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

Cronus

i just want to eat you
i am so fucking hungry
so hungry
i can feel my insides
warring with themselves
and i just want
to devour your skin
taste your muscles
lick your eyes
allow the warm
coppery wash
of your blood
to coat my throat
i want you
like salt
wants meat
i want you
like teeth
want sinew
i can't stop
wanting
i'm just so hungry
the heat
is coming up
from inside me
to shatter me
make me
ravenous
Wendigo
i want you
so very bad
can't shake your
taste
can't stop
tracking
your scent
across the city
you run from me
run from my hunger
hide your liver
and your heart
but i can smell
you
and you set
my teeth on edge
i'm coming
i'm coming
just open
the door
for my big
bad wolf
or i will
never stop
tracking you
from here
until the
stars blow out
and we are nothing
but white bones
who long ago
thought they were
human
and once upon a time
were
hungry

Butcher

that heavy wet slap
of raw meat
against the concrete floor

thick blood
oozing over the edge
of the metal table

the split splat
of congealed
fluid striking
the drain cover

the knife makes
its work quick
sharp in the pale light
flashing above his head

ligament comes away
from bone
with a snap

bone cracks
as it is manipulated
and forced from the sockets

flesh hangs
in strips from the ceiling
red and lurid

like grotesque flags
signaling
a dead parade

now the cleaver
flashes up and down
chop chop chopping
at sinuous tendons
and fleshy mounds of muscle

bloody steaks
and pale fat
carefully ground meat
packaged all up for the freezer

brown paper hiding
those sliced and diced
bits of tasty corpulence

those meals
to future mouths
watering in anticipation

this flesh so strange
so buttery
so lithe and lean

dinner will be an event
of vigor and robustness
tasted upon the fatted tongue

he will pull your chair out for you
bow deeply at the waist
fill your glass with garnet wine
and on the meat of blackened paradise
you will dine

Poems Aren't Worth a Goddamn Thing

broken cracker
water straight from the tap
two day old bread
and salty soup

they come 'round here
offering
we have something for you
quick before it's all gone

you know there are more hungry than you
look at all these books
piled to the ceiling
sell them all and buy yourself some shoes

I'd rather wander barefoot in the rain
than give up a single word
each letter has more worth
than a heap of right opinions

each author a better friend
than a wringing religious hand
held out if you only believe
what we believe

I eat stale biscuits
the milk long gone
but still I am not alone
each word, each syllable
a stronger gateway to heaven
than any clammy outstretched appendage
crossing itself
with a backhanded weak smile
it's purveyor