flowers of arsenic

remember I'm square.
Never got to give any
woman anything
before reaching twenty one.

Watching the trained beast
in chains and sweat soaked chemise
engaged in flagellation
I almost cried.
Almost.

There's a killer out there
on the streets
looking for her master
while consuming the wine
in my restful chair.
You're no Nausicaa I
don't need a fucking fig leaf.

Master of the art
negotiate with me, I want it; I'm lacking this
refusing his terms until the trump;
necrophilia, nasolingus, needle play.

Summer's gone now
no dreams of seeds anymore.

Just close the fucking deal
it's a drive by contract
just follow the led;
acid of ants, of arsenic, of air
I wanted the fluid to disband me
long ago,
never asked for the crown galls
never, never

the holy hoax was a hoax itself indeed

The covered path to the redbrick cloister
was overgrown well before acoustic strings
became the dogma of the pilgrim's skulk,
well before the baroque cake of an April down
replaced the simple brick of the red earth
with a hyacinth path that led to furtive tracing.

To have found in the crispy regulus one last spout of glee:
slated into the broken legato of the paving stones,
a flip-book pareidolia tempered in the flickering crypt.

Between the flat gray panels of kerning cracks
the nascent spouts of lime and white
poked with insouciant crinkled laughter,
though the splatter of up-kicked dew
drenched the parted surplice hem
with the haughty charm of lifted habits.

So we conversed into the third of the seventh sext
but we were not to attain the hoary fourth,
heated though we were by the chill of purple snow,
barred by the thin lack of another slippery lambskin.

The repressed pulse of bloody flats but sharply played
with devoted stops stepwise notched in muffled air,
majora chords to minora chords swollen to a key:

an egressive kiss inside the robed and hooded matin
brought our pearly spittle into proud display,
warmed as we were by the gnostic mist of promise
and a pink fascalia wrapped to prime your chords.

Winged cymbals clashed and fey proclaimed
loudly into that brash and heathen season
when we were the power and the glory amen.

From Lesbos, Alexandria, Earth

In despair and sunless

summer heat

think on dry

dark places

In Egypt, infinite

Sapphics hidden

below concrete and clay:

words written in a

language you would not know

by a woman who drank

from cups of wind

 

            Above all spits

the very sun

that shone on her shoulders

that parches your throat

that does not reach

those fragments of verse

that even now

are singing into the

ribcage of the earth

Blood drunk

There wasn't any pain,
no prickle,
nor a tickled pink,
just this worldly feeling
of being pried
to a softer bed,
while twin fangs sank in
and rosy drew out
mere droplets,
planted by the shy
sun's unclotted gleam.
Its golden streams
pulled from primped-up flesh
to fill crimped-down bellows
till they bulged
bronze and round.

There isn't any pain,
no struggle,
nor a muddled shout,
just this bleary-eyed dream
of being led
to a slate-gray patch,
where blood-drunks dodder
and bloated belch forth
queer seedlings
that root at the stray
day's rolled-up edges.
Their crimson creeps
stopped by simple smacks
to spill pimpled oozings
till they sag,
flat and black.

sometimes you can't go home again even though you never left

a friendly fish named frank always stayed near the surface of the tank the vast vistas of human faces in his mind always stirred up traces of an empire that long ago sank if the comte de sade came back to earth and saw the new cosmos giving birth oceans of pornography vampire novels from sea to sea what would his dreams be worth? an unknown prophet named slim couldn't swim he was thrown in the water but old pharoan's daughter just turned up her nose at him blind potato murphy played the blues he walked the hills of ireland in his alligator shoes he drank poteen dreamt of fair kathleen and paid his union dues bob, a humble barracuda sought the path of the true buddha a dinosaur banging a big brass gong followed as he walked along and quite destroyed his mood, ah a sunfish named stagger lee lived in the depths of the sea a sea lion named bob (or was it billy?) thought his paraphilological positions were silly and never invited poor stack to tea an electric eel named ed wore a path to perdition on his head he didn't know its approximate cause so he kept it wrapped in gauze and took another med a platypus named roy was no stranger to ecstatic joy he could feel the earths heart beat beneath his wary webbed feet but his demeanor remained quite coy

What To Expect, When Expecting

He never visits her grave,
Though the fact of her passing rarely leaves his mind.
And the children all hold their secret
On the one whom they wish was still in their lives.
How lovely she'd been on Michigan Ave, in '24
Refusing his hand, and clasping the breeze,
He'd simply known that it was not long for,
When he'd see her walk off with another
Down the street.

