My Dark Lord

[wpaudio url=”/audio/5_3/lockward1.mp3″ text=”listen to this poem” dl=”0″]

Cover me in filth, for I have lain down with pigs.
Toss me like a salad in silt and grime.

Dig a ditch and bury me up to my neck.
Pelt me with mud pies dark as fudge.

Withhold water, soap, exfoliant, and loofah.
Cleanse not my polluted flesh.

Anoint me with sediment and mineral deposits.
Make me a landfill in some desolate spot.

Abandon me to the sleazy hotel or Econo-Lodge,
for I have performed the deed of darkness.

Lay me among the potatoes.
Shroud me in a shirt of loam and peat moss.

Send an army of leeches, slugs, and maggots.
Let me be the final supper.

Baptize me anew. Christen me your own dirty girl.
Immerse my body in weeds and worms.

Break me with your shovel, backhoe, and tractor,
for I have abandoned the garden and cursed this earth.

Happy Hour

[wpaudio url=”/audio/5_3/Lockward2.mp3″ text=”listen to this poem” dl=”0″]

The chunk of day we appropriate
for happiness, when we will be happy
because that is the appointed hour.
We pour out of offices, factories, and vans.
We gather in gin mills to guzzle
our foamy, pungent, throat-burning
joy. We hoist a few. Some of us crack
jokes. The rest of us toss our heads back,
laugh, and down shots. We order gimlets,
martinis, and Cosmopolitans.
We tell work stories. We eat peanuts.
Our happiness is exponentially increased
by the sudden appearance of chicken wings
for which we are almost unspeakably grateful
though each yields no more than a thimbleful
of meat. We toast each other, our health,
better luck next time, and here’s to Jackson,
may he rest in peace. Our joy is multiplied
by two while the price of drinks is divided
in half, thus allowing us to drink twice
as much and thereby double our pulchritude.
Someone buys a round for the house.
We drop quarters into the jukebox.
We swing and sway. We stomp on shells.
For sixty full minutes, we are locked
in friendship and love for human creatures.
Our troubles left in the parking lot,
we linger at the bar qualmless, high
on life, some of us so high we levitate.
We raise our glasses: Here’s to the gin mills
of America, the taverns, bars, pubs,
road stops, cafes, saloons, and the shot
and beer joints. Here’s to the bartenders
and barmaids. Praise to the convivial genius
who invented Happy Hour. Salute!
Down the hatch! Bottoms up! And cheers!
And if there is weeping, let the tears
be tears of joy. Let the engines idle,
the dark roads remain untraveled.
Let the hands of the clock hold us.

Why I Won’t Have a Full-Body Massage

[wpaudio url=”/audio/5_3/Lockward3.mp3″ text=”listen to this poem” dl=”0″]

This doughy flesh
does not want a stranger’s fingers
kneading it.

This body turns its back on the squeeze,
stroke, and thump of therapeutic hands,
pods of fingers at vital points, pressure points,
points at which I might capitulate.

Each pore of my hyperkeratotic husk closes
to creams and balms, the ooze and glide
of lotions and gels.

This sorry sack of skin refuses
a stranger’s gaze, my naked, dimpled sins
exposed, declines the lure of improved circulation,
chakras cleared and balanced in perfect polarity,
the rush of nutrients through muscles aching
for touch, won’t allow fingertips to prod
the soft surface zones.

Every dermal cell says No to aromatherapy oils—
peach and mango, scent of sea breeze—
says No to the slow slide of warm stones
over hills and valleys of flesh, the rock
and roll of knuckles and palms,
hot packs strategically placed along the flint
of spine,

on fire again, all sparks and flames,
each muscle burning and rising
towards the familiarity of tender hands
kneading it.