US LET THE RADIO PLAY ALONG & I


Diss course of speech and im-
peached fuzz that’s streetside

catching minnow men who drank a 40oz of holy water up the block.

Party like its 1993. A toddler with a toddy.
Strut your stuff just like a hand grenade.

So New Orleans, I watch the sirens shotgun house the wedding.
A veiled threat of dawn vowing the moon roof shut.

At 25 I let Jesus take back the color wheel & hydro-

planed into the garden, into Dante’s kinsey scaled inferno,
two snake eyes on the slice & dice, we didn’t start the fire
in the taped deck, in the wrapped fist, in the Tarot fortune tells

us let the radio
play along & I

am born from the hick
in hickory the switch
& baited mirror

The surgeon asked me if the surge of skin was once hospitable (you laugh).

Welcome to the electric
sliding scale, the shock me therapy.

The dog got jumped by a live wire
in the yard you mowed for years.
I yelped when someone told me it was over.

+++

THAT SMARTS


I once had an idea bell door jamb knee up in the socket swore
I’d never tell the lord the way I sobbed when I felt blood down

there if I profane by my unworthyhand
I’ll unplug the radio or drain the tub but first

somebody tell me how

to rip the red tide open with both hands
to rip the choir chords or rip the bong

& bubble water up, for years I slept
simply afraid to split open that stoop talk

that Sunday ratchet lip that tongued up
speak on high & mighty God I thought

I’d let the pill or pillow tuck me in

Some nights I hummed I want your skull
in cross-walk with the men

whose shirtless skin kissed sun
& sky

a bright blue venom
or a bruise
or new raw denim
panting my breath
suited for more than this
swing low

+++

WHAT'D YOU MISS


There are no limits here--
calculations infinite.
Anxiety the produce
of a selfie or an elegy.
He the subject/object
predilect of this affection.
There is some part
we’re missing.
Hum & drum
a hymn.
Tell me
the subject
of this sentence,
of this fairy

tale gone wild,
this pin-up butterfly--
some specimen

Unmirrored.
I will spend
& spin this ego
Deflated
currency to straw.
The dogma telling me
stay bold in mohawk-eyed

stare of deep unwanting.
Watch the lens.

As if he played or ate
a red organ out of style
Just as Midas oiled the window
slick, sing everything I touch
before the camera.
Click & click.

But I digress, digest & spin
the tightroped wound
through evening.

The corset was
the hair slicked back,
the body giving head
to shave the part
we know is missing.

Damn phantom you that hovers
over blade the silver spike
Of punch the clock
yes I once swore

That heaven was
a second coming
In the nick of time
I jarred
the wingspan open
& the halo split
like lightning quick
as belly thundered
gold & rolled up,
caterpillar
fuzzy faced
& then some.              Click. Click. Click.