This section contains some of my poo-etry, er, poetry. Most of it is crap
hence the 'excrement' title. But it is entertaining and provocative crap. I
have been writing and performing non-rhyming spoken word/poetry in
coffeehouses, bars and bookstores since 1997. And no, I do not wear a beret,
smoke clove cigarettes or snap my fingers while doing it. Although, I love
and highly recommend the movie "So I Married An Axe Murderer" starring Mike
Myers as a beat poet. I also have poetry chap books for sale: "Dropped As A
Baby" and "Leighbonics for the Advanced Student." Contact me for more info.
Enjoy my ramblings...

THE COY FISH MANIFESTO

1
Somehow I see Yoda coming out of your mouth
as I put my tongue in it.
Yoda tasted like mint.
You tasted green, very green.

2
Everything is done in reverse in this William Blake garden.
Dogs with rabies become shrines.
Baby strollers become tanks.
Humidity becomes drought.
The Bible becomes “HELL for Dummies”
Rejection becomes tenure.
Tears become nipple clamps.
Poverty becomes supermodel of the year.
Grenades become dice.
Plants become pharmacy-grade heroine.
My monkeys become Tibetan monkeys.

3
Later, I went to a coffee shop located in the back alley.
It was called the “Good to the Last Drop Café”
They served lattes and blow jobs.
I get both, to go.
The setting sun was silk-screened on the sky.
Each gradation fell like domino trails
or ice skaters at the Olympics —
Hard and fast.

4
Each drag off my unfiltered Camel convinced me it was the right decision NOT
to see the Matrix movie sequel.
Instead, I start my manifesto. A battering ram is my pen. Ballerinas are my
paper. I commence the process by writing in smaller than small handwriting,
So I can leave extra room for lengthy problem solving and my ego.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN YOUR THROAT
This is a scrabble game where
you can only spell adjectives
about how you liked to be fondled
and
they all have to be dirty
This is a window of opportunity
To smell crisp pure fresh snow
before it becomes slush
This is a gunslinger without guns
- only theories about guns –
About to sling hash
and enlighten the world
about peaceful resistance
This is our chance
to meet
in person
for the first time
a thousand shades of I can’t wait.

SEND & RECEIVE
I told you to go away
what I really meant was come closer
I’m endlessly fascinated by the shape of your nose.
I didn’t reach for your hand when we were walking.
what I really meant was
please secure unlimited psychic powers
and grab my hand
and guard it with your life.
We have never watched a sunset together.
I wanted you to be excited to see me all the time.
Even if it wasn’t true.
Even if you had to force yourself.
A lie like that
could almost save me from myself.
Almost.

PUT YOUR WEAPON DOWN 2.0
I have A.D.D. so bad that I can’t remember what the letters stand for
but I do know that
I will fuck you until
you stop being my Vietnam
I will go down on you until leaves falling from trees don’t sound like breaking glass anymore
until the blue sky doesn’t remind me of third degree burns that never truly
healed all the way
Why Dallas gave Jackie Kennedy
red roses instead of yellow ones,
is beyond me

FOREGROUND
I painted his portrait twice in acrylic
My brush is a bridge
He wanted an elevator
Shit
I was never any good at engineering

SOLE SISTER
I cried when I saw Mary Magdalene wipe Jesus’ feet on tv
Her hair was long and dark like mine
I am not a fallen woman,
I am a falling woman
Still stumbling
to get up
again
and again

TIME TO FLIP THE MATTRESS
My neighbors have sex a lot
Which is fine
The problem is I know what they look like.
I have seen them WITH clothes on.
Grotesque.
Imagining them WITHOUT clothes
Bumping and grinding
their very unattractive bodies together…
Having to listen to them
Groan and make squeals and squishy sounds.
Horrifying.

THE WIND GREW LIKE AN OLD MAN’S BEARD
WITH FOOD STUCK IN IT
Shakespeare became Kentucky Fried and extra spicy.
He then referred to himself as
" The artist formerly known as William."
The oscillating girl didn’t eat lunch
or drink water in restaurants.
Her career began and ended in 1 day.
The deciding factor could have been her choice of sweater.
My tongue was too curly
so it was torn off by Samuel L. Jackson.
Sliced clean and thin like fresh ginger.
Served impeccably on shiny teal and blue ceramic serving trays.
It was a really beautiful presentation.
The 92% of me that is liquid wants to become solid.•WOODY ALLEN BEFORE HE GOT CREEPY
He has walked in my shoes
because they are his shoes.

