poem with a door
into one of those ideas where every step of the way
the floor moves another square tile
ahead of the hero
of this video game
into a scene which you don’t see
until he moves into it
because you’re so busy
working the joystick like a motherfucker
back and forth making the feet work
making him excellent
at the obstacles, jumping up
over that log, blitting the red button, now
the whip curling, just in time
to follow the limbs swinging
over the ravine
and because you’ve already mastered
this one, you know exactly
how it is, that you get him into that final frame
in the deluxe edition
the monster waits in, in waist high water
with a woman strapped to a rock
and you can feel
the deft move with which he pulls
the arrows out, the bow from his back…
and begins running, rapidly, from there
Solstice Poem against Bitterness and Evil
I never mentioned I called the poinsettias poison
and now it will trouble you, that I have.
Police want to lock me up.
They say I should take a pill.
and I confess: stealing the flowerpots
from the hallway was dramatic,
but I believed it became necessary.
So much can go on in a room with poinsettias.
A body can die or it can go on breathing.
The soul can sleep, or it can go on running.
and now if you notice: that on the table
the poinsettias beside the Gideon’s Bible
shed their bracts in a suffused light
divorcing itself from a soft place.
Heavily.
These are no green stems like the roses.
But you know the spot.
It isn’t there.
but confess: you absolutely feel
that when you recall the poinsettias
being in the room. It shouldn’t be cold.
I’m cruel, so.
They want me to take a pill.
I say the poinsettias sleep better than their fucking pill.
Resections(I);
Body Citrus Tatoo
Choice fruit. Became a simple task
of holding the limbs down,
pinning
wire around the loose ends of the umbilicus,
drawing
a tiny mouth at the seam.
Now it’s safe to go in.
This way
the orange is tattooed to the wall,
tattooed with blue ink to the wall
downstairs painted blue. The wall is
tattooed to the orange, which is
tattooed in time.
(The current is 32 AMPS.
The phonograph’s arm is
DOWN.)
The orange is tattooed in Nature;
nurture, nurses, noone, nothing
can stem her; it can be
a blue stem on a flower, surgeon
on a stick, or on a needle, or on an eye;
a span cancre spotted blue skirt
(which can be stricken) as any cellophane body
can
(by any bug or butterfly) which can be
happily & distressed
ashes, ashes
but a body may be
and a body may be
and a body may be
alive while the kidney and brains sour:
the boy,
who in green, & in bullets, & in science
believed as in his own defense mechanisms
saw the airplanes shot; he saw them
his own riot progress, & he painted it
down in layers of blue flame, screams
applied as under a blue cellophane
(taped to it and it, and to it and it)
(each one)
that he gazed at (which were like those, each, each one;
his, its, mine; be exact, possess)
which were at his own feet
(that he had applied
the polish to)
which would have kept the eyes
dim & firm & broken up
& assigned to the ground
but the boy
the boy who was &
who was &
who made & re-made, & who made & re-made
& who–& what’s more–who painted
an orange
which orange made him realize
the oranges he saw
were just as spotted (as
in Tendrilacrid smoke) (in layers about him)
the people were & were only oranges (but bloodred, soaked)
& splashed upon the planes
that he had pinched in
the blue flame
of a cigarette.
Then it fell
(fell)
into his face
(and into his face)
the orange
(orange)
which had splashed his mother’s face,
& Stung
(& Stung)
so much like his own destiny.
March Challenge
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