Art, Sex, and Stupor

And in the midst of fake smiles and orgasms,

humans connected

on occasion,

regardless of the weather

and whether

we were paranormal,

ghosts stuck in chests,

breathing and coughing,

and smoking cigarettes

even though we hated the taste.

We impulse

art, sex, and stupor,

speaking in their respective languages,

giving over to

violent feasts or

vibrant fevers,

all consuming

in one way or another,

and I heard it all,

in my head,

the predictable needs,

the wants,

the words

forming in my brain

before spilling

out of your mouth

but I had been taught

it’s rude to interrupt

so I kept it all

under my red feathered hat

and reminded myself

to smile.

I grew weary

of being the back-up plan

or the girl that cancels

three minutes before

I was supposed to be there,

and I found myself

staring out the window

all the time again

trying to listen and soothe

the ugly self talk

and exorcising the harsh words

spat at me as

you held my face

to the ground,

dirt in my mouth-

though to be clear,

my spirit wasn’t in my body then,

it had already

gotten the fuck of there,

sitting in some dive

on the west side of London

drinking old fashions,

a nod to my brother

who had died

in the war with the spider,

and as the sun came up,

I wept into tea leaves

that foretold

the end of the capitalist pig

and the coming

of a new age of old magic.                                                    

    

Shadow Monster

Dearly Beloved,

we are gathered here

in the sight of the sun

to supposedly face our demons-

but I found

the best fights against

my hauntings were

in the moonlight,

on empty hollow street corners

with cigarette butts

still smoking

between the creases

of the cobblestones

and in the back alleys

of dirty pubs

where the trash cans

line the entrance to hell

and her hounds.

Teeth and blood,

bones that crack and show,

fists thrown wildly

into the night,

attacking my own

shadow monster

who did not give a damn

how much blood stains the concrete

and in the end,

as the morning meets my face,

it seems all I can do

is run

until the twilight falls again.

To Begin with the Supernatural

I had inclinations towards

the snarky and paranormal:

dragons dancing in the daylight

on the courtyards of Oxford,

monsters texting and swearing

riding the subways in Manhattan,

ghosts sitting in my bathtub

smoking cigars,

all of it there for an

open eye to see.

The mechanic medicine man

sent alchemy potions

through the mail

to those interested

for a low price of

only three installments

of 19.99

with the only side effect

being that when ingested

by humans they

began immediately

eating the furniture.

And I know,

I know,

my imagery is bizarre

and my words

were sticky sometimes,

my syllables shaking and quaking

in their high heeled boots

with laces up the back

but these words

are my real-

and that seems like

a good place to begin.

Breaths and String Theories

Breath-

The Sphinx got weary

of always being the

mysterious deep one,

so she slumped off

to the nearest pub

and drank herself silly

in the middle of the afternoon

which she knew

her mother wouldn’t approve of

but ah well,

she adheres to no one

and liked it that way.

Breath-

I drank orange juice

and thought

back to death,

standing in my kitchen

on a Wednesday morning,

raiding my fridge and laughing

as she watched two red birds

squabble over the bird bath.

She saw through

my pathetic attempts

at small talk

but still would not

tell me why she was there,

just kept showing up in my kitchen

eating everything.

Breath-

And don’t you hate it

when the batteries go out

of a thing

just as you need it,

though it seems to me

every moment

is chaos and light

and every facebook status

was some sort of wild call

of this new morphing man.

Breath-

sometimes I stare

out the window

and all of a sudden,

with a rush of wind

in my face,

I believe again

that we connect

to each other,

string theory vibrations

bumping into other

string theory vibrations,

resonating together,

making music.