He walks in my ego
because it is his ego.

He kisses my lips
because they aren't his.
He craves their dyslexia.

OPEN CASKET
Hold my hand as if
it were a purple heart:
well earned,
delicate,
nostalgic,
rare,
violent,
beautiful,
crusted over with 20th century blood,
and missing the case it came in.•

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL HAVOC/DAVID BYRNE IS MY BRAD PITT
Jump out.
Pull rip cord.
Instead of a parachute,
a hundred shiny hatchets fly out.
I am glad.
The pack feels a hell of a lot lighter now
that they have 86’d themselves.
My stomach gets slashed on the way down.
Diagonally.
Blood and high school yearbook inscriptions flow out and up.
I don’t feel it for a while (by choice.)
Gusts of air zoom past my cd collection.
YES, I am ashamed of the Barry Manilow cd but not the Neil Diamond one. Or
the GNR.
Bugs get caught on my retinas.
The curve of the earth is obviously not paying attention.
“ Squintin’ will make the fall less painful,”
I say this to myself in a Southern drawl
as to have more credibility.
Upon landing, I trip over my own lower intestines.
I swear, there is more than 25 ft. of this slimey rope.
Perhaps 40 little Harlem girls will pick it up
(maybe tomorrow or never)
and play double-dutch with it.
The side of my face lands flat on the ground.
My mouth is stuffed with blue label dirt.
I die with my eyes open.
I am home.

LAZY OR STRATEGIC DEPENDING UPON WHICH MILLISECOND YOU CATCH ME
Prolonging the inevitable is my crutch.
Failure.
I have failed on so many levels.
When am I going to die?
Tell me so I can look forward to something.
Tell me I will stop questioning everything.
It’s a self-imposed restraining order make-a-wish foundation
on the id and entire set of steak knives that is my self esteem.•WELL HUNG (Artists' names if they were porn actors)
Vincent Van Blow
Picasshole
Motherfuckerwell
Jackson Pollcock
Leonardo Da Pinchy
Lickthemstein
Francis Makin’ Bacon
Fuckenthaler
Henri Matease
Man-lay
Grant Wood
Norman Cockwell

MAYBE I HAVE DEPRESSION
I go to work because I get
free email, coffee, Xeroxes and pens.
The hypodermics are good today
because they are fresh and sharp.
I insist that they are.
I don’t shoot between my toes anymore.
I don’t care if my arms become mesh.
Arms are overrated.

CLEOPATRA’S DISCOUNT CARPET SUPER STORE
Soon
rain will drip down my back.
A Lloyd Dobler baptism? NO.
Curl into my comforter of seaweed and succulent plants
and Ray Vaughn’s Little Wing.
Tighter and tighter still,
Retain heat,
hover,
salivate,
for 10 minutes more of the best awake unconscious.
My kimono doesn’t come with timpani drums this morning.
Instead, bongos become the cool substitute teacher.
They beckon me out of my self-imposed thunder thoughts.
Feels so good and wet today.
Drive.

STICKER SHOCK
My exile is spent scraping sticker residue
off the bottom of cheap cups.
It’s kinda like k.p.duty — only not as glamorous — no fatigues.
And I look so good in khaki. FUCK!
I seize a magnifying glass to melt my delusions
under a wooly suburban cul-de-sac sun.
The sun had divorced itself from me back in 1989.
But I keep holding a torch for it anyway
with my bone marrow bulimic fingers.
Nothing melts.
Delusions are cockroaches armed with fresh krazy glue.
They outnumber us and
they ain’t goin’ nowhere.
God is my new tenant. He is retired.
He signed an infinite lease in my left ovary
all because I acknowledged
that natural disasters
such as tornados, hurricanes and tsunamis
were random acts of nature,
and not His doing.
I gave him a place to be himself.
First thing he did
was shave off his beard.•TUPELO TACOMA
Nose running,
feet remaining still,
throat crushing itself into mutations
Elvis Cobain, I need you.