It was true and he could not pretend to deny
That he'd lived a life in more fear than joy
And when pressed to forget the realms of the "Right"
He had no other passions by which to deploy...
The warm, kind acceptance of this woman, his wife
(Some of his worst times were some of her best)
And the more dark recognition
That she'd ruined her life
The moment she'd rested his hand on her breast.

Once, he'd consented to the trip of her dreams
While he took a year from his scholarly life;
And they rented a Volkswagon in Brittany
With the map of her finger and the mirth of her eyes,
And while she led her children through the dust motes of the Louvre,
He sat in the tour bus and choked on a Jube Jube;
The candy, of which, even today he thinks he nearly died
The Nike, and  The David, and The Hiemlich Manouver.

To see his sweet daughters, climb into the bus
And his monkeying son, with stories to tell;
And finally his wife's face fall flat, and ask, "What's this fuss?"
"Daddy almost died!" said the boy, and silence fell.
And he'd meet her eye, this news always the same;
When the rainstorms of life would threaten some fun,
And the pleasure of Art seemed to dwindle to shame;
How he wanted to ask her, "How are you my love?"

Since she was with him: the answer remained.

Then one day the dreaded charmer, arrived in her life,
And she finally fell by the comely gestures of a being;
When the words were spoken, that so claimed her fate,
"What will I tell him," was all she could think.
She had no choice, though, she confided in the man,
Who spoke not at all, while listening to her think,
He wore a burlap hoodie, held a sickle in his hand.

"Though he will miss you, he now has your dreams."

And that's what he remembers,
Nearly obsesses about every day,
Since the hooded man, finally gestured
And stole his children's favorite parent away.
For though they'd admired him nearly all their life,
And could list amongst them a few of his ways,
It was the smiling joy and dreams of his wife
That finally made, for such as them, life so great.

Sunday blew in

Sunday blew in
breezily
popping pinstriped
cuff to bare
a cunning and
ill-cutting
hand,
manicured tips
of rounded
pink extending
to un-shake
my seldom firm,
oft clammy
faith.

You should know

that a tuatara

has no p.s.,

hyena females

a fake p.s.,

snakes a p.s.

split in half,

the elephant a

five-foot p.s.

or thereabouts,

determined

with movement

as a fisted arm,

the blue whale, simply

venture a guess,

the octopus, wary,

hands over a packet,

the deep sea

angler becomes

parasitic, loses

eyes and fins to a

partner leviathan,

and as you know,

the cephalous, that is,

the head is eaten

from the God-

imploring mantis.

the flavor of simplicity is hidden yet pleasant

It is starkly the fragrant lattice
of leaf-stripped branches black
that gauzes the linen soft of river dusk
and frames, in its pink expansive glow,
the fuzzy drop of a glacial velvet sun.

An arced string of parti-colored pears,
strung in a scarlet garden ripe with rain
echoes and re-echoes in the hushed ludic night.

Come to be drowned in eyes aqua and lacustrine,
framed by a pine torch of flickering doubts
beneath the needles of a wavering sigh
that absolves, in grace, the attic stairs of almost.

You are merely a liquid bag of liquid bags
draped on calcite branches of porcelain white,
a ghost of gray silk that quivers in the breeze.

To see what cannot be seen except through mist
is often hidden in the immanent thrill of now,
the pearly lies from a teal bowl of steaming tea.

So you hang your blue-striped bathrobe
on the chipped corner of the closet door,
skipping the knobby habit of the brass hook
in order to thank your white and holy god
that it was Bellamy, and not Rothberg,
that came to pave the driveway.

