this is a serenade
to red high heels
pony ass

this is a serenade
to bruises and brokens
beatdown ass

D.H. Lawrence
rocking horse
queer and haunting like 1922
(you know you know)
opium ass

once upon a time
said an indigo stick
said a two-day moth
said a limp wristed cragg

this is a serenade and i haven’t been able to sleep and my armpits are sweaty and i smell like a woman like a woman like i never meant to smell all cunt and musk and underbreast wet and this is a serenade to cliff dives and muffdives and holiday hills
this is a serenade and i forgot where i began and my mind double tracks and loses tracks and never used to be like that and they’ll say one day they’ll say oh she’s smart as a whip (beatdown) she’s sharp as a tack well how’boutthat oh they will say that when i shake and applesauce drips from lips and the kids volunteer to take me for a walk (pony ass)
so i can’t help that all i think about is death queer and haunting like 1982 queer and haunting like naps when i should be living crying fucking dying blahblahblah

this is a two day moth
dusty and broken
heaving into the cracks in my hands
into lifelines
into palms
who cradled and curled
and stuffed and suckled
and all the other wonders of hands
and now
tattered wings disintegration
and dropping my eyelids in
i crush moth-pillow
all mine
rocking horse
all mine
distant memories
maladies and serenades
so thorax and exoskeleton
and quashed into lashes and hanging from my eyelids and amphibious tongue reaches (pony ass)
and all kohled up and sexy i’m ready to greet the world
i’m ready to meet my maker
i’m ready
(beatdown)

everything is dripping here
(you know)

(steady)
like my cunt
like the clouds
but just the ceiling
sagging steady
and i could be crushed here
an end
in a bathtub
as romantic as i’ve always pictured
ribs stuck with
drywall wood
caved dust
crushed

and i could be somewhere
tropical

(i’m sweating round my neck)
i’ve got curls
forming round
my skin
and i could be a desert
(i’ve been one before)
all sweaty Saharan cold night swan song
and i could be a desert
and i’m just in my alley home
(curled up under sagging)
and i’ve got beer here
and i’ve got tea
i’ve got enough (to keep) me
and this is an incessant blossom
(clementines & coyotes)
and it hardly ever rains here
and I hardly ever reek (weep)

but i am sweating trainwrecks
i am swallowing
road side bombs
i am crushed
under
lamp post kisses
and i am gusto here
all hopeful coming stories
dripping salt
like it’s mine
like i’m not my alley hole
and i’ve got beer here
and i’ve got lost glories
and i have tidepools at dawn
(crushed into my armpits)
i’ve for long dream kisses
and maternal demo derbies
and i’ve got no idea what
(the inside of)
the walls are dripping of
(i know i could)
cold-cleave
out their entrails
copper guts and aortic valves
and (then) i’d drip steady
steady
(like underground rivers – like secrets lockkey passageways).
(and i’ve got)
sweaty sweaty
(and i’ve got) frizzy
hair
(and i’ve got) areolas
like hot buttered
rum
like my stepfather’s
beer
and i could be on a plateau
(drinking tea on mesa mesa)
and i could
wear pjs
in the bathtub
and i could
be crushed
under the weight
of arctic snow-bath
under the weight of
thirty-thirty

and i’ve got no lover nowhere
(and i’ve got)
slowly slowly
and this could be in texas
and this is on the shore
and this is in my ruins
(dripping out my pores).

i fold you into my mouth
that goes
that leaves
and now i will destroy it all
i can’t help it
it all embarrasses me
and so i’ll fuck it
and mourn it

what?
where was i?
now now now nownownownownownownownownownownow
crash
oops
crash

fleeting

tickle/giggle/fidget and bounce
a blanket of sadness
dropped on me from the gods
from the ghosts of grandmothers and illusions and dead cats
forget it
can i put you in my mouth?
because
cuz
i desire it
drop it
(i can kill you and take all your money)
and hold you tight
just lay on my chest
feel the comfort of heartbeat in your ear pressed to my skin
the weightedness
the love song
loins
don’t look
don’t behold
me

mememememememe
a wish

i have invisible ocean here
and exhaust breath
and everything is broken down here.

