the dual natures of the nymph

pt.1 paper cuts deep

I can’t think

I lay out three knives
one copper, one aluminum, one steel
and serrate the tendons
white worms of sinew sheer and give way

let’s not be dainty

these are not euphemisms
parables and short lessons
to inspire and guide your life

we’re talking about a girl
no more than 12
they carve out her genitals
- the clitoris and labia
with no anesthetic

the remaining flesh they sew together
with six stitches from wild thorn
and a short thread
tied off at both ends

her legs are lashed and bound
till muscle rots and flesh fuses to bone
and they cut a small opening
a corridor for urine and menstrual blood

the unclean forever unclean

her body is not her own
and the wound is reopened
only for the pleasure of men

perhaps we all die alone

pt.2 the destruction of the personality

I listen

all ears
all eyes and nerve endings
straining for your breath

it is the silence
the lift and thrust of distant mountains
black cows going to water across yellow grass
a campfire of refried beans
blackened fish
a can of roasted coffee beans

I sleep with a black dog
and a man who craves
as much sex as he can get

he is young
slim and slightly-built

desired

the dog is cool and silent
its breath controlled
as if chosen for this moment
this intake, this exhalation

at night beside you
I make kissing fish-lips on my pillow
and that provides a certain measure of release

later the dancing begins
around us
and a softly moaned
pentameter
lets me sleep

pt.3 to suffer, when it seems near

You’ve come to me before
come and gone
come and gone

unaware of the consequence
the longing
the cut slow and deeper with each passing
a confirmation that pain is real and can be felt
a confirmation that there is still blood to be let

every action carries reaction
equal, opposite
electric and violent
the sandpaper rub of your crossing
generates a static charge

we become stale bread
immune to the lure of heroic madness
immune to soft blanket folds
and warlike erotic feats

The hidden bite
The swollen bite
The point, the line of points
The coral and the jewel

The line of jewels
The broken cloud
The biting of the boar

all the places that can be kissed
can also be bitten:
your shoulder, breast
you upper lip, interior mouth
and eyes

as you stand to leave
and dress yourself without a word
I hang this charm around your neck
like a weight
for good luck

like holding my breath as I pass
under the water
from this world to the next

like filling my pockets
with the stones beside the stream
and following her in

like the moment before I think
- the moment I only feel
as something scrapes my knee
and my breath escapes
and the lightning touches gently down

perhaps my drowning is a consequence
of certain previous miscalculations

or perhaps I’ve been dying all along

pt.4 the less and more arcane

we calibrate these instruments
the sigils circle, a wafer of wood
stamped with images
and strung on black cord

clockwise: the boar
the black dog
the running man and drowning
the black hill cut in cross-section
the barrow mound
white grubs massed and boiling in darkness

I hear your heartbeat slow
I hear the soft wind
bearing spirits of the dead

the passing clouds are cased in ice
and we chip slowly at their edges

we are all gods
and we will all die at our own hands

early lesbian teachings translated from the greek

pt.1 things to do in attic demes

he had
for as long back as he could think
spent his life alone
in a darkened cell
about two meters long
one meter wide
and half more as high
with no straw to shit/sleep on
and no horse
carved out of wood
for a toy.

kasper hauser got stabbed.
turned to stone in the old city.

that happens:
grow up in a box
you don’t develop many street skills.

you can quote me on that.

pt.2 this convent oath

a picture of Jesus
hangs above my bed
stonehard and wet with dew
I can’t move
no tea
no coffee
no dancing boys
no magazines

no rest for the wicked
serpent child
squirms
between my legs

gravity shifts
from time to time
and magnetic north
can’t sit still
but this son-of-a-god
bitch
is fixed for good

and jesus could use a shave.

pt.3 fluid dynamics

the poet
sappho
jumps from the cliff-edge
and floats gently
towards terminal velocities of granite
below her relative acceleration point

M is the mass of the attracting object
math-hat-R is the unit vector
from the center mass of attracting object to
the center mass accelerated

R is the distance “R”
between two objects
and G is the gravitational constant of the universe

violet-haired and pure
she falls like
rock lyrics
like the love of women
and the religious bond
the sacred free-fall
the skydive into
the belly of the she-earth
through menstrual bloodwater
instant mashed potatoes

but the terminal velocity of the object
changes due to the properties of the fluid
and Marcel Duchamp used semen decades ago

in hetero revisionist astrophysics
when gravitation is an attribute of curved spacetime instead
the fully developed follicle releases the secondary oocyte
only after due consideration
of the ethical impulses
towards collision and

love is an isolated event
in which two or more moving bodies
exert forces on each other
for a relatively short time
which ends
predictably
with livingroom orange shag
cock up the ass

I’m just saying:
if you actually collected the dew
from the top of a mountain
it would taste like shit.

and anyway:
sappho eats carpet.
so phaon can fuck himself.

pt.4 men and gods

Ulster throws his severed hand
and they knight the bastard
employee of the month
and King for a year

great for fisting
but you can’t yank the yak
with a stump

pt.5 the serpent child

this grotesque diction of the groin
gyrates like pelvic half-truth
drunk and stumbling
farther down colfax
fuck you
where’s the motherfucking scoop?

because that is who we are:
we enunciate the lower psyche
we embody hidden psychosis
(the size if your dick)
we are universal
we are unusual
we transvest pink panties
we are vertebrate creature
and good in bed
we will kill instead of cure

our existence is arousal
- the notion of the belly
of the earth
and of her
mother dripping and blood and

coat hangers and

genitals and

so on

so much then for these distinctions
so much for:
anonymous masculinity
see also:
men who have sex with men

‘cause boys
will be boys
will be boys
will be boys
until they’re not

‘cause they’ve got
- ho’s in different areas
- different area codes
- keeping it on the down low

‘cause the amount of HIV
in Genital Fluids
is linked to Trans.
Fucking.
Mission to Mars.

pt.6 collecting samples in small vials
I wouldn’t say he’s gay
but he sure knows how to ram it in me.

The Metamorphosis of Lazy Khelone and Other Mortals

pt.1 if I should fall

I saw the great white
rising tail and jaw on either side
- and the captains leg in two -
grabbed hold the fore-mast
and lashed myself there
before losing time and waking mid-bob
half turned under and spitting for air
myself the sole survivor
and bent on revenge

you can still see the scars
below my brow and crooked nose
where the gulls had their fill
at my expense

I can’t see straight out my left eye
and the other in black and red

my hand is bent
but still holds cards
and drinks enough for two

on sundays I wear priestly robes
and sit in a small box
where the latticework tell stories
of lust and ancient sin

come closer, child

I think of you and touch myself
stroke my chin
rope beads up my ass
and pray for rain

pt.2 put it on ice

Don’t give me that
jesus shit rights
no room at the
crazy eight
or quartering of gods.

Your attic loon
may command three fates
and the movement of the mountains
but I turn your ass to turtle
dove soup
snap your flute neck
throw you from the cliffs
and tell your sister it was the rain.

amend that.

pt.3 wrath

There is force that attracts a body
toward the center of the earth
with degrees of intensity
measured by acceleration

She touched my lowered face
and hummed a childish tune

I smell the wet salt trails
down your cheeks
as dew falls
into dirt and nothing mud

When our time runs out
you’ll die in my arms
sweet child

again.

pt.4 bribes

Let me list for you
my accomplishments
in no particular order
each and every
as deserving as the last
and none the worse
for their transformations:

most to birds
some to bees
others: short-billed fowl

a lazy tortoise
twin half-bear giants
ravens, crows and marsh

several cattle
and two or three well carved statues
on the town hall lawn

little boys pissing
and shit like that.