Hot Air

pull blue 

pill into 

pulpy hardware

one second

flick makes 

lifetimes 

impossible

        

     to run 

across 

frosted pane, 

rearrange skated

lines weld 

with heat 

              a cartography of DNA

seal folds 

that envelope 

secrets, things

said with pens 

or codes 

or unopened

            mouths

draw you 

down

to stand 

you up 

a million 

nerves 

frazzle 

and buzz

one wet 

           acupuncture oh              

oh                            

        

oh, such rollicking 

joy it brings 

(a tongue can be 

used on

many things)

daughters of dobermans

This time she is OTK.
As the air lock opens
she gives blanket consent
to the kosmobuksir in charge.
With the
kinetic energy of rigid boulders
orbit insertion is complete.

The time is now.
Oort clouds
above the ground
where no seismometer
detects them.

The raw meat on the green carpet.
Pink from the last blood of
arteries.
He closes his eyes under
static firing,
Lars is disciplined
our HOH sublimator
from Borås.

All is not right.
Move into
center.
The micromanagement
finished,
resistance,
mere flesh
without function.
Dignified
daughters of
dobermans.

comes and goes

weather
rain floods
sunshine
strength
pain
memories
that make us laugh
and cry
worries
side aching joy
tomorrow
seasonal fruit
fashion
technology
hope and inspiration
marital bliss
security
the morning bell
waves
being pulled
by moon phases
patience
fresh sheets
and the lack of
funding
milestones
motivation
moments of
disorientation
confidence
and too much time dwelling on
terrible twos or your teens
and now your neck
the first crash
first crush
heartache
or indifference
your mean streak
and team building skills
a beaming smile
surprise birthday cake
and a big bear hugs
friends
family too
With all in this world
that
comes and goes
It's so nice to have met you.

Night Street

Blue lights follow ridges

in aluminum siding,

trace brick, befuddle

lettering, and cast

down on brown air—

yellow reflectors

stand and wait as if

at a reunion, tar patches

lay themselves out

under the headlights

and the tree shadows

hold a seance with the sky,

their webwork of branches

netting ghosts.

Suspended Animation

Dear Santa

Seeing how
I haven't seen you now
in more than many while's quite,
I thought I'd write
this letter laden wish,
not big enough to be a list,
as it's just one thing,
and that thing is else no thing,
but a pod. Yes, I wrote pod, but not

any pod
you'd find hanging green
on a bush. I mean those lean
bits of oblong
and white that best belong
in the movies where one's out knocked
and then inside tucked
cozy, waiting for long trips,
or patches too rough, to easy slip

by. I'll glow
in my pod, yellow
digits the ticks down-counting
till zeros sing
alarming doors to whir
and pop, dropping a discovered
when both safely sound
and reanimated found
on the far side of neither's going.

But knowing
you, Santa, to be
a bastard red and jolly,
if I know you
at all, then here's my due:
one ragged blanket from Good Will,
some pretty pink pills,
and an unassembled cough
instructing me to "go sleep it off."

invitation

hello all, this blog has been such a success i thought i would try something similar with short fiction. http://flashingby.blogspot.com/ i have sent invitations to all the contributors i could find email addresses for. anyone else, contributor or otherwise, who might be interested please contact: rpenmarq at gmail dot com or timmy44444 at gmail dot com thank you

Mirror Box

Freestanding phantom heart
The lost limb of my
Sensations of
itching
and imperfection

I cower here
Beneath the bedclothes
In the hope that
you’ll return

Kalashnikov

Further than Alpha Centauries twin suns rests (at the
natal apogee) my cosmic string. It is related to
birth. I lost it.

Pale vacuum delivered globe. Also, between
birth and my current departure my body disconnected,
cells became islands between frozen space. One piece.

I am margarine and bone.
The feeling of sitting down inside an armored car while taking
hits by B-40s is unspeakable.
Body of tissues while senses wreck
havoc the heart aches stress no damn good thing my adipose tissue must burn.
Open cluster in the semi major axis. No longer shocked, consigned.

