Mother And Mass

Momma poured me over a hot bowl of rice dressing,
kissed my coiled tender flanks and cursed me
with an honest woman's wayward blessing:

"Tis the season," she cried, "to learn life's lessons..."
she spanked me harsh against my underside
until blue my balls dropped in a fresh flesh crescent,
my cheeks reddened and my ruddy ass gash puckered for protection,
I was destined to be this grey-haired harlot's insatiable delicatessen,
but before she could proceed to consume her possession
I posed her only one last question,
with creamy macaroni smeared betwixt my pale thighs
I looked heavenward into her dead eyes and
fixed her with a sullen expression:

"If this be the path to adolescence," I posed,
"and you be but the Lord's servant delivering His ethereal message,
then why overly spike your cup
and spoil this poor innocent vessel?"

She smiled as most mothers often do,
scooped a clump of cheddar cheese from my boy's beef stew,
"I find your questions depressing," she said,
"bend over on the tile
while I sip you like Sunday service refreshments."

TA

Of A Man

Love ripped at her soft skin like a wild-eye'd wolf
hungry
horny
horngry
slathering saliva where his kisses had once been
her bedded burden
she felt the weight of every sin
and every man
pressing in
the cold dead forest breathing o'er her dorsal fin
the twin towers of her breasts topped with bright cherry marbles
pouring from a heaving chest
a startled sparrow in her eyes
an aching emptiness between her thighs
where the lies of strangers
became her savior

and later her anger

the thick black fur coat of time wrapped itself around her
like a bright newborn babe swaddled in a filthy manger
straw and donkey piss the container
all mankind's favor
nourishment
or
nature

she tore away into the woods to face the danger
to feel the sting of the branches
bastards
beasts be damned
she'd wager her life against the land
Love gotten out of hand
she felt herself
for herself
but craved the touch of a...

TA

Susannah

baby oh baby
come
brown nipples
dirty feet
stay sweet, Susannah
the things that went to sleep in tired Alabama
old people with quarters
no place to spend 'em
no place to send 'em
skeleton crew in overalls and denim
brown grass in the cracks
sticks and needles
artists with easels
painting the portraits of medieval churches
absent their elegant steeples

what you're doing is illegal
Susannah naked on my couch
a roach in her mouth
my personal freak show
baby oh baby blow
take me off the pill
brown leaves
purple toes
Susannah's blood in the fresh snow
true love
true love in the dark forest
where even I will not go.

TA

Samantha

riding Midnight
bound downtown
wet towels round my ankles
thankless dirty hounds
barking loud
'cause Samantha
Samantha
Samantha's been found
chains round her wrists
fists bound
lists of ungiven gifts on her lips
still somehow making pretty sounds
till the tulips
hoe the ground
mow the yard 'fore the sun goes down
she sleeps for now in her wedding gown
drowned by red wine
and renounced by both the clergy
and crown
a stain on her blouse
sexuality thereabouts
painted fingernails
and sincere doubts
she loiters around
the town
and the house.

TA 

Lake Babylon

we were does
and we were devils
giggling in curtains of dancing smoke
while in the woods ran fire
pale skin and the black bark of southern pine
she grinned like a coyote grins
pawing the ground
flaunting in her pink folds
a skeleton ballerina
blood on her long fingers
bloody lips

a dead rabbit in the leaves sinking back into its own open ribcage
a murder of crows clamoring over this tiny lost soul

her belly full
leading me to a lake like a scar in the forest
where we could bathe
and fuck
and watch everything burn.

TA