Open Offerings

do not disregard
my palm
held out in charity,
not for it,
I will help
you to your feet and
smile wanly
as of there was more
I could do
but knowing
you in your pride
would never accept
and you won’t
but not from selfish vanity
your loathing of me
is real and deep
and I do understand
because you’ve taken my hand
regained erection
even as
you turn away
ashamed

Pro-Social Alienation

Diurnally anti-phototropic
scurrying into shadow
slinking low down walls
scraping edges of bare existence
to subsist on pale subterranean vegetation
and fat blind worms
who share my same fate
“Who”?
Yes
Who!
I humanize the lesser
without anthropomorphization
they do not
thump their big back feet
bat their lashes
and coyly query, “Ain’t I
a little stinker?”
they are meat
sucked for nourishment
yet they too
are worthy respect
especially so of it
as their expiration date
extends my shelf life
in these dark hollows
where I dutifully avoid
all the light
and awful dehumanizing
humanity
that I fear
that from which I flee
that from which I wish
I was not separate be
but no more can I do
than dodge
than hide
to stay out of sight
of their eyes
out of mind of their knowledge
I’ve seen what they do
when they see a kind not theirs
expurgate, exterminate, annihilate
and sometimes they have
to put it in the past tense
those different from them
they ate
that’s why when ingest I
my bugs, my vermin
my critters squirmin’
I’m always sure
to uphold their status
their equality
with me, to me
their being that becomes me
is me
thank you my sweets
thanks to all my eats
thank you from my head
thanks from my feet
thanks until I’m dead
when on me you’ll be fed

Posy Police (or Petunia Pig Serves and Protects)

They are precious trembling flowers
as if frightened
orchid blooms on long curved stems
we must handle them gently
lest their fragile egos bruise
lay them down softly
between heavy pages
to press & preserve them
so they may
serve & protect us
delicate little lilies are cops
such fresh tender shoots
cannot be held accountable
for their actions
they are clover blossoms
in a world of voracious bunnies
that would stop at nothing
to chomp off their heads
against such enemies
terrified daffodils wage their war
quivering and quaking in their jackboots
they open fire
upon the swarthy hordes
that dark malignant mold
threatening the beauty of their patch
they do this for us, the people,
and then we have the audacity
to pluck their pedals
criticize the very soil
from which they grow
complain of the stink
of bullshit
that nourishes them
it’s not as if cops are teachers
who can be critiqued, assessed
held up to high community standards
and public oversight
placed under the glaring light
of heated scrutiny
those dear dainty pansies
would simply wilt and whither
after all
they are wild
and there are laws that forbid
the picking of wild flowers
to be so uprooted
and placed in a vase
would be a crime
and the pretty, pretty police may perish

Duck, Duck, Goose

Under the mistaken
hallucinatory impression
that I was suffering
from a sudden bout
of lycanthropy
I ran away
into the tall rows of late
summer corn
leaves slashing at my skin
small paper-cut incisions
opening me up
arms, legs, belly, buttocks, chest
naked
as the insects, worms & arachnids
all began to surface through my skin
bursting and clawing their way
mandibles scissoring and shredding
passages outward
like hundreds… no, thousands
of horrible tiny births
infants erupting from infibulated cunts
I was mother to a host of legion
to the biting, to the piercing,
to the leaping, crawling, flying
I was a god
a creator of life
all my wounds
grown over in a thick
coat of dark bristly wolf hairs
I howled and jerked off
under the bright full moonlight
the speed in the acid
keeping me aggravatingly flaccid
I gave up
sad and disappointed
a limp divinity
an unfulfilled masturbating werewolf
why, I lamented
could I not have metamorphosed
into a rapist swan
a dark-winged predator
circling the night sky over the city
on the hunt for the next victim
walking home alone
after too many brandy old fashioneds
glum, I sat my bare ass down
into the rich manure-scented
farmland soil
buried my face
in my furry clawed paws
and wept
for the hallucinations
I was missing out on
a real deity should be able
to ejaculate at will
perhaps, I thought
now would be the wise time
to sober up
and that’s when
beaks, wings and other, um,
dormant things
began to grow
significantly

Be Still My Nihilism

In sickness, health
feverish delusion and lucidity
the immense weight of its truth
compresses me, restricts and binds me
crushes all totally
until I am the perfect diamond
shaped, polished
without flaw
except unless
you consider the whole thing a flaw
a flawless flaw
flaying life’s sugarcoat
all raw nerve and death beneath
and yet still under that
nothing
in that grip I am squeezed
condensed into reverse prismatic purity
to focus the anti-light
lasers of absence
pouring out of me
none shall love
none shall hate
none shall run hot or cold
or medium mild or cool
even indifference is lost
under this factual pressure
how much would I rather
love a lie
a rainbow’s promise
arcing ’cross the sky
a spectrum of possibility
a universe full of meaning
than to be forced to my knees
into unopposable submission
to the singular unromantic
dead heart
unbeating at reality’s core