AM blazing when I use the 175. AC asking
me if I want assistance beans and motherfuckers, I yell.
Bodies are HOT outside. A stellar wind and in the soldier face
a reflection of a nebula. I did this between Opposition and the Occult.
I am a fucked up bummer.

Lament and mourn, insulted throbbing heart. The metaphoric
rock does not melt. There is yet time. I don't know to what however.

dissolving

When I'm invited out,
no doubt, to that place
we each must go,
I'll step blithe not grim, trimmed in
pretty-
patterned suits.

Plaid-scented tears atop
herringbone-stretched smiles,
layered over
paisley-flavored sighs, I'll spin
pinwheel-
peopled years

to gargle my garb fresh
in bathing. And bathe
I will, striding
toward the bric-a-brac bridge
that spans
forgetting.

I may waver before
my wavelengths dive,
but then I'll jump
to swirl in the bobbing chill
and feel
a measured

dissolving.

about me, part 1

i was born by a river in a little shack, and just like the river i can't get back on track. my parents were missionaries in china, or maybe in india or central africa one day lenin and trotsky came to town. they stayed at mrs b's rooming house. mao tse-tung was already in town and he was staying at the savoy. we knew trouble was brewing when hombres like that were in town. when i finished sweeping up at the mission i went for a walk. as i approached the river i heard laughter. someone was laughing. by the time i came around the bend the laughter had stopped. on the river bank a fish was flopping. i could never remember seeing such a fish before. not even in my dreams. behind me i heard a gurgling sound. yeti was standing there. yeti was my best friend. rain began to fall. i pointed to the fish still flopping on the ground. veins began to throb in yeti's forehead. he was as baffled by the fish as i was. right then we heard the sound of oars coming through the water. i turned and saw trotsky lenin and stalin in a rowboat. no conversation seemed to be going on. a i watched the water ripple out from the boat lenin turned and waved to me i waved back trotsky merely nodded at me truth be told i never liked trotsky much lenin was much more friendly eternity was in his gaze stalin was my favorite he always had a smile almost always conversation with him was easy a koala bear could not be more friendly

loves me, loves me not

When I was a girl
In a long ago world
I plucked the petals
From flowers

They'd release with a pop
Letting my heart drop
As I continued my
Way round

The watery eyes
Of little girl skies
Overfill with hope
And rain

But that little girl mind
Will eventually find
Much more than loves
And loves not

in a faraway land

in the faraway land of rub-a-dub everyone lived in the local pub they drank whiskey, ale and bock and played the tuba around the clock there was an old woman who lived in a crab and ate fried rhinoceros by the slab she ate it with mustard, she ate it with mayo and sang in the tub all the live long dayo there was an old man who lived in a lobster he was a friend of uncle bob, sir his only companion was a garter snake and they dined every evening on raw beefsteak when i woke up in the wind and snow i heard a voice calling me from below my father was a drainpipe and my mother was a rat they kept me in the cellar so i wouldn't get fat they wouldn't let me go out and play so i carved toothpicks the livelong day with the sword of doom and a boy scout knife the best friends i ever had in my life there was an old man who lived upstairs he had a collection of folding chairs he folded them up and he folded them down i think his name was henry brown the billiard parlor had a big tv there for the whole wide world to see and every night i heard it say walter cronkite passed this way

If I could wish

If I could wish,
I would wish upon
petals not yet plucked
from yellowed guessing

If I could wish,
I would wish upon
furry seeds white-tucked
in breathy nesting

If I could wish,
I would wish upon
stony time's rolled back,
concave-gray jumbling

If I could wish,
I would wish upon
yawning star's stretch, black
tales awkward mumbling

And when I did,
each counted could-be
would be a wished lie
down from undoing

Apoapsis

Different roads,
acid streetlights.
The red brick building and
a cluster-fuck bowl.
I need hydration is
served by a
mercurial woman
the radon
smelling place shakes.
I peep at the
molar precision behind
the counter.
Boom-boom.