i could try on life here
crawdads + mesquite
i could eat
red clay
here
all desperate and ridiculous

i could scoop up sky here
and blow it out
all the windows of my rooms

i could settle in here.
one foot sinking
one foot flying

i could fall in love with american dreams here
all broken and
run down
white lips
blue sky
i could jump off cliffs here
into an invisible sea
ocean crashing
over me
skull cracking
under me

this is where dreams throw out
circles of time
reincarnated
reincarnated
sometimes
desecrated
and a blue belly lizard licks his lips
and rolls over
just like they do
just like they always do
and always have
since ocean days
since primordial storms
since american dreams and antiquated promises
and broken and run over
one of my me’s
could be here
all season long
all august long
dying and dying
and watching waves
searching for shells
self, mother, wife, daughter
shells in the sand.

between no name and meek
i thought about you
picked at my cuticles
and busied myself with the left-side moon

at rifle i hit a dust storm
which lasted until silt
splayed across my eyelids
on this seaside of the mountains
and you’re over there and i’m over here
thinking about whiling away the winter here

locked into a camper trailer
i could pack myself down under the arch of red
and imagine i never knew you
pretend it’s winter two years ago
and i am so sweetly fulfilled by your absence
and not lacking

lattice slats
shadow my view like you
in light in dark
crisscrossing my summer
if you’re not too busy being the sun in my sky
will you be the flowers in my garden
you’re taken root in my earth
i know that the seasons will change
i know that the seasons will change
i will clip the pieces of you that are wilted
you will find solace on the sea
but the roots will still be
dormant but deep
they will seep
into the sands here
outside my trailer
between my junk pile
my burning tires on my left
my burnt out neon on the right

but i just passed meek
i’m in the cradle of the desert now
the desert that rocked me softly into adulthood
and burned me brutally through my adolescence
the desert
with the moon
the cliffs
the little candle in my trailer window
i will burn here
my skin will change forever
and it will have something to do with you
no shedding can change that
it’s July and i’m burning
burning until the ashes of my fingertips
fall into the soft desert sand

it’s meek and no name
and that’s who i want to be
friendless
in a trailer with the howling
and the sand
to blow my ashes through
i want the bluff i’ve been
to see
the dry riverbed reflected
in the moon’s watery gaze
first dark then light
crisscrossing my winter
on this flatbed trailer
where i lay my remains
to whisper my dreams to the moon
to speak of heartaches just soft enough
so the coyotes don’t hear
so that the wolf at the door
of my January trailer
doesn’t sing to me
of twenty-six years of heartache
doesn’t vomit ashes of meek into my garden

it’s just that it’s midnight
and i’m somewhere between you and me
and the moon is pouring ashes through my fingertips
turning the mountains into a dust storm
and it’s not January
and the arches in the snow are just like
the latticework of
you across me

i’m sweating in July
no home but my garden
my burning tires cradled in the desert sky
no wolf
no whispers
just a rifle
and i’m thinking
it’s a good day to die
ashes
sand storm
moon.
it’s a good day to die

today
crushed into the folds of my cunt
are three slips of paper
one with your name (of course)
one with mine
and one with the name of my god
the one with your name was written with my blood
the one with my god was folded neatly and then twisted and thrust
forced open by the fingers of the divine
held open there by my own
fucked softly by the fingers of the divine
held open-hearted with my own thin hands
the one with my name was written in invisible ink
and dropped into my own development
before i sat on it and it slipped

so here i am full
so full
fucked into constancy
it’s the little dirty secret behind my smirk
that i am always pulled open
sipping tea
waiting on people
buying groceries
talking to you
erotic and uncomfortable and full
with you with me with the name of my god
cleaning my house
returning calls
with you and with me and with the name of my god
meditating
driving
writhing
walking to meet friends
with you
with me

so here i am full with burning
with three slips of paper dripping out of me
and you can’t fathom what i know
what i know
here i am full
and you can’t fathom what i know
sipping so full
waiting with writhing
walking with burning
sipping so full

you and me and annie oakley
you could be her sidekick and i could be her horse
or when i whisper
i’ll just be her thighs and you could carry her rifle
i know you desire her
wild mustangs and sunset dusts
stars seen though the rough pocket
of the campfire i’ll carry on my back
from independence, missouri