ACROSTIC
delirious cortex
even the sun takes notice and sloths around
rhetoric between genitals is still rhetorical
rhyme and treason boy
is no where to be found
communication without talking
kneads my hard, terra cotta heart into soft, wet clay again•

OBSOLETE
My boss runs a bath for me.
It is made of super unleaded gasoline, fire and coathangers.
Fire to get rid of my face.
A new hanger to lobotomize my mind.
A rusty coathanger to get rid of my uterus
and any possibility of reproduction.•IGNITION (bring on the dancing horses)
If I could give you a car,
it would be your church.
The place for
your thoughts and summer breath,
with a gigantic cup holder that’s spill-proof,
a 40 cd changer that’s top 40 music-proof,
and deluxe apartment in the sky automatic everything
that comes standard.
It will be your volition.
The meditation place to decompress.
The roads won’t have traffic
or personalized license plates.
The steering is butter–melting-on-fresh-cornbread smooth
smooth like Sade’s whispers
smooth like Da Vinci marble fingertips
smooth like James Dean’s eyebrows
smooth like flan made by Evita Peron herself.
It would take you everywhere,
anywhere and nowhere
in 3 seconds flat.
It would take you to me Miss Super Funky
and I would be
drunk-i-fied with the notion of just
spending time, not driving anywhere in particular,
but just sitting together,
anywhere and everywhere,
spending the tick-tocks
talking a million miles an hour
without uttering a syllable.

SHITTING OUT GLASS SHARDS
You get extra points if you make “guitar face”
while you play guitar
You get extra points if you walk by a piece of trash
on the sidewalk and don’t place it
in the proper receptacle
my psyche has a metallic aftertaste
my blood is laced with do-overs
my mind is filled with compost that needs to be rotated
my heart is a Hockney quilt that is perfectly aligned
my soul is a used condom underneath a creaky bed
that will never be found
this humidity is more than annoying
and ups the anty
for all of us
to be
pregnant virgins with no where to stay

UMBRELLAS FOR SUNNY DAYS for Tim
Arson is the way you brush up against me with one word answers that are
worth a thousand paintings.
Around you, veils become blindfolds.
Peep shows become pap smears.
Sand castles become quicksand.
You have more killing jars for butterflies than
Howard Hughes ever did.
I tried to shit my attraction for you out of my anus.
Read three magazines back to back on the toilet
and still couldn’t push you out.
You are just too damn embedded in my Freud.
Brown hair. Brown eyes. White man.
Hands that invented new power chords on my body…
Your voice dripped dirty porn talk in my ears
AND I LIKED IT.
You pulled my hair and smacked my ass
AND I LIKED IT.
You are the man I have had sex with the most.
We didn’t even have to tell each other what we wanted anymore,
It was psychic silk.
You are
too damn big.
Too damn big in my heart shaped box.
I get off the toilet. Pull my jeans back up.
Go to the underground garage.
Sit on the pavement by the green dumpster. It smells like a movie theatre
full of sour milk, wood paneling and beer.
It’s empty.
I wait for the trashman.
Ira Einhorn passes by and says calmly,
“ You found…
… what you found.”

VAPOR OBLIQUE
can a woman ever say too much
let her mouth speak in thug-like tones and too soons
if she was captivated by what she can't have, it cannot be helped
flissum-flassum, no.
fleshy debris real, yes.
overwhelmed by the tango de la soul train, it's all on stilts
running with scissors and swordfishes,
he is a phaser set on stun
does he dare navigate his gondola through the vapor oblique•

I CAN’T TELL YOU HOW WRONG THAT SHIRT IS/
TEBOT BACH CA ANTHOLOGY READING IN HB, CA
For John CaseyLow and elongated stairs are the poets’ Mt. Everest tonight.
The stairs in the auditorium show no mercy to highly intellectual,
poopy-doopy wordjones-ers like us
who have never been known to ungulate very well
due to the fact
that we were always the last ones picked
for the high school Supermodel log rolling team.
All because we didn’t tolerate Karl Lagerfeld’s
fans-on management style.
Hmmmphf.

