Two Poems

Once called a raging id
omphalocele sublimation and warped libido
gestures of burnt offerings
the fat, the kidneys, the protuberance of the liver turned into smoke on the altar
wicker loveseat on the porch scattered
with garbage in vino veritas isn’t that dumb
told him I got lost in the idea, shirtless stinking confederate
scarred chest, smile like home-cooked dinner
twice extended the underside of my wrist
then he shall offer up in smoke the fat of the sin offering
then I offered it again
belly of an animal relenting
it wasn’t pleasure, I don’t think
but something subcutaneous, absent
the wounds like stigmata, a regular yushke punder
the edges puckered up like an asshole
his sons passed the blood to him, and he dashed it against all sides of the altar
a friend suggested Aquaphor for the scarring.

Book of Others

“Whither we cannot fly we must go limping”
     – Beyond the Pleasure Principle



[Theogony]

Explain to me
how if we paint on freight trains
our vulgar progeny will travel the country

          the stagnant river beneath the highway
          won’t afflict me with a pondscum hoodoo.

I heard dog chains by the tracks and was compelled to run
You believed me at first but later laughed as we u-turned and sped away

I was nauseous for a week



[Liturgy]

Tall and Protestant tan you have this need
to expose yourself
makeshift meanings inked and burned

                                none of it is true.

By the second time we met, under the bridge by the tracks
I had seen them all.

Maybe I thought this was charming
          fancied us a pair of prison-scrawled hooligans



[Americana and Folklore]

The first time you spent the night
you said you’d never slept with a Jewish girl

               I wasn’t sure what to make of that but I suppose
               in certain parts, everything is exotic

You explained a heroin slouch, a Danish horror movie playing in the den

mygod,

          it’s hard to take such a silly act serious when

some woman is carving off her husband’s fingers in the other room.



[Dying-and-Rising God]

At the time I was collecting portraits of faceless men

          you offered a personal shot
          you would scratch out the features however
                              later rescinded
                              always so image conscious

          picked me up from the Greek place
          in your backseat a discarded mannequin
                              from a day job at Club Monaco

                    Didn’t I once help you
                    saw the arms off one

your home weirdly strewn with plastic body parts



[The Raw and the Cooked]

You opened this one with a line
how you were using a lot at the time

your mother wanted to get involved in your life again.

There’s a clip of her helping you set
a stack of taxidermy birds on fire in the yard
some phrase that goes along with this
                              some explanation.

The time you made your mother film you
standing on the roof with a water gun full of milk.

You can see the self-pity on her face in the videos.



[Talmudic Parable]

Remember when you nodded off while driving
again

you should know better.

I came over that evening, we stood in your living room
          fumbled with your roommate’s third-hand speaker system
          Bo Diddley record under my arm.

How are you gonna get to work now. You shrugged. I’ll walk.



[Of Transformation]

Tell me about the state hospital again, the stories you’ve saved

your friend in the next ward whose brother marked her insides
with pinecones and hairbrushes

          your pretty face like it is when you want to be taken serious
          eyebrows like that.

The new car had burns in the upholstery as soon as you took it for a spin

I use that term loosely, new

          it rattled when you sped up
          shivered when you braked.



[Utopia]

We combed our hair, drove downtown.

As we flew across the overpass you asked
after a pause
what are your values
punctuated this with my name as if it were a serious question

          tell me it’s sweet when I act my age



[Thanatos]

You got the daily news putting paper in the birdcages
working at some exotic animal store
                    kept a drawer of feathers, bit my Xanax in half for me like nurturance
                              wrote “Kill The White Man” under bridges in green paint.

I first became unsettled when I discovered pictures of you in your wallet.



[Primordial Tradition]

It’s almost midnight, we are half-dressed in lawnchairs.

          Can I hear the one about the parrot that sang lullabies when it got lonely?

You stare down the street like there’s something important out there.
          Your reverie unsettles me.
          I clink some emptied bottles together to distract you



[Gnosis]

Say it again

that you’re telling me these things so I can tell them too
when I’m famous.



[Monomyth]

Tell me again, how you tried to run away and got halfway down the street
almost into the woods
when a nurse pulled up and said

Come on honey, get back in.

                              And you did.

I always imagined you in a hospital gown, still
          tanned limbs, blank eyes
                    silent.

You didn’t say why you ran away
unhappiness wouldn’t be a new explanation
for anything