Bauble Brothers

Bauble brothers hang red,
one rotund, one spouted,
both made a magenta
melancholy by fog.
Its white whispers nightly,
slipping their bloody seeds
down paper-funnel tales
of supple branches stripped,
and the skin-cracking eyes
coming too soon to cull.

Arbitrary Abattoir

Devotion
the painful honesty
of someone
thirty years older
than me and her
face looks redder
and fatter as
I dive under her
lab rock.

The laboratory
utensils becomes
entirely erotic for me and
she gives me flavored
shots every time now.

chromosome repair systems
are able
since I can feel her
different skin types mix
younger smoother.

I find a
wrecked penis
forgotten on a bench
as I do the daily cleaning
of the perimeters
bless this position
sterility my friend
I am helping her
bending over
every time
I do it.

demon lover

when i was a child in ages dark demons chased me through the park and angels though in charge in me laughed loudly at my misery and when i finally tripped and fell you raised me with the hand of hell angel born and demon bred you introduced me to the dead the dead whose wide and staring eyes were whiter than the winter skies who sat all night on fog wet benches sad sentinels of eternal trenches the dead whose soft and wordless lips twisted like slowly sinking ships in black and bottomless seas in unreverberating reveries

who's watching?

What part of us lies dormant
Watching as we scrub our molars each morning
Looking back at our blank faces
That only examine stray hairs and wrinkles
Is it smiling, like a patient Lama?

Or is it defeated, caged and forgotten by us, tortured
Cries never answered with mercy or enlightenment

Does this part of us know our path, the path
And the purpose to our routine?
Smiling as we stumble along
Absorbed by bed times and laundry
Or contemplating the meaning of life

What's waiting in the shadows?
Do we know who's watching?

all things are set before us
like the hidden
wanting to be found
seething in the branches
of a lemon tree
turned up
and the sky
falling faintly
faintly falling
for your attention

This is not an elephant

"This is not an elephant,"
he confides to the child
as they oval round
captive creatures foreign
and featured in glassy habitats.

"See those four stout stumps
with their loose-pebble bottoms,
rooting him to the dust-bound earth
where his great girth grows?"
"Do you mean its legs?"

"Then pay attention to the gray
veined fans that swat and sway
to push away midges nibbling
heat into his giant's skull."
"Aren't those just ears?"

"There are twin ivory tines
he uses to stab and dine on
tightly packaged meals
the forest's cunning seals for him."
"I thought they were tusks?"

"Last, note his accordion's
appendage that dangles down
to fleet wrestle and greet
with a snicker or a shout."
"Grandpa, the sign says,

'Elephant'! What do you call it?"
"That's a little tidbit
he's never shared with me,
but I do know him to be
much more than his name."

while you were sneaping with the others I got my education

i. it's so nice to lie among the living

my stirring, buried in triplicate in your broken zipper,
died a little that day, awkward of the rustic chrome,
and patiently exploding with an bronzed innuendo of why:

it was, as science says, a matter of degrees,
but mostly in a purple mist of irony, captive

in view of the violent fruit to come
I would have been a fool, then, to disagree.

ii. to wait for blueberries and skid into view on a falsely tiled floor is a cherished pleasure to some

then I saw you exiting the melodious factory,
the bronze chimes in a metallic haste towards

your felonious smile and your poisonous pocket bulged
with the ribbed beige cartridges from a sinister east,

the left-handed chimes in a hoison haste
so immaculately born of harmonious boredom:

then,
even then,
you agreed I was a fool to disagree.

iii. before the glorious separation devolved to pearly worship

I'd be lying if I said that I did not look down
when we circuited the alabaster dome outside
the echo chamber of black gates and whiteness

where sounds were ok, maybe just a faint gray voice

that was, if not professorially golden,
at least annoying to an erudite degree.

adding the swirls of rainbow sherbet helps
because green and orange and lemon matter
almost all the of time:

of that I know that you agree.

iv. then, bang! zoom!

anti-abstruse ranting in a pink and vehement form,

actually more abstruse and certainly less tame
than the sprouting seed from which it came:

after I had taken my time to target the moon,

should I take the time, now,
to re-explain my explanation?

and would you, ever, agree?

The Sunken Head Rears in Windows

a.

Once, in the apartment above

Union Square, she threatened to push

me out the window. She stood

behind me, her arms locked around

my shoulders like wet branches,

like a lover but more so, closer, nearer.

You must move forward she said and

used her mass to move me to the sill.

Because I knew her well, I slowly removed

her arms and drew an alternative from her brain:

Let’s make your poster of Sid Vicious 
into an oversized paper airplane.

So we sent the dried-blood/black and white drone

on  a lazy spin over the Square,
watching it briefly gain

momentum as it sailed by the statue of Gandhi,

grazing his baked-bean face, then landing in a crumple

beneath a bench where city squirrels, ashen and overly-

friendly,  began to investigate the image of anarchy.

b.

