Psyched to be part of this anthology. My tribute to Legs McNeil & Gillian McCain’s PLEASE KILL ME, Bauhaus’s BURNING FROM THE INSIDE, and…well, you get the idea…is about a sentient cloud of animal limbs! It’s called “The Basement People.” It is available here (at Clash Books) or here (at Amazon).
“Who Among the Best of Us”
Who among your classmates
will last past this second breathe
board a chivalrous route
give to burns the right amount of panache
the salve of the blank window stare
in dressings
who among you wrests this laurel
past the breakers
the foggy ghost arms
pulled in a ship by her teeth
who among the least of us
tired of dartboards, seal cries
the horn that separates rain from trees
and every tear a cuff link
who among the crows
pack quills for the winter
and beaks of lost sisters
who among the bird bones
breathes so precious a whispered star
who among the mazes for us
who will in feather
panic the air.
“Curl Around this Mountain”
You won the swamp sweepstakes
and your rattle-born tail
twists ‘round this mountain
the road to a rodeo
points to a checkerboard past
let’s circle us for hours
wherever we wandered to be poets
I promise (I do)
to spot us
a farther lake
we’d never reach
to kiss you complete
awash in a dark wooded bar
awake in a dark wooded hour
as if stun guns from childhood
as if monstrous teeth
and the cold morsels of minnows
of sickening heres, dispiriting dominos
ravens to clutch your pendants
and every rose an eyebrow brush
the hairy stairs
leading to nowhere of my desperate hour
sit down and sip through the pantry
and backwards jump
the ever-fading castle
the romance breaths
on the moon tops to mope
sandalwood and smoke
the rotten cherry to rise
crystal calls of dinosaur men.
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