Waiting like Lacerating

Scratch
and shake
and break
these arms
that hold all
there ever was.

Watch
and take
and sate
the scantily-clad
urges of bygones,
not so forgotten.

I’ve been looking
for
a means
of escape
from this
hand held nightmare.

I’ve been looking
for the slightest
mention
of a life
less caustic.

Searching back pages
of periodicals worldwide.

Searching the soul
I might not have.

Searching
and destroying
my mind,
a scimitar
of perversion.
Incising
with scalpel-like
precision
into the very taproot
of a solemnity
I have yet
to find.

The bulky blade
trembles,
much too large
for such
a delicate
operation
and I start
to wonder
if that
has always
been the problem.

Naked Integral

Eyes stretch and trace lines,

etchings

of some

ethereal

handiwork,

beauty

ephemeral.

Sacred

calligraphy

in the hard brushstrokes

that outline

the skin mountains

capped with coffee-colored

flat-brimmed fedoras,

adorning your chest

as signs of maturity,

eventually maternity.

The unseen hand

that formed them

must have quivered

as it joined the dots

between upper

and lower torsos.

Tortoise slow,

the painstaking

pace

to craft

fleeting perfection.

When the Bough Breaks

Saw my mother standing

by the car’s hatch,

she was done loading items

out of the cart, where I sat.

A strong squall came

and I felt

the wheeled metal move

with that gust then with gravity.

I was a toddler sitting

in the seat made for my kind

and I was falling hard

against asphalt

not a rabbit hole

as Alan, not Alice

in front of a K-Mart

on pavement without any hint

of a slant.

In Her Bed, One Night

She started to doze

while I

stared out

into the sky, then

we rolled

towards one another,

teeth fluttered over

by tongues.

Maw produced lubrication

commingled:

her nicotine saliva,

my cannabinoid

cotton mouth.

Hairy palmed

hands,

lecherous

tarantulas,

whose digits

blasted and banged

as their comrade,

the tongue, trickled

over

tobacco fume pussy.

Our new spit progeny

birthed

the caked tar

of an alluring

sludge sundae, a flesh flood

warning, lungs filled

with smoke

and slathered cunt honey that

screamed

lusty,

gutturally

symphonic motifs

triumphantly

trumpeted.

And yet thru the window, you could

hear R&B, faintly

in the distance,

low and distorted.

Some nondescript

FM diva

vocalized the melodious

crackle of a gentrified

genre bred for homogeny,

but it was barely heard

over

our din.