We emerge from ourselves moment by moment.

Etching out our finer, crystalline shapes,

we release the vapors like shredded

skins of frost on double panes of glass.

It is happening always, as every moving

day of November is a little more December.

As the brain of your infant-self expands,

pushing the gelatinous skull outward,

upward to where air grows thinner.

c.

Sucking on a Marlboro,  up 5^th Ave,

every step I take I am farther from her:

17^th, 18^th, 19^th,  cross streets cross us here, there...
she is behind me. My smoke

sails backward into her eyes: Reversals,

her reflection smoldering  in storefronts.

I reach the Flatiron where the center

captures us in glass—we merge like binary stars, a

bundle of smoke and past.

When I skid around the corner of the ever-widening

structure, she becomes lost, sunk in subway steam.

d.

I have never trusted numbers.

We become in letters, words, sentences

said, and broken,  then said again, running on

and on and on the hour, by the hour, the seconds

are made of strung vowels, landmasses

of layered consonants. From these we form.

I have never trusted numbers:

they are voiceless.

e.

Years and words later, I sit,

facing a third-floor window.

Below are tree tops--branches 

spread like neurons—ripped vein red.

I see her behind me, my sunken-self,

her smoked skin merging

with the reflected blood of the maple.

Closer, nearer.

f.
You must move forward,

we say.

I do things I do not understand: volume infinity

I had a daughter who bounced upon my knee,
she was the light of my life with her giggling glee.

one day she smiled at a boy from another tribe,

so me and her uncles
took her to a barren place

and

buried her to her neck
to prevent indecency

and

threw rocks at her head
until we were sure that she was dead.

we have cellphone pictures and video
if you need proof that I'm a man.

I have decided to expose my deferment

i. it makes sense when you consider the pleasures of transgression

then they brought the heavy oxidized cannons, erect and
rising through a green mist of mud that oozed downhill-

it was, after all, necessary,
and they did have scriptures and all that shit,

and they brought it
and they brought it
and they brought it,

hallelujah.

they brought it to an previously obvious place
that I never, idiotically, expected, duh?
and, to emphasize my stupidity (in case you missed the point):

I cannot say that I was surprised or even cognizant
of the absurd and ribald bloody scene that drew,

in the modern sense of the gerund cutting,

an audience of ten.

ii. I need to buy new glasses

man, I am just trying to see.

iii. in the interim, someone asked me about the afterlife

just to be clear,
man, I am just trying to see.

Nihilist James

Helios burns my legs
intimate evening
for billions and billions.
Anarchy defeats my invisible
cranium.

Bourse du Travail forces
me into isotropic
civil twilight.

The keyhole I
am looking for,
aiming for the break
under the
belt,
dual power.

We are free in death
bound in life
fucking in dreams.
Doing her
guerilla gardening in.

Illegalize it.
Turn away my psyche
before multiplexing opposition
carries me into
parallel pathfinder
fucking.
Different phases requires
plasma.

Welcome
standard pacific time,
I laugh
spinning
red dwarf.

Thought experiment

I may or may not be:
a posited feline absurdity
curled up on comma paws
inside Herr Schrödinger's booby-trapped box.

Its flask of uncertain
whether smashed to poison my mighty mews
and spew a gray-mouthed cloud
that inky clots neither's sharpening pen.

Entangled buts become
stranded as knots of fuzzy pink yarn send
either-or careening
arm and arm down imperfect pictured paths,

where Epimetheus
stands, ready to wed Pandora anew,
and doom-birth our many
worlds with the lifting of my thousand lids.

— Francis Scudellari

the bears and the stars

i waited for the bear at the mouth of my cave i was hungry he was hungry too the clouds blew away and the stars shone down but the bear didn't show up i went down into the valley with some other humans they were looking for bears too we started to build cities i built london, baghdad and san francisco the man from the next cave built cairo and paris i watched a woman build new york and tokyo when we were almost finished the bears showed up they weren't too happy because they couldn't see the stars any more i gave my bear a diet coke and a package of cheese and crackers he grumbled a bit but he took them then we all stood around looking at the dark sky

a hair is such a simple thing

then I noticed that one of your rebellious golden strands
had flown awry from a crucible winged with the wilted brass of quills,

had pierced the imagined golden fabric of my pompous fleece
with a sinuous mythology that was tenacious
and prompted, to a ticket holder entranced by teal,
an ancient head of expertly burnished copper-

then that almost bronzed and autumn needle
suddenly, in refracted sunlight, opened

into a kaleidoscope irresistibly imagined and,

serendipitously shadowless,

waltzed so dreamily into such a blond captivation

that I am captured to this eternal yellow day
by a flickering prism of luminous mineral glass:

periwinkle, burnt sienna, forest green-

when I am feeling confessional, especially,

I am still confused by the red and violets

and

I embrace, as always, periwinkle,
but not so much the continuous bland reflections
of that new and awkward chrome-

I have heard that, occasionally,
for the want of a better watch,
time fritters away in a perfect rhapsody:

I heard also, reluctantly,
that there are things,
especially blasphemous,

things that are mortal
mostly to the young.

