[x]

So maybe there are too many flowers here
on the ground, and in the cotton;
weaving like lace through red dirt flesh.
Sun threatens necks and marinates eyes;
as balsa-spun bones tell laconic tales of age,
creaking and groaning like old southern mansions.
Mint juleps and almonds and peaches doze here,
and Eve has her fingers stuck down Eden's throat,
splashing sin and decadent fruits all over the city.
Our voices are slow and warping in the heat,
rising like egg steam off the sidewalks.
Honeysuckle flowers bloom with tarot cards
and suffocate the air with a drowsy nectar.
Stars are made to be read
nights are made to be wakened-
o

Bacon's "Three Figures"Those filthy little bastards
wouldn’t let me go. I moulded
them with layer on layer
of thick, sticky paint.
At the start of each day I was near
to vomiting. By lunchtime
pining for a drink. After I set
the brushes aside my lover
opened the wine. He and I
with our Bacchanalia to
deaden the end of each day.
In misery, self-loathing and disgust
I completed my obsessive task.
I at last became a painter,

though I lost enthusiasm
when I decided the Three Figures
were completed. There was nothing
in me left for the cross.
Three Figures, then, without a Crucifixion.
A trio of faceless hominids

the ocean is pollutedthe ocean is polluted
and our children will be throat down baptized
in its weightless mausoleum choke.

staring at the rising tide
swallowing the shore,
swallowing the rivers,
man sees himself reflected across the cerulean surface,
remembers the tyrants past,
given power so surging
(the helpless destroyers),
sees the giant lumbering to transplant him
in an ecosystem generated for the mermen,
the chemically inflated
above the land where
there is only hunger and cold,
the leftover lineage
of an animal that slit its own tongue
and drank its belly full,
desperate for the memory of blood.

Farmers' MarketFarmers' Market

At daybreak, we make our aching bodies rise,
caffeinate, survey the still pink-patched sky,
pray for a dry day. Once loaded, we truck

bushels of produce, potted plants, sawhorse
and board tables, stabilize crates of pie
between bins and strawberry boxes, drive
down the mountain, into town and set up

the fruits of our labors, hoping neighbors
and weekenders alike will buy, eyeing
vendors wares, wishing there was cash to spare.
Down-street, a bow begins to sweep the strings

softly, bringing bed-headed children out
to watch the band set up. An old pup roves
over to the barbeque cart, gambols
off when the butcher

Far AwaySometimes we grow up like this:
gyroscopic, like sunflowers, our faces turning
towards the sun. And the sun is more than a ball
of burning gas. The sun is warm and bright
and alive. And we are warm and bright and alive.

I am no bloom. Wings do not rely
on the kindness of strangers. But sometimes they will tell you
that people aren’t things you can own.
They will tend to the flowers, they will lean into the garden,
prune dead leaves and reshape
innocent bushes. Their sweat will drip into
your faces, my glittering lilies, my lonely and cynical roses,
and they will tell you how to
come into your own. They will say the wo

I noticed a ring on my finger

I

Swallow bird feathers raw
like empty caricatures
of unfilled bodies. Watch
the swallows streak across
blackwater puddles
and gulls dip white wings
in oily waves.

Swallow the sea-salt
and riptide currents and bones.

II

The distance between the beach
and city-linoleum kitchen: five feet.
Magazine on counter, cabinet
against the knee, neck and head
strung from shoulders.

Steps from the door; your lilac lips.

III

You are my cat, my Schrödinger experiment,
my nihilistic vice and wry intoxication.
You hear me - a patter of words and a look.

come

closer

cat.

Charity Prick with a pin the thickest vein.
A butterfly, albino, sniffs the skin
with serpentining snout uncurled
to sip the silken sanguine pearl,
to sate, with crimson hue, her wings.
Now see, the heavens flutter pale
and papery, swarm the trickling fount,
and Yes! the sun illuminates the task—
to pock this body limp with bloodied vugs
to glut a million throbbing compound eyes!

because rain is meant for...if living were a shirt,
you'd be size large

and i would be an
extra-small,
strangled by my own
attire,
because i spend my time
walking downtown
feeling smaller
and smaller
every
day.

if ever i had
the chance to hear
ten thousand abbey-monks
singing in perfect harmony,
i would still be stubborn enough
to say you
are more divine.

you are the start,
the in-between,
and the ever-after
of the most destructive
and beautiful storms
to grace the surface of my world;
every time you walk away
you leave behind

everything, everything,
all the evidence
that it will surely
rain again.

but i do not deserve
to dance in such

Sunday in the Kitchendear mother,

i ask you how far we are from heaven.
hunched over the sunday paper like a patient gargoyle.
your eyes blinking too often, and tongue snaking
around in your mouth, as if the answer is hidden between your teeth.

dear mother,

you hum holy bars in the kitchenette.
say "hallelujah means praise yahweh, praise the lord"
say "angels must rest on the tongue of that word"
say "angels, oh angels hallelujah, hallelujah, rest in me"

but you haven't slept in weeks.
i hear you sob sigh into the night like a prayer.
like your table lamp is the closest thing to heaven-gates.

