to be

In the way
Infinity contains
Infinite infinities

Or the way
My life divides
Into briefer, lived-out lives

There is a sadness
That branches behind
The green in your eyes

So if you should
Wake up on a train
On its way to Pompeii

And you think you might feel
Lonely watching window rain
Drops wobble and dissolve

But you only feel a sapling sadness:
You’re just living out
One quantum version of me

And life won’t get tough
For a couple more years
So don’t worry

When you get ivied-over
By the branching, lightless sadness
When it’s the same to look

As it is to close your eyes
The god we call Because
Will do the remembering for you

And a love older than life
Will continue because
Living did sometimes feel nice

Safe

A man controlled by a devil
walks calmly throughout your empty house
and finds a fireproof safe full of nothing
but love letters, so there is no one home
when you later arrive

A glossy-plated fattail scorpion
as black as the ocean at night
stops walking across the wall by your crib
(its shadow long in the night-noon
brightness) and ambles on as you yawn

A supermassive dead star rolls
through the spacetime on a path
parallel to your planet, and if any
astronomer had known it was there
she’d have told the press not to panic