Hurricane Season

Love comes ashore in a maw of purple swirling dark
disappearing in black belly center
thick ink mouth blowing down the sugarcane crop
marsh grass madness
bath salts stalks dancing electric wiggle

cumulonimbus love rips the shed roof off
tosses it into that hungry hellscape overhead
   you never see it again
hysteria howling heaven-sent
banging at maw-maw's shutters
ghosts worm willy-nilly through drywall cracks
cackling
coughing
love's relentless slaughter onslaught slavery
salacious same
same
salvation
pull'd the goddamn house apart
the comings and the goings
dead years of forevers
press your fingers into her flesh until the blood bone fingerprints
scream into that downturned gorge
smile like the dried leftover deer carcass
she doesn't care
she KNOWS
love pilfers
love breathes
falls heavy
love drowns lovers

love destroys all
and 
everything in its path

all
and
everything is left broken

eventually.

TA

In Mutual Understanding

 

She with hair like a valkyrie wearing wolfskin
beautiful
but no longer pretty
long misshapen serpent percolating in her gypsy whiskey
perched on the washing machine grinning
ice cubes clink abstract painting fluorescent reflections
a sleeping child
avenues and directions
golden sips lubricating conversation
in and out in and out
in and out
clammy with wet remark and soused tart
fingerprints on the plastic light switch
dishes in piles drizzled with last night's late-night dinner
our bellies warm
but a pinch below
burning.

boy's underwear in the laundry basket.
empty television noise.
the glow.
the smell of a place
I do not recognize.

the knife on the floor.

she looks at me
cursed
sex
knotted
her stolen youth
leviathan of untamed love
colossus
clown
criminality
deep deep abyss
we both know
one of us HAS to go for it.

the knife on the floor.

one of us HAS to die.

TA

The Night Watchman

Artemis stood defiant against the Singularity
not so as to oppose it
but to be looking into it
with courage
when it swept over him
a pulse of collective consciousness
like a dance floor beat
harvest moon lovers who sob at the coming red dawn
pianist fingers playing us out
junior explorers imploring lower cubs to collect samples
mining the miniverse
nanobot badge presented for outstanding vascular action

Artemis pressed his hand to the back of her head
sweetly
nothing's gonna hurt you, baby
electric touch rushed
but no electric kiss
she smiled like a happy corpse
slipped like a happy Christ into the crowd
concentric current of human souls
salient digital deviants
deviations
and all the holy algorithms

Artemis knew
love can't last forever
the Singularity will overtake it
he still couldn't help wanting to hold her hand
something about being a man is about being human
because if love be damned
then so be he

and maybe
as the Singularity passes overhead
like the Death Angel
bringing undeniable propulsion
so be us all.

TA

This Spokane

 

I searched beneath him
for a pulse
for a desperate truth
in the folded flesh fabric hanging like hot meat
in the circuitous path of the smoke coiling around his mascara
would I lift that velvet vaporous veil of myrrh
to kiss him
like childhood again
like you've forgotten it all
as birds are demons
weak shoulders and his soft tits
the thick rich red of his righteousness
hungry like an altar boy

what parable of sour truth betrayed you
oh so long ago?
what trails divide
that should never cleave?
what love is wasted on Unnecessary
and Divine?

imagine him sad
if you must

but struggle to find the proof
to your father
to your friends
to your priest.

TA

The Thirteen Feet

I wasn't supposed to be here
swallowed by the same virulent dragon
as the denizens
as the easily excited massive igno-mass class the neo-deductives
neo-anti-intellectualism
as the dumpies
fuck Dumpsta fuck the lesson he gave his life to teach
preach big daddy titian babysitter flat face
and that aint cultural appropriation
not yet
Stitch: not like this
World:

I wasn't supposed to have a black duster dusted by closed closet existence
dreaming of last night's mad mare ride
leggy blue jeans clean too long creased forgotten
fuck! I bled in those boots for three weeks
to harden
for what???
the blood long stale
the crusty callouses long forgotten
cum and cute but cut from the cow life
no
star clutched midnight saddlesore frozen by a shadow and
shiver shrill of a wayward wolf's too-near howl

I wasn't supposed to be vacant of the struggle to live cleanly
sharp cold of morning sharpens the soul
coffee and cow's cream from the can in the back of the cab
they said NOBODY could do it in less than twelve parsecs
what they failed to see was:
there is ALWAYS a path in the chaos
and if you can read the path
see the trail
you can EXIST where it seems impossible to EXIST

the chapter turned
I saw it!
I saw the unfolding of new rich realms
I saw the forested mountains and treasures in untold lost groves
I saw the spirits of peace in the paths beneath my naked feet
for once all rivers ran to the Pacific Ocean
woe to ki-pat
the grass was just starting to grow green
the cattle were just starting to grow fat
on the cusp of the firstborn word of a new exciting poem

but a wind blew
cold
a golden broodmare threw her finely muscled ass high into the air
and me
me
my arm shattered
my new hat fell onto an old shelf
my wranglers fell folded crisp again and unworn
my boots stiffened up by the backdoor
the turning page, it turned back
the chapter fell away
I fell thirteen feet over a blonde with a ten pound skull
right back to where the rivers flow to the Atlantic Ocean.

TA