CRAWL SPACE
The end of my necklace has a life-sized cleaver attached to it.
It hangs in my cleavage.
(As the Lord God intended)
Guillotine smiles stalk me.
Trying to sell me cars and mortgages and life insurance.
They admire my necklace.
I am absolutely giddy that
the Guillotinians are staring at my tah-tahs.
It’s good to have anyone stare at them.
They ask what my necklace is for.
They ask if I am some kind of rapper that is really “kore.”
“ No, I am not an Eazy E. It’s an ejector seat and a bodyguard.
I am very much into things that have dual usage.”
(the mid-west in me spews out)
I pay for the car with broken Johari windows
and bruised children.
Hang new, smelly tree on ashtray.
Begin again.

OPTIONS
GUN? Too loud and messy. Gotta wait two weeks for redtape to process. No.
PILLS? No. Unpredictable, painful and slow.
HEROINE? Too expensive. Too rock star-ish. Probably get arrested buying it.
RAZORS? Painful and again, are messy. But they are inexpensive.
HANGING? Not very pretty. Not very considerate to those who have to unrig
you.
HEAD IN OVEN? Too Plath or is it too Sexton? Hmm.
JUMP OFF BUILDING? No. Could hit innocent bystanders. And needlessly ruin
property. Same with a car crash.
AIDS? Too Ed Begley Jr.
DROWNING? Very poetic but seems like you have to be really focused.
STARVE? Can’t. I love pasta, sushi and green tea ice cream too much.
BROKEN HEART? It keeps phoenixing against my will because Hollywood
persists on making date movies. Sentimental fuckers.
Suffocation is in the lead.

SPARTA CUSSWORDS UNDER THE KILLING MOON
Your silence slits my throat closed.
But it only takes my ability to vocalize the letter “D”
Which makes me say the “F” word
even more than usual.
I asked Spartacus for guidance.
He said, “Stop your dab-nabbit cursing!
Go to the Appian Way.
Find my femur and clavicle.
You’ll know them
by the way they didn’t fall.
They have been bleached by hypocrisy and tourists.
Bring them with you to Vesuvius.
Build a camp.”
I ask modestly, “Do I have to have a cleft in my chin to do the job?”
He says, “Nope. But you will need a level.
And must show butt crack when you bend.”
I build and build.
And show lots of b. crack.
and idle the engine just long enough to think that
there were never slaves —
only citron saffron sunrises that tasted like Brown.

SNAKE CHARMER
When you pressed your lips against mine
they became wild flowers.
I saved every kiss
between ivory pages and India ink.
To be remembered
in Madagascar or Barstow
Falling out
Petals a flutter
Breathing air again
Gaugining to their original colors the minute I touched them.
Compressed time may fade,
but it never truly dies.•WHERE SCRUNCHIES GO TO DIE
I have peddled 8 miles in 13 minutes and haven’t gone anywhere.
Grunting.
Groaning.
Posing.
Pissing.
10 lbs. of simulated fat is on the counter.
3000 pounds of excrement is inside the facility.
A lifetime supply of bubble wrap cannot protect me
from Newport Beach.•GAME THEORY ACCORDING TO STUCKEYS
The man in a van
breaks down the vehicle
just to put it back together — again.
He always has screws and washers left over.
You would think he would learn.
Geesh.
Van becomes church becomes kitchenette
becomes Lorraine Motel balcony.
Drive around in figure 8’s like John Nash.
Write computations in igpa atinla.
Scribble screenplays on cheeseburger wrappers
and conjure sonnets without the sun.
What is the difference between stalagTites and stalagMites, how do you spell
hors d’oeuvres and what are the exact shapes of his eyebrows and hands…
… eloquence escapes me..
No tender glucose sticky sweetness for him to lick
(though I wish it was the contrary, my dear.)
All I have are razors and lemon juice.
How I wish I could make your rib cage rise
and fill with hot breath and “Up with people” stuff
(I swear it wouldn’t be gay)
And then, you would run to me
and we could share breathing apparatuses
like scuba divers in trouble do.
I smell equal parts vanilla and Mark Twain,
A hallucination, part of the prescription I wrote for myself::
Do not think about this man. Do not think about his van.
For the love of Christ, stop rhyming.
Just tell him you love him
before he’s going, going, gone…

SPECIAL
when you kissed my hand
i became royal
crusts automatically fell off bread
words became giggles
i became special
and not in the Special Olympics way either.
your lips paint with gold leaf.
making everything they touch,
rare and delicate,
more beautiful.