you be her lover and i’ll be your beast of burden
she could ride side-saddle
but you could just
straddle
straddle
i’ve got flesh to tear like an offering
we’ll find intimacy in your spurs
spurned and rejected
that’s how i show my love

and you and annie oakley
spent the night together
lovers
and i collected evidence and quartz crystal
i dreamed about you and awoke hopeful
greedy and sleepy
and jonesing for coffee
coffee-stained stretch marks and suede sleeves
that’s annie oakley, i remark
i’m hushed with a pull
you spun the pinwheel and i shat rivers
she snapped her fingers
we shook hands and called it a deal
you call it a day by allaying your gold-rush, good-fortune touch

and the agreement was

camp was cooked
and prairies were devoured
you chewed on your coffee
and i panted and watched
and slid wax through her braids
she cuddled with you, little pet
i shivered the cold on my shoulders
alone
on watch
counting coyotes and horned owls
Luna waxes fat onto my haunches
in the secret moon-night light
i’m annie oakley’s girl but Luna’s secretly my queen
she fills my open wounds
mutters warmth on the back of my neck
and wanes before the day
catches us at play

Stripping down all the fuck
we’re not left with much
what?
a show
a show of who you want to be
and me?
me, i don’t know how to be
in the show of you and me
and that’s why you went
(before you went)
because the show was clearly over and
the fishnet was empty and
the lockdown was dry

i think my life would just be better if
i knew spanish or
did more peyote or
practiced my guitar but
instead
six weeks later
i still haven’t
i still haven’t
plucked my feet up from the sand or
learned that song but
i followed through
i followed through

i sank into the bed this morning and woke up in a snowstorm and
deep in me
deep down to my cunt
in knew the time had come
(the time has always come, but of course you know that,
now’s the time, right, now’s the time?)
well it was like the old fog was gone and
a new fog was here
a fog i could live with
inspired by specks
i can tweeze out and
embellish
the old fog
the old fog of crushed potential
it’s left
crushed into the folds of my cunt
(i always find if i get stuck in a poem
just pull out my cunt and
it’s like a parachute
an easy exit sign
the aisle floor lights of the airplane directing me to the yellow slides of the next line
it’s the catch-all theme
and what has it caught?
well, avid pupil,
dilated and eager-beaver,
it has caught the cottony fog fuck of yesterday’s yoke)

i mentioned the other day that all she eats, freulein, all she eats
is chambord and sugarplums

wait i mean

i menstruated the other day that all she eats, freulein, all she eats
is champagne and shrink-wrapped smarties
slipping temptation and sour onto her tongue, freulein, onto her tongue
it’s the perfect marriage

forgive me for sleeping in—
right into the snowstorm—
i was waiting on you and
you
you emerged
as a fog and
i, your faithful servant to the end, freulein,
to the end…

same same keep riding the wind through all the holes in my story i want to be found out i want someone to notice iím a fraud to push through the boundaries of my own bullshit slap across the face and say ìyou hate yourself and you love yourself and the combination is deadlyî then i would listen or at least stop talking

self importance will be my ruin is it nobler to give up all and live a patched existence eating half cooked rice and drippy tea calling myself zen carrying a walking stick and crouching to piss

or nobler to: live big live proud say what i know and be proven wrong? what is the truth of my truest situation when the one who slaps glares at her hand and sees that its attached this is the density of which i speak if i eliminate the i this is the intensity of which this girl speaks - this slave girl to her own thoughts this house boy to her own dreams

will they be surprised this girl wonders why not this woman what does this woman think about being called this girl better yet how does she feel?

when you want to stop because you feel emphasis has been found but you follow directions or follow the flow of life so the speak so to speak you goddamn sheep just sleep to live the life you think you live just sleep to live sleep to dream the worldwide reaping of false philosophies the dreamkeeping weeping of real lust and lethargy

thats a cream of the dream licking out the center between the cream disks licking out the center of the little pink slip

what awareness comes to the girl when her heart stops and shes just a mouth a tongue a hole a whole body mind sensation but only in the thought world reality pauses so she can let off steam…