dear mother,

sometimes i still wish i could pray with you

the year of the animaljanuary,

i am attempting to hide from
you. i am hibernating in a bed
four times my size. i am imitating
a bear, clawing at you and growling
in my deepest growl.

february,

i stuffed you in a heart
shaped box and buried
you in my garden.

nothing grew,
but when i planted
radishes they tasted like
chocolate raspberries.

march,

where are your lions and lambs?
i have pigeon toes and
wild oats for hair,

april,

i went to the doctor on
the 10th. i learned that
i had forty two feathers growing
from my shoulder blades.

may,

el cielo es azul,
y te quiero,

june,

my legs are the color of mosquitos,
which is deep blood red and sc

WintersWinters

A common scene, Canadian geese necking
south, arrowing against the wind.
Every winter it happens but this winter
I see one, the leader, produce a rolling fold
in his wings, and he’s slipped to the tail of the group.

Soon enough we took the sky, we built planes, and their shadows
swallowed birds, whose shadows crossed fences
and rested in the black, broken feathers
of trees, their wise eyes staring.

for the drunksthere's a sense
of wealth
in me,

not one
that comes
from checking
bank statements,

or balancing
a check book,

but more
or less
a contrast
to the
spiritual
bankruptcy
of my
past,

I remember
sitting filthy
in self pity

on the stairs
of a church,

drinking beer

hotter
than
piss

from a
dirty
styrofoam
cup

                 fresh
                     from the

Accepting a drinkDoes this cloud-maned beauty see
how I ironed this shirt, pressing mercilessly
until the ionised water evaporated? Does he

understand how long it took to shape
my hair this way? To cover the gape
where my once-full coiff's now planning its escape?

Did he notice my choice of a twenty?
I had tens in my wallet. The drink cost two-fifty
but it looks like purples are all I carry

this way. Does this Pan, who probably fucks
his choice of uni intake bucks
see my killer-sweat? The flux

his lick of the lips casts? Of course
he does, but it works. No laws
against flirting, grandpa. Can't force

him to stop. He thanks me
for the double and

if the woman    .

        If the woman is a stone
        bury her in blue water,
        If the woman is a knife
        rub her til she's sharp.

His voice is a rattle at the bottom of a tin cup.
His arms are spurs, and rusted
where metal pinches leather.

He shakes like a drum in firelight
with the last fist still fresh on his back:

        ama sa'ni, she grow curved low like a horseshoe,
      &

Scourgeleaves shuffled along
from breezes gone bitter
scatter
across a river

blackened
with maternal blood
from my thighs that
merge

with the onset
of autumn, and
the scourge
of our union-

clay soil darkened
with cooking oil
and carcasses,
and human waste

decomposing
in the dying light
of day and a life

the way summer
promises,
only to turn away

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Sappho, Fragment 2He must be a god, who sits near
enough to listen to the loveliness
of your laughter, and the sweetness
of your voice. My breast is bursting

with blood eager to reach
each fingertip of my clenched fist.
Even a glimpse from across
the room can make me forget
how to speak, how my tongue
moves between my teeth.

And immediately a silken flame
burns underneath my skin,
my vision darkens, a clamor of ringing
fills my ears, I become damp
with fever, and my body is seized
by trembling.

Then I am paler than winter
wheat, and in this fit of madness
I am little better than dead.
And, though it all is foolishness, still
I will te

strangersI could tell by the way you folded
The newspaper that you'd given up
hope of ever finding that long lost
pet, the remote for the TV
you pawned, the shrapnel
that had dug into your flesh
like a lover's fingernail,
broken off and left
to help you remember
that today would have been
her birthday. You couldn't help
me if I was drowning
because you never learned to swim
or no one tried to teach you
that the Good Samaritan was a stranger
who couldn't help
but steal the wounded man's wallet
as he lifted him
from the dusty ground.

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How silk is made

by ~TheHungerArtist, Feb 27, 2006, 6:53:49 PM
Literature / Poetry / Nature / Free Verse

How silk is made

When in the shock of waking, I am a silkworm. Blinking
back an after-image of a Hokkaido mountain range I’ve never seen.
I imagine the pulsed halo when the substation blew.
This is how all transitions are, a burrowing.
Even though no one sees it happen, or because of it.
A cherry blossom bursts out in the mountains.
In a vast, unintended moment it fills the sky.
Only in blind worm-acts is silk ever made.
We are surprised when the winter holds on like a silence.
We are surprised when light bursts forth from the Earth.
When, on a slope full of cherry trees, it all collapses.
We move into a slow awareness we hope we never understand.

How silk is madeby ~TheHungerArtist

Literature / Poetry / Nature / Free Verse

**Edited** 11/12/06

Daily Deviation

Given 2009-08-21

The punctuation in How silk is made by ~TheHungerArtist separates certain clauses instead of full sentences, giving the piece a sense of finality, but my favorite part is how the images in the piece interact with each other, the meaning of each changing with repetition. ( Featured by `SparrowSong )