N/A
People ask me if my glass is half full or half empty.
My cynicism is so deeply ingrained,
that I don’t even have a GLASS.
Someone frickin’ stole it.
Bastards.

CALIFORNIA PULL-OUT (Elvis’ birthday is today)
Making love to my ex was like fucking Pinocchio
only with every lie,
his penis grew smaller and smaller
His thrusts felt like someone punching me inside out
entering my uterus like a politician
and exiting my mouth
like a politician
geez louise
and all this time I thought fisting was illegal in the
state of California
HE stopped kissing me in bed,
stopped looking me in the eye,
stopped being ga-ga over me.
IT became television —
bad television
— something to merely pass the time.
I became a starfish
legs open
arms open
mouth and eyes shut
body frozen
and as cold
as he was

AND THE LAWN GNOMES REJOICE
making love to my next
will be as if lava poured from God's own personal gravy boat
a slow, strong simmer
that turns houses upside down
and melts cars and shit
epic every time

HIT IT BOYS…
If I get married, I would not have bridesmaids,
I would have bridesmen.
Uber gay, ultra showy, extra scorching, extremely unabashed man-queens with
rhythm for days.
They will teach J-Lo a few things about dancin’
It will be the best reverse racism ever.

FAILURE TO APPEAR
Am I a failure in God’s eyes
because no man has wanted to marry me?
The skateboarder can’t tell me.
I ask the preacher man living inside the skateboarder’s body
The same question and he tells me nada.
I ask the inner child living inside the preacher man living
inside the skateboarder
and still get a lion sack of diddly squat nada zilch for an answer.
Revelation.
The artsy girl can’t paint her way out of this neurosis.
I try anyway. The paint is all over my hands and deep
underneath my fingernails.
It is ultramarine blue. It won’t wash off.
People mistake it for dirt.
I tell them that my gargantuan Irish skull is collapsible.
not in a good way like a convertible ‘65 Mustang,
but in a bad way
like a convertible ‘75 Pinto in Detroit in August.
Young people won’t know what I am referring to.
I tell them to try crush it,
because it will be fun for them,
and relief for me.

ANTI-BACTERIAL ACTION
I let him use my toilet.
He saw the place where I pee and poo.
Full of candles, faux finishes
and a photo of M. Monroe laughing (head back)
looking like a green velvet gypsy.
He saw the bed where I fucked and sometimes made love.
Full of insomnia.

COLLAR BONES
The preachers phone in
and want to go out for drinks and talk to some “birds”
And I said, “When did you guys become British?! You mean vaginas, don’t
you?”
They said ”Yes, ‘gina’s. Of course.”
When religious folks shorten words, they sound so cool.

THE LAW OFFICES OF LARRY H. SOCRATES
Athens, You think I put fizzy lifting drinks in the embryos?
I am no King of Pop.
I have not corrupted the youth.
Rather, I asked them to exercise their most important muscle, their brains.
You embedded materialism in their genitals long before the pubic hairs
appeared. Shave them, you’ll see.
I am a mere stone carver. A mediocre one at that.
Me, this sweaty, old, smelly, ugly, charrpay man, with thick calluses and
crow’s feet,
intimidates you so much
as to have me slaughtered
in the public marketplace like a goat or a chicken?
What next?
Slaughtering old women for uttering I told you so’s
or children for laughing?
I stand tall in the uterus known as Sun Records
on the corner Sam Phillips Blvd. and scream my closing argument to you, my
prosecutors:
Athens, You are piss!. You were once clever and smart
(and not too bad lookin’ if I say so myself.)
My trial is your enema.
My decay will be my greatest carving.
I will burnish myself into your sides with wind and true justice.
Athena doesn’t exist boys, don’t you get it?!
(Socrates tosses down a Hemlock shot with extra limes and salt.
Turns the glass upside down on the table for emphasis to look like a bad ass
to compensate for the girly-looking toga and sandals.)
My agony will turn to endless sleep or everlasting learning.
It’s a crapshoot (no pun intended.)
My day begins with death.
Your days end with no life lived.

