Day-glo, des Cartes

A Bug, A Bomb, A Cactus Man

Bug

where does it hide
in what monkey what bird
in which wood which bog
when it is not exploring the thicket
within you

when does it awake
beneath dust beneath slime
inside gullet inside skin
inside the cracks in the walls
of you

how soon will it marry
with blood with bone
with soft tissue with intangible thought
the toxic daughter born
in your delirium

Bomb*

buffer it with soft words
like angel like cloud
angel bomb cloud

try harder words
like stone like heart
stone bomb heart

maybe something fleeting
like bird like patience
bird bomb patience

perhaps something still
like photograph like breathless
photograph bomb breathless

how about something painful
like love like wound
love bomb wound

or possibly something pleasant
like blonde like sleep
blonde bomb sleep

then again use something dangerous
like knife like knowledge
knife bomb knowledge

perhaps you should have been warned

cactus man

skin so prickly you can’t begin
to get close to anyone even without the needles
you’re thick and waxy busy
keeping all that juice
locked in        slowly growing
a hundred years as sentry
over dirt and heat and scaly things
crawling on their bellies to the pool
of your shade        your posture imperial
though your roots are shallow
and too much rain makes you sick
too much of a good thing
makes you lean        nauseous
pulls you free
and the slight hole you leave behind
— a bowl in the earth holding
nothing        nothing         nothing

______________________________________
*Poetry & Proses #17, June 2003

Good Dogs with Big Teeth: Angus and Archie, 1993

She Do the Dogs in Different Voices, Part One: Three Poems Channeled from Archie, the Shepherd-Airdale Mix, circa 1993

How Green was My Belly

A bite of mold-
Y dry DOG food
and Y
uck was I gut
wrenched

a sip of WAT-
er did not wash
that bar-
f scum outta
me mouf

A Box of Bones
an ode to Iams

O towering white
refrigerator topped
with the greenest of stars
the tastiest of treats

O cardboard angel
atop that humming
creeseblatt tree flyyyyyy
down drop your crunch cargo
into my steel-trap smile

The Sock on Your Foot

Smells like
my FAVORITE toy
ate a whole hole
in the toe where YOUR toe
white and sweaty
wiggle-waggled
inpatient to close THAT
business deal
a string of sock still
caught in my teeth

Happy New Year, 2009