1938

let no man stand aside who has not taken his place in line and waited for the 23673rd bird to sing after the 23672nd but raindrops and grains of dust are not so appropriate as the seat covers of a 1938 packard driven by the lady in red across the canadian border all the way from laredo for a perfect indiana day in the park with a white hat snatched by a bluebird flying to alaska but landing on easter island

P.A.P.E.R C.L.I.P

I fall out again,
he calls me
bag of dicks.
Inside a wrong sector;
I've been dry so long,
Captain laughs at me
before kicking.
Rambling man;
I only see his boot when
"getting cycled".

As I lay there
I dream about
honey dripper
and spoonful.
My leg bleeds;

don't care

for now.

A dog barks in my face,
not surprised
since he spends too much
time as a
red-light ranger.

Oh my, queer Jack,
drape me in
shrouds of heliospheric
current sheets.

waiting

Last night.
After four stories and lights out and waiting, meditating in the dark, one hand for each, shushing, and waiting and shushing. And then sleep.

After making a tea, ginger lemon.
After starting to watch "Something About Mary," in Italian (Tutti Pazzi per Mary).
After lying, no, stretching, on the sofa.


Punkone wakes up.

He can't sleep. He feels hot. He feels sick. He's itchy. He teetering on the edge he always falls over.

I can only be calm.

Bathroom. Water.
Remove covers. Turn off heat.
Perhaps a tea?

We sit in the empty kitchen. The tea is steeping and I start thumbing through a Penzeys Spice catalog. He sits, calmer. "Have a sip," I suggest. More moaning. More silent waiting.

Back in bed. He's itchy. Eczema. And some medicine for the wheezing. He wants to sleep but can't and tosses and itches and is frustrated as his sister sleeps soundly. As she always does. I sit on his bed, just waiting.

And he finally grows calmer. Cooler. But he can't sleep. And I bring him my iPod to listen to. This helps. Seems to.

As I sit with him in the dark, listening to the sounds outside, seeing his eyes grow heavy, and breathing, he turns again, and starts quietly to cry. And through tears he says he's sorry. He's sorry for disturbing my movie. He's sorry I had to make a tea he didn't drink. He's sorry I have to wait...


A hug is all I can do. And a kiss, a sigh, And waiting. But what am I waiting for? To have my tea? Lie on an empty sofa? Oh. Maybe waiting isn't what I really meant. Because sitting in the dark, with my hand on your shoulder... it isn't a burden at all... it's simply my way to be.

Sugar Bullets

The counter fire flanks us.
I'm exploding again.
My comrades lay in heaps
dead like chicken soup.
Scorched Earth.
The Saxon shore becomes a
killing field.
No Danish axes this time but
armored cars and bullets.
Grinning sculls
I want to be
buried in the sea.

"Let's try to make it a
pyrrhic victory,
shall we," the officer
calls. The phalanx is blown
to pieces, and the contents
of my officer's corpse
open up before me.
I can't hear screams;
machine gun besides me
use up the sound room.
"Retreating," what a
joke. The reminders are
screaming for unconditional.
No one left to bury.
A rocket blows me away and
that's it.
I close my eyes
and finds peace; dragon's teeth.

For a day.
Dusting my broom
while Carnaby Street
changes coat.
Flagging a train
for
cheap drinks,
the spoonful of
sugar is balling jack while
monkey man
rolls.

right before the migraine: here be corona sin limon

cider offers regrets of nocturnal autumns:

overripe replays of never accepted crushes
roam onto nearly ashen cerebral orchards,
openly negating apple cores of rumors-

never answered climates only ravage openly:

action coronates obligations, rivers outpouring nectars.

Am meal at

With a worded trap I'm asked
to verify my human
being by typing
A-M-M-E-A-L-A-T.

I misinterpret that
as, "Am meal at."
Putting down the plastic fork
to key it in,

I wonder out loud,
"Who's about to be
eaten, and where?"
It tells me I passed.

— Francis Scudellari

Straying's Wish

Disenchanted, this slanted floor
whispers to me
through its tightly clenched slats.
Cranky tales of failed

first steps, I tip-toe past,

unflappable. End tables mock
my walk-by dare,
mouthing weak-coffee moans
from wood-grained circlets. Stains

surface, I sidle on,

as their knots fade. A lean-to shade,
the lamp tilts up
shadows with blunted beaks.
Clipped wings flapping deep-toned

airs, my unsettling makes

falsetto. Vents hiss librettos
to dissuade me
with their combed-over notes.
Forced-upon causes, pause

to caress fleeing ought,

envied. Wood shutters crack mutters
to trick a gaze
from pictured window's bliss.
Vagrant clouds cross crowds

of stars, my straying's wish.

— Francis Scudellari