POEMS: 2017

The Large Toenail

I am not so sure what I am
but I know thatI amor at least it seems
that I am
and sometimes
there are potatoes
sometimesthere is hair
and sweat and sex
sometimes there is sweetness in the invisible ether that is created by the shared gaze between four eyes
and sometimes the toenail of the large toe seems exceptionally
and beautifully
odd

Those Ponies

when you see those thousand ponies
a comin' o'er the hill
with all those apostrophes singin' sins in their manes
remember the day your mama told you,
"ain't no string ever said a prayer
couldn't be heard by the moose in the atlantic.
ain't no froggy ever seen a monday
without giving thanks to the suns.
ain't no human ever hummed a hym
without remembering the vaginal doorway
the portal that puddled them into this world.
happy birthday, ye of fibrous being."

Planting Whales before Bedtime

I will make you
into a river

you will make me
into a pot

our chortled mothers will come
pour their soil in me

our beloved and late fathers
will plant a whale
beneath my bed

and your water will feed
the worms in my newly soiled body

My Name is Sthomas

die oh die don’t die please don’t
(I must) (we will)
my sugar angel of tonight
clasp my buns and leave me red
tell my toes they’re special and worthy
of all the confetti
that sings so softly
in the bleached blue jeans pockets
of the presence called gee oh dee

ah oh ah your hand upon my shoulder
your fingers on my balls
the water on your lips

some day
after we finish being this
let’s eat the soil
and introduce the seeds to our stomachs

“hello stomach
my name is Seed”

“hello, my name is Sthomas”

The Worm Said

he rode his donkey into town
bought a couple bags
bags he filled with soda

in one bag he soaked his past
in the other he placed his future

one of them was heavy
with some gold rolled up in coal

the other one had bubbles
and burped the alphabet in moments of uncertainty

last Tuesday
he drank them both
and when he peed
his past and future left him
they entered the soil
at the base of a tree
where a worm was sleeping

the worm woke up
and said

Ample Swirls

if you died
and were re-formed
as the polka-dotted beach towel of a rotund man
with ample swirls of back hair
who eats pungent onions daily
would you think that you are
regressing or evolving?

Emu

Today I shaved my back for the first time since the first grade.

After the hair was removed, I saw that a birthmark had grown underneath.

How do you grow a birthmark after you are born?

The flesh wanted this question's answer to be kept a secret. That's why it grew the hair--to cover the growth of the mark.

A rasping voice behind my left ear tells me that I didn't grow the mark. It was given to me, bit by bit, by a benign rodent who visited me on the nights I slept in mud.

I'm not sure whether or not to believe the voice behind my ear.

The birthmark, it's shaped like the waves of sound that are produced every time the emus sing to each other.

Hole

hey hey you you there
i've got this hole
could you put something in it for me?
a sock, a flesh, a hug, a rhyme, a vegetable,
a joke about boa constrictors in a public bathroom
talking about the day's weather that is really quite nice today,
the egg that came before the chicken,
a finger, a toe, a tongue

anything really

just put something in my hole please

i'm not sure
where my hole is
or why it is
or how it got here
it's inside of me
and a little bit everywhere
i need to find it
so that i can fill it
or close it
or spit or shit or piss or puke or cum in it
or plant a tree there?
or fight it
or hug and love it
or sing to it a song about suns
or

or what?

what do we do with this hole?

Write Me a Letter

when you die
will you write me a letter?

tell me what it's like to be
a nothing
a something
whatever it is
you believe
you will or will not
be

i'll spread some blackened lipstick
on my lips, my scrotum, and my clit
i'll kiss the letter
before i burn it
and remember how you laughed when the hair fell out of your head
when the worm crawled inside of your skull
to light a fire in your brain

i swear
i'll shave every last nook and cranny before