Pushing Coke

“Cocaine, cocaine,” he chirped
in those short staccato bursts
drug dealers are wont to use
as if crisp, quick syllables
are undetectable
to law enforcement ears

I perked to his come on
and said, “Yes, friend, this way,”
placed my hand
upon his back and lead him
off the sidewalk
away from the heavily trafficked street
up a short rise of three steps
onto the front stoop of the house
where we sat
“Look,” I said
“I’ve never tried cocaine
but I’m willing
let’s see what you got.”
“Man,” he claimed,
“I don’t like being out here
all exposed on this porch
let’s go inside and do this thing.”
I laughed,
“That might upset the people
who live here.”
“What!” he cried
you don’t live here
he began to get up
to flee the scene
and poor me
without my cocaine
“Sit down,” I said
he did
“We’re two fellas just hanging
ain’t a thing suspicious
except you all jittery
don’t worry
now let me see the drugs.”
but here
I’ll say
he was worried
he was all a-jitter
still he produced the tiny twisted baggie
of white powder
told me thirty bucks
yet to my ears
what a wrong price was that
I was a snow-white virgin
and I told his black
drug-dealing ass so
I said, “You’re a drug dealer
don’t you know how this works
the first taste is free
get me hooked, dude
get me coming back for more
here, what I’ll do ––”
and at this point
I snatched the bag of drugs
from his hand
“–– is, I’ll take this home
try it and let you know…”
and I shit you not
but he got up off that porch
and he ran
as I proceeded to snort the gram

Love of Sorts

What is there to love of a country
when a patriot (of sorts)
professes it
are they speaking of the land
desert, mountains, plains
are not all countries
settled upon land
have they been floridly driven
toward an emotional swelling
for one particular rock
maybe they love their nation’s people
more than any other’s
or is it their system of governance
it’s all terribly difficult
to come away with an answer
especially when these patriots (of sorts)
piss on the land
condemn its management
rally around its illegal usage
and vocally cheerlead its destruction
(Drill Baby Drill)
while denying any and all harm

As concerning their feelings
toward the people
these patriots (of sorts)
malign so many
of their fellow citizens
as coastal elites
as lazy moochers
as somehow destroying the country
they inexplicably love
while heaping derision
upon its government
casting scorn on its judicial system
activist judges
the powers of executive orders

When these patriots (of sorts)
talk of the country they love
they describe it
as a failed state
a hell of corruption and vice
and this leads me
to believe their love of country
is rooted
in the whiteness of their skin
for that is the sort of patriot
under discussion
they enjoy the privilege it grants them
relative invisibility to law
higher salary
a loftier rung on the ladder
their love is rooted
in the existence of enemies
to be crushed under military might
never does their love flow more freely
than in the face of imminent warfare
their love is of their own superiority
their love is of the subjugation of others
their love is of unbalanced justice
their love of country
is the love of themselves
their kind
these patriots (of sorts)
love only themselves
for them to love in any other way
would ne no more
than a handout to the undeserving

Purpose

Too much has been written
of the bee
its struggles against the large
clear glass pane
with the words
“Thank you for letting us
serve you!” printed upon it in fuschia
arcing upward
so that the lowercase “L”
the fifteenth character in
on the fourth and middle word
marks the parabolic zenith

How the bee rages
at the confounded invisible barrier
as it bemusedly ascends
weaving left and right
searching for passage
where all know none can be
for the bee in its compound eyes
cannot see
what is clearly before it

Volumes of analysis
come no closer
to bringing the mystery’s end
seemingly endless geometric
treatises have plotted
in excruciating detail
the minutiae of the bee’s
every step, every wiggle
retreat and advance
yet not an inch of progress
explaining how
on May 28th 2016
the bee passed
through the glass to fly free
and elude forever capture
and intimate examination

This is all in the official records
dutifully recorded and filed
because it is how it has to be
had to conclude
all that fight against oppression
all those hours of labor
determination to succeed
that stinging mad perseverance
to live life, to survive
has to signify something
it must mean in a meaningful way
and therefore
the bee got away
the bee overcame
the bee is an inspiration
for there is no possibility
not in the coarsest
most vulgar imaginations
of bee non-believers
that the bee, exhausted
did simply curl up and expire
dead upon the window sill
a hollow exoskeleton
baking in the hot light of day

Doubt Full

I am not here

there was a year I was
born in
long enough ago to
have become an old man
yet all those years
of experience
are not me

I hold the amassed points
of XP
still what is me
alludes me

threads through my days
sever and fray
in drugged ends
and alcoholic elongations

evidence of my non-existence
is hard to come by
but in circumstances abundant

because of Descartes
I assume myself to be
writing these words now

can I be sure
my hand moves the pen
my brain moves the hand
my mind conjures the letters
no

discertainty is my lot
to accept
cherish perhaps
as a token, a trinket
of exactly who I am
of that that which I am so full