POEM

I overheard someone say “fingers preceded forks”.
The mouth dictates what a cell phone “hears,”
as if Big Brother is more than mere All Eyes on You,

an origin of cute things that turns bitter cold,
syphilic, like a daunty moon-stroke
with one wing gliding down frantically

like a rotten vampyric stench
that comes to you like a shadow of death
or a plague that bruises with a violent violet tint—

a clawing, a scratching upon a chalkboard
of a vulture’s liberty, the way that a paleness
can be both beautiful & uneasy.

Midnight, a hush falls through wounds of gray.
My ears hear the unsayable—amazing, amazing!—
the way clarity of attraction walks by;

the way one can refer to death & then think of
all-things-heavenly. It’s no longer October.
The ghosts are all now in Forgiving Mode.

It’s November & unseasonably warm
like a hot avocado salad stirred up by a hot glue gun,
stuck to the belly like a man’s senses

when a leggy woman walks by wearing
blue jean shorts that may as well not be on her body.
Caricature rashes are exploiting my Persona.

I’m a pretender, stepping free from the plateau’s toes
to no true substance, floating inside of my own body
as if my spirit were conscious of my own soul-thoughts

re-considering what spacious emptiness loosens the gills
& quiets the mind like a disabled telephone wire.