tiresias speaks from hades (20170306)

what did oedipus see
after he pinned his eyes
in place in his skull

all

he banished himself
not because he was unfit to be king
not because he had brought a curse upon thebes
but now he could see light in every corner
under every stool

he could not bear the illumination

he was tempted to pull those pins free
but stayed his hand

if his eyes ever moved again
rolling in his sockets
their sudden freedom
would have blanketed him in darkness
and his sleep would have been peaceful
and his voice silent

silk (20170305)

i let the spiders under my skin
with the understanding
that there would be spinning
in my blood

yet

i did not anticipate
the delicate tattooing
of your face and your name
on the inside of my skin
invisible in daylight
but available under near darkness

marrow for pigment and sharpened
spinnerets for needles
the gentle humming put me to sleep
many nights and i dreamed
of ink and web and shattering glass

with the lights out but for
a single candle
you can read my skin
and find yourself
stitched in glittering filament

apocalypse (20170302)

he wandered for a year
among corpses and deserted buildings
one morning everyone had gone mad
and each body he found was
riddled with bullets
every cartridge emptied, every magazine spent

he hoped that, now,
since he really was the last man on earth
if he could find a woman,
he might finally get some action
but that seemed less likely
with each new sunset

animals avoided him
he thought, not out of fear
but out of some kind of pity

the supermarkets were still stocked
even though the fresh food had rotted
cans and boxes were plentiful
the food had expiration dates
years in advance
cereal bars and beef jerky

he never spotted another person
man or woman
and after a while
he stopped talking even to himself
he knew he’d never be able to bury the dead
not all of them
not even all of the ones
in his small hometown

guns were as plentiful as cans
of tuna and jars of peanut butter
but there wasn’t a single bullet left

memento mori (20170228)

focus on the pain originating in your molar
floating heavenward like an angel
made of nerves wrapped around broken stained glass
up through your hard palate
lodging between your ear and jaw

wonder for ten seconds if it’s cancer or an abscess
then opt for tmj because you’re tired and you
need to sleep

this is a memento that death leaves in your crib
to remind you every single day that you are not
in fact, going to live forever

or maybe he colluded with the tooth fairy
when you lost your first tooth
touched that soft bloody spot
in your gums

you obsessively kept
your children’s teeth
even the dog’s

——

for
dVerse ~ Poets Pub
Poetics: One Memento

giggles and hits (20170227)

taking up pen, preparing a page
sober, serious–really quite sage–
i wrestled a wriggle
a jiggly smudge–no more than a giggle

struggling to make it behave
ultimately, i was the slave
discovering, to my chagrin
taming a word is a terrible sin

——

for
dVerse ~ Poets Pub
Quadrille #27: giggle

words that can’t be spoken or spelled (20170225)

i am less an open book to you
than a blank page

you write on me with your fingers
your words sink into my skin

like your teeth
and i am tattooed by your multicolor voice

you do not erase
only write over the soft, pink scars

replacing old
with new

the touch of your fingertips
like a singing water glass