BELLA – The feel better about myself poem
My nose is classic Roman design.
Strangers stop me and think I am from Italy.
People in Italy thought I was a native
and started speaking to me in Italiano.
Such a compliment.
Grazi. Now bring more pasta, bread and garlic!
My eye color is a kaleidoscope of Hazel.
Sometimes green
sometimes gold
sometimes khaki
(depending upon the axis of the earth)
My square jaw is straight outta Boston.
JFK American royalty style.
My ivory skin makes marble sculptures jealous.
My freckles let you know I am a sassy Irish gal.
With mustang spirit, acidfire and poetry.
My long dark hair is like the night.
Slip into it.
My mouth pours for any man that will listen
Observations of life, wisdom and utter nonsense.
My bottom lip is full, pouty and ready to spellbind.
I am a walking piece of canvas.
So well crafted the viewer will find
something new everytime
their eyes fall upon me. That is art.
I am art.
So are you.

STRETCHER BARS for Lee Mallory the Poetry Pimp
Paint on paper
On canvas
On cardboard
On masonite
On hands and face
Squeezing tubes
Squeezing life
Squeezing van Gogh’s good ear
Leaving caps off
Leaving inhibitions behind
Making your mark
Making wishes
Making a mess
Making love
Paint yourself into a corner and out again
Paint the town monkey butt red
Paint with acrylics
Paint with oils
Paint with fire
Paint with words
Paint with the tip of your tongue
Paint with your fingers
Frost it,
Splatter it,
Smear it all over your soul.
PAINT!
PAINT!
PAINT!

PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPON
I want to kill you with a kiss.
Then give you mouth-to-mouth
to revive you.
When you awake,
your hands will caress me with the specific tenderness
that only a chainsaw can render.
The mortality is tasty and winterfresh.•
Ancient Roman sarcophagus text describing the seasons.
Spring rides a lion,
Summer rides a bull and carries a sickle,
Autumn rides a panther and holds clusters of grapes,
and Winter, wearing a hooded cloak, rides a boar.

CLOSING ARGUMENT
Cremation of the soul begins
the first time a woman is called “dog.”
Slice arm vertically. It works faster.
Arsenic sugar-coats the tongue,
My brain has root rot.
Guises are falling off thread by thread.
Geezers are getting more geezerly.
Birds are resting on the wrong power lines.
Didn’t they pay attention in bird school?!
The thin wires are Kevourkian.
The thick wires are Kiki Dee.

Begin shut down mode.
Say nothing to anyone.
Look down.
Processing…
Processing…
Are you sure you want to shut down?
Click “yes.”

BEG
beg me for the moon,
and i will give you a planet with no oxygen
beg me for oxygen
and
I will give you excavation
of everything mediocre
a dusty pharaoh with no head
a scratched cd in the wrong jewel case
an hourglass that is half full and half blownbeg me for nothing,
and I will give you a kiss
because
that is often
my very best writing•LEIGH THE MORNING AFTER POEM
(Written about a guy trying to write a poem about me)
Sprawling
stubbornly refusing to get up
like a 5'4" horizontal Herman Munster harlet,
but
Leigh is not a tv character, or a man or a reinvigorated corpse with bolts
in her neck.
In fact, she has no penis at all.
She is a real person only sans the spine.
She braids her penis-less body around sheets
and comforter
and pillows
extra twisty like.
The rain is done raining.
Her back is to me.
A pale vortex infusion of cock teaser and people-pleaser.
She is a medusa-hair lawn sprinkler of sloth heebee-geebeez.
Is she fucking with my head?
Probably so.
She is fucking it to death.
Leigh the morning after
is nothing
but inaudible noises
that I can't fully document.

