Hoof

war spit
curly haired motherfucker
came down here
to tell me
what was what

and then fell in love
with his best friend

I stomped
snorted
growled
turned my head
and groaned

hey now come on
smoke skin
I saw you coming
right up over that ridge
on the train bridge
in the middle of the night

'Can I come home with you?'
you're so fucking pretty
you think I haven't seen
those same mountians
I was born here
straight from the boulders
in the valley

we climbed them
stomping
the herd
clicking
their heels
down the road

and when that horse 
died on the fence
we saved her skull
and the old farmer
more practical than us  
said she had many foals

our wars were over a hundred years ago
those hooves still echo
over long buried battlefields
ghosts still wander this land
from a far flung tradition
to yours

stagger 
too much liquor
and even quicker
tried to bite me  
and that old dusty
toppled down
church
reared up in my head
and the thorny wild roses
made a canopy
of green and pink
and I only ever saw you after dark
when our worlds
attempted with rather futile measures
to blend
and failed

and in this old land
with new people
in this broken down
cracked right up
leaking and seeping
body
I heard them running
hoof to packed dirt
and let you go
over that rocky cliff face
in spirit
more Devil
than I was ever any kind of good   

    

From Hell to Breakfast

the kingdom came
under my skin
i saw light
through the bullet holes
ice pick awl
eyeball heaven
and a kiss
so subtle
that it never happened
a flutter
of lips
so soft
they tasted like
ripe strawberries
rotting
on the vine
sick and sweet
and leaking
down your chin
fluid
fills the walls
and they burst
gushing
black liquid
filling the room
in its slimy
swamp song
where dead bodies
bloat
and split open
with flies
taking to the air
in iridescent swarms
blackberry canes
hiding sweet treasures
amongst cruel thorns
bits of meat
hanging
so foolish to reach
you lost your hand
in there
the teeth snapped shut
and the grass swayed
with indifference
that slip of birds' wings
past my neck
that putrid
scent on the air
the rushing of water
over my toes
rusty nails
singing in the wind
the holes
stuffed up with dead leaves
the kingdom came
and with Hell for a name
fell to the doors
of that great emptiness
and underneath it all
the worms
and the beetles
and the ants
moved the world forward
on their backs
and down in our wet graves
we saw Heaven
dissolve
the Sun
put her eyes out
and at the end
of it all
became the bile
that turned the universe