•
Once in line at the supermarket I saw a boy barely taller than a toddler with three large growths on his head, three pink bubbles boiling from his brain, as if a needle had been slipped between skin and skull and pumped air into his flesh. A single prick and his face would explode.
•
I [...]
Intimacy
Banshee’s Love Song
•
I barely remember…
Barely remember…
Those nights I drowned
in deep pools of desire,
so dizzy
with the knowledge
I was one with the wind
the night the moon the
death…
I cried and cried
and ached…
But silence was
my only kiss.
•
Now, now,
I roam these woods
searching for that lonely embrace
that final breath to share and smother
one last lover to pull beneath the water.
What other rhythm is [...]
ALWAYS APOCALYPSE ALL THE TIME
•
for Paul DiNovo
•
We are ruled by the moon.
Werewolves, schizoids, fools.
Dragging up and down
The coastline of our life.
•
No drowning season, this.
Nothing so fancy.
Just another month,
Another death
Without fanfare
Flowers or even cinders,
Another eclipse in the sky
And broken toys
Lolling in the tide.
•
The doll, the sword, the robot,
The spools of rope and wire,
The dead dumb crackle of
The sound and the [...]
FIRES OF VENUS, THE WRAP UP: A Few Notes on the Art
UPDATED/REVISITED 8/29/09: Ah, the joy of working in scripts. I love wordpress, but she is an unforgiving machine. One tiny change made, and poof! The whole thing goes to pieces. Text and images everywhere. I know how to fix this, but it would be an extremely tedious and time consuming labor, and just another excuse [...]
FIRES OF VENUS: “Victory at Sea”
VICTORY AT SEA
for Jack Damien Boucher
Imagine for a moment we were never born…
never carved from the misplaced passion of our parents,
never carried from room to room and gently told
this is that and that is this,
never set down to dry in the sun
after splashing all afternoon in our rubber pool
and dream of driving the car we [...]
FIRES OF VENUS: “Erotomania”
EROTOMANIA
It goes like this
We wind each other
Like clocks gone crazy
Whipping bands of burnt sienna
Coil around her arms
Her thighs her wrists her stomach
Our mouths
Finally freeze, learn words again
Giant pictures
Looming above highways
Show us how it’s done
Books fly off shelves
Pages peel themselves apart
Spread flat stretch back lie
Down we breathe we need to attain
Sea level oh my
Christ
Never knew for [...]
FIRES OF VENUS: “Splinters”
SPLINTERS
They must have been waiting all night
for someone like you,
these big boys who dance the dance
of an earthquake in slow motion,
their great flat faces immobile,
hands fisted but ready
for a quick blow in the bathroom
or some twirly muscle fantasy.
Crosses glimmer from the sweat
and sheen of their chests.
You free their smiles.
Such nice white teeth.
They give you the nod
and you sway, bend your [...]
FIRES OF VENUS: “Depth Charge”
DEPTH CHARGE
So it has come to this:
a shout, a sharp yank,
a clenched fist metal drum
punches the sky.
The ocean is acid and crystal.
Deep sea dreamer,
this is for you.
New York, 1993
FIRES OF VENUS: “My Nephew and The Butthole Surfers”
www.rotten.com
MY NEPHEW AND THE BUTTHOLE SURFERS
It usually begins with a sound
not unlike the grinding of gears
within the womb, pushing,
pushing against walls of
blood. But when
the child finally cries
the sound comes out
backwards
at the wrong speed.
Each night
my ten year old nephew
surrenders to this
sonic landscape,
lies in his bed
under army fatigue green
with wet cool cloth stretched
over his eyes as the record
spins and [...]
FIRES OF VENUS: 2nd PULITZER FOR W. S. MERWIN
Reuters
I know: this is not a news site. But since most of the literary news all week has been rightly focused on the loss of the towering J.G. Ballard, I thought it might not be the worst thing in the world to take a moment and recognize the awarding of a 2nd Pulitzer to one [...]