Trapped inside the kennel.
Emptying my cup of
americium tasting
fluid. This place is
a ki-ki.

Social war
is total freedom.
This is devastation
a body without
plasma vulgarity.

My straight leg and my
boot cut.
Two objects farthest apart.
My visible fat is calculated using
rp = a(1-e) and ra = a(1+e).

words

wordsword
..sword
...swo
...rds
...wor
...dsw
...ord
...swo
...rds
...wor
..dswor
dswordswor
.dswodsw
.ordswor
.dswrdor
.dswords
.wordswo
.rdsword
.swordsw
.ordswor
.dswords
.wordswo
.rdsword
.swordsw
.ordswor
.dswords
.wordswo
.rdsword
.swordsw
.ordswor
.dswords
.wordswo
.rdsword
.swordsw
.ordswor
.dswords
.wordswo
.rdsword
.swordsw
.ordswor
.dswords
.wordswo
.rdsword
.swordsw
..ordsw
..ordsw
..ordsw
...ord
...swo
...rd
....s

Leadville

Leadville

            —circa 1874

Her hurdy gurdy sound detaches in tangents across the plain.

little missy violet walks from the dance hall foyer.

Drone-strung, her torso waits for its player.

A crib is a disheveled doldrum of human need.                          

little missy violet walks from the dance-hall foyer.

Somewhere beneath her breastbone a series of levers turn.

A crib is a disheveled doldrum. Of human need:

the clanking-pocket gent, fierce gears in woolen trousers.

Somewhere beneath her breastbone a series of levers turn.

Beyond cracked walls, bursts of pewter snow.

The clanking-pocket gent, fierce gears in woolen trousers--

after the dig, the sift, drip of the silvered tongue, there is this:

beyond the cracked walls, bursts of pewter snow,

and her torso, a pliable instrument and white.

After the dig, the sift, the drip of the silvered tongue, there is this:

A rosined heart pumps coniferous blood.

And her torso, a pliable instrument and white

as powdered wind. Here within this branchless town

a rosined heart pumps coniferous blood--

Its hurdy gurdy sound detaches in tangents across the plain.

I meet Ingi

I meet Ingi,
stumbling down
from the opposite blend
of a tumbled path
paved with impatient falling
matters.

Nearer,
our split-bottom steps tingle
from the crumbling glass,
as slivered gum-ball ends
spike bronze gowns
of brittle leaves.

We swear to sea,
and shake frowns
till our best parts do bend,
toppling humble hats
where waves diverge, to grow then
flatter.

graffiti on time and space
like a binding spell

earth
bone
winding sheet
let this spirit come to me
but send it in peace or not at all

never the deceiver
for things unsaid are not always unheard

never forgiven
for you may do me no harm

the only thing I want to know
is if I am
or I am not
alone in your love

positing a moon of isosceles and tide

i. sometimes we hope there are talismans that can distract the fisher

what is prescribed by the dessicated wise
with their vertical slits and alligator eyes,

leave them to leer with their yellowing leer
and wait-

until our dreamy dream of the moldy rye commences:

then, we shall resume our habits imagined from the sand-
we will bobble at will in iceberg blue among the laughing blue,
laugh again where joyous scales are washed by blue
in a laughing shimmer of also laughing laughter blue.

ah! selchie, come to me in a form that magically matches
the creeping sundrop, my rough sweater, and the orange tide-

if I were a sea leopard laughing in the salty tide,
I would only bite you, nicely, while rolling underwater:

I no longer care for herring.

ii. alone on the strand but not in those dreams of sand

a flowery sonnet a day is anorexic to sum
with all dem iambs and such tricks that seek
to flatter the notches of conquests begun.

from how many realities is it possible to flee?

I only ask because I'm counting on something-
algebraically, I would claim that n is greater than zero
but that does not sound sufficiently endearing for now

and I can see that you are not melting.

I have attempted to capture something:

it's just laughter during blue abundance,
and a crystallized frolic in freezing water.