CHOKE HOLD
The noise. The nothingness.
The noise. The nothingness.
Both arrive in surround sound.
My mouth is a rusty guillotine that works all too well.
With the hair trigger of a Malcovich,
it's definitely efficient and maybe a little too flamboyant.
All weapons have a little show business inherently in them…
...and a 5,6,7,8.
However, on this day, the blade is frozen in mid air.
It's really fucking inconvenient.
Flies are flying in my mouth and
laying their eggs on my tongue.
I feel them wiggling and growing.
Lies are landing on my teeth and sliding down my throat.
Swimming in my stomach's acid rain.
The lies get drunk off their asses
and bestow their hangovers upon me.
Someone get me a huge glass of water and a big breakfast.
I need both — post haste!
I cannot make the blade move.
I cannot bend spoons or bend time.
I cannot slice anything
except my wrists
or my spinal cord.
The sky defrags itself.
All the color disappears.

DANIELLE’S HANDS (Every plastic bag = murdered daughter)
- For Danielle Van Dam
Danielle, you are not a thief!
They cleavered your hands because
they were needed.
Your detached hands were recruited
to become knights in shining irony
with instantaneous law degrees.
Each delicate finger,
a dagger to the throat of your killer.
10 shiny missiles of justice with glitter smiley face
stickers on the sides.
The threat is contained.
The target has been hit.
Mission complete.
Your killer will never go free.
You are an excellent warrior.
The President of the United States
wants to give you a purple heart,
You insist upon a Crayola Periwinkle heart instead,
He grants your request without any objection or ebonics.
Whew!

A year later,
your hands are smaller,
more concise
No longer considered evidence,
they are paralyzed raisins
frozen in dual fetal positions
given back to your parents in an ordinary plastic bag
to be with the rest of your ashes
in the jar at the top of the stairs.
You are now complete.
Now draw me something real pretty to hang on my fridge.

I DON’T WANNA BE PETE BEST NO MO’
I watch the flashing colon all day.
But that doesn’t make me a pervert.
It reminds me of how ugly obligation tends to be.
How consistent, annoying and habitual.
Like poetry readings.•
ALIEN ABDUCTION
I am trapped in a prison with the most colorful walls.
Ones that I have erected and painted myself.
We held out little mirrors
so we could see each other when we spoke.
That made it more real.
More fun.
More like a game.
You passed me a note
between the metal bars.
It was written on a big, soft green leaf folded masterfully.
It became
my escape plan,
my clay head,
my pillow body at lights out.
It said,
“ meet me in the middle of indigo black stillness,
When the yellow white moonlight barely begins
to outline the mountain’s shoulders.
The sky will cover you with its long eyelashes
and protect you on your journey.
Lady, put down your brushes.
Let me show you how to really use them.
We will paint doors instead of walls
that will open anywhere,
at any time.
To Italy and Greece and Egypt and Zurich and France,
Across time and space
and forever into each other’s souls.”

NORMAL (an incredible simulation)
Drowning slowly
by words loitering beneath the skull
words pinballing around
bruising themselves with indecision
purple and exhausted
not wanting to escape
not having to
My arms continue to thrash around for justice, passion
or index cards with answers.
I was your aggregate.
I cannot change you.
Though I see myself trying to DaVinci you.
And that is wrong
Wrong like lying to little kids about death or God wrong.
The little spark is awol.
I rub two sticks together furiously and get nothing
but blisters and bigger blisters
Not to mention two fucked up sticks.

DOCTOR’S OFFICE RAMBLINGS
I don’t have monkeys on my back,
I have minotaurs.
I have three mile islands.
I have broken box springs covered in anesthesia.
I am trying to get the hell out of Michigan
With my trusty shrimp fork, I think I can make it out the thumb part.
My clitoris needs a kill switch!
I don’t end my sentences with periods,
I end them with menstrual cycles.
My dreams float on non-laminate flooring.
My cookie cutters are in the shape of Kurt Cobain’s sneakers.
My lies are in the shape of a gun.
Or your heart.

MY HANDS YOUR NECK (Mister Rogers died today mix)
My hands
have ancient constellations salt-N-peppered all over them.
Egyptian origin I believe.
my hands
interlace to stay warm
and to pray
to my one God.
your neck
may need a good scrubbing or sandblasting or massage
how it lazy-susan swivels
round and round your conundrums-N-cooties
your neck
keeps your head on your body.
my neck
keeps my head on my body.
Between the necks and the hands,
our hearts.