Friday, November 19, 2010

blackbird days

when january rots,
bitter chill shivers
spoil over every inch
of petty white dress.

blackbirds so black you
could call them exquisite
death. you could call them.
blackbird fly.

three days harsh white.
ruthless, wicked white.
glazed in carbon-- the
smokestack's black grit.

blackbirds so black you
could sell them in milan.
trash-vogue for trash-vogue;
merla gone.

chanting, eating through white
world in fever sun frozen
amber; "lord, i don't care about
you no more, winter is over!"

we want you.

grasp the goose by the neck
and feed her from the apple tree.

i've got a hundred books on naked
men, dead legs, the atom: pick

the tender tissue, fuse the scrawny
birds-- the cerulean tuft falling

down, down, down like science
from a bashed jar making you suck

the sick bark as if it were lemon
juice from the war-- we want you.

yes, we want you. we want to fuck
your tongue twice, eat you out like

bullet ants, swallow you
like earth would, like earth will.

grasp the goose by the neck
and feed her napalms, fragmentations,

disney rockets, GB 4s, kenney cocktails,
white phosphorous, white fiction--

shove it down her throat, that dead death;
line up the shovels & pocket eulogies.

someone will have to carve the stone;
someone will have to make the words.

10/8- 25, feb.

whiskey lips crossed hot neck,
dancing like confetti to a voice
incarcerated.

slipped through the door,
stole a cigarette, &
met your friends.

it's late februrary;
you were staggering on the top
step like a static nazi.

met you half
way & formed a
stratagem.

under the fog,
we would lace the
room with a drive--

ignoring the sly, gushing
on your stiff blue bed, toxic
party foam swimming

through the body. my stockings
found their way off as your guests
found their way out.

we each murmur
words incomprehensible,
unrememberable--

but don't you remember?

milk skin blending into
sheets, my infamous fame
a freckle to you.

heat tangled in spins,
dawn cracking with
necks.

jammed exposure
in one lung, in
two cores.

breaths lost in the night.

Madigans, September 24, 2010

The college girls are taking off
their new (expensive) dresses
for beer and boys in polo
shirts. For an invitation--
a "handy" ride home.

The bartender squeezes a lemon, smoke
tangled in the threads of his Hawaiian shirt.

"2 more Buds--
a Bourbon and Diet,
please. Leave it open."

Neon lights plaster blood brick.
Scattered ashtrays & dollar bills.
Baseball, America.
Daily specials, shots, pitchers.

1978
Stuck on the old $ register;
worn silver, buttons click.
Jack Daniels sits, Jack Daniels
sings, and they dance like
"Yankees." Homerun girl's got
her win-face ready. Pitchers,
shots, pitchers, pitchers--

AND WE'VE GONE IN TO OVERTIME.

There are people cheering,
"RIP IT OFF!"
Begging for strong drinks,
stronger bladders.
Flimsy slips spin left, spin round.

Bleeding the same, bleeding all the same.
I've been here before.

9/10- Ghost Drugs

In the German tongue, in the Polish town,
We smoked dollar bills and I would gag
On the green edges turning brown
And the taste of cheeseburgers in your sleeping bag.
But losing brain cells and Homage brought me to my knees
In front of the salon, so I dumped your sorry ass.
Oh, but you had plans, you'd break this sleaze,
Feed her ghost drugs in a lemonade glass.
Oh, you were the brute, and I was puking in the black,
In the bathtub, paralyzed, Tommy telling you it was a mistake,
Mitch assuring you I was "a setback."
But you ruined my bones anyway, you ate my birthday cake.
And all these people still ask me how I can talk about it.
So I sob and pretend that it's hard to admit.

5/10- Dear Abby, Here are you clothes.

I sometimes wish they would all die
in a freak steamroller accident--

Jax miniskirts
And pastel Pappagallos

What are you going to be for Halloween?
The girl who would be queen?

I hope your pockets are deep enough to hold all your teeth.

Tonight: Don't look for a glass-smashing
Hotel room-trashing
Scorpio.

Or animal
Magic.

My generation
Makes me sick.

But Abby,
You wear it so well.

I am often sad
That I don't have a gag reflex

When you say,

"Look what Fridita did with all those silly costumes and flowers in her hair."

!WARNING: Doing so may result in
Carbon monoxide poisoning.

I am very afraid
That this is

The climax of my life.

5/6/10- My Name is Not Julie

Last night I was nervous; I met you at our favorite bar-- the one with the foreign beers and secret booths for bullshitting.
Last night the local jazz bands were unfamiliar; The Palmetto Bug Stompers? Johnson & Honey Bannister?
Last night you were a suave fuck, with your motorcycle boots and cheap leather jacket.
Last night Big Blue took us back to your place-- your place.
Last night you fed me sweet mead-- my "potent honey tongue slipping too many words" while 150 grams spin, swallowing the background of "honeymoon."
Last night I was happy to see you did not own a television, or believe in Ann Taylor.
Last night you painted me ebony, blood stumbling through my veins like the grime in tap water.
Last night it was the way your hair shimmered under the Chinese lantern light, planted where fire should grow.
Last night the floors were cold, my feet clung frozen to your legs.
Last night you couldn't hear it, but Yoni disputed through my ears-- "You act like a slut but you're really a freezer."
Matt, did you want the breast beneath my Fletcher blouse? Did you want me bare? Didn't you want to eat me alive?
Last night I prayed for morning, I prayed for the half moon to run across the city.
But last night, every night-- a 5:45 alarm goes off and the Saint Lazarus flame dies young; you steam your pasta and teach geography.