In Threshold Repose

The devil in caricature await the streetlights
in threshold repose
as I do
cicadas clicking crickets chorus
in that brackish mixture
cocktail of air conditioning
and humid southern summer
maybe a cigarette on his black lips
following me in fantasy like a creep
   at the park

she beckons curling that long finger
scorpion bent tipped in painted acrylic red
spreads her knees and pulls me in
my lips mumbling wet stanzas
of her perfect pink poetry

purple evening
maybe a cigarette hanging from his
course black tongue
painted in the night bird's song
the neighbors drag trash to the curb
watch me dance in yellow eyes
yellow light on the street cast
bottles bicker and clank
carcass of warm beer
of youth
each an Atlas holding up his world.

TA

In That Moment I Fell

 

I am unwound
unaligned unright tonight
fishing in a catcher's clothes adorned
at day the sheep
at night the wolf
god grants wisdom
we spit it back into his
silly face
your moon bright
illuminate my midnight minute's pause
interrupted by the thesaurus
by the southern kamikaze
peeking window woman's eye
Sanskrit of her blood
on ice skates on wine
the russet flag
I peel myself away only to be pulled back
into the magnet
the orb of your magic
a radiant summer seduction
pontoons of blue hot lightening
bruises of purple thunder
I wilt
thinking of the ocean
bound to the threshold thrown
operatic arms akimbo
bone still quiet on the trail
that dark northern wood
ferns and witching whipping in between
ancestral sentinels
the tallest trees
the ocean
the long black road
your hard face finally asleep in my lap
never have I seen you rest

and that has made all the difference.

TA

Long Fingernails

 

Hercules crucified
sprung sawtooth jaws of a steel grey shark
the twisting serpent
Eve in her evening dress fig leaf lingerie
a corset of sun-licked golden skin
institutional quotes of courage
longing
and of loss
hieroglyphs in dried ink
black beneath her flesh

her chrome eyes
orb of playful passion and slick grimace
her astral plane
gathered cordage of fibrous being
fingering husk of her gauge deck clusters
this granted grace of the eclipse's shadow
a dark moon to forget the day
drawing star charts in looping script
in long red scores
across the firmament of my spine.

TA

Just Close Enough

 

She writhed snakelike in the cold sand
big cheese bowling cheshire grin
base ass'd moon in the clear desert
endless skyscape speckled with a fine kief of powdery star clusters
we are gregarious gods gazing into a teal wood tabletop mirror
cocaine cannabilism

her silver fish INFINITE-ONE stood sneezing steam nearby
fresh from lonely spacelanes
crimson cockpit canopy spread wide open
worn leather captain's cushion comfortable (but empty)
long legs overrun with stocking'd landing gear
winking soft whimsy from behind the bellows

she bucked like the bony bay hobbled in nearby scrub
would not
the bony bay knew better
the bony bay's bucking days became
bygone days
the day that cowboy came
saddled up throwing up
thin denim stems o'er spine
stapled his articulated asshole to that bony bay's trail-trodden soul
rode till he said 
done

her split zippered spacesuit thrown to the thicket
pitiful deflated invertebrate of latex and legging
unfulfilled without her pressing flesh giving inseam seals purpose
but what need anything else hold her?
when he could
so powerfully?
so feverishly?
jealous moon mean-mugged
two hundred eighty thousand miles up
bright cold yellow orb witch hunting
lonely last lighthouse of the night sky shoreline

just close enough - she thought
staring pallid into that electric potted pancake
afraid the words would leak in whispers
- close enough to touch

while his weight pressed her into the center of the Earth.

TA

(painting by Darrel K Sweet)

And Bite Her Neck

 

She growled like a mean winter in the Winds
like a Cinderella canine
like a loose wolf loose with bent pagan corpse
not her morals
ripping at my exposed
lording the lengths of my torn flesh
in her mouth proud princess speaks somber poetry
the last parts of me melt on her chin
she nips like a cub
she hungers like a shark
hovering pale prism over the milk
dead gnats
etched glass bowl of kitchen light
she won't riot
too frightened
two pink legs spread under the bath water
turquoise orgasms
two dirty tooth brushes in the coffee mug
in ceramic overture
a dirty secret
a crucifixion

because no one would chase her in the woods
because no one would pull at her clothes

and bite her neck.

TA

(painting by Jean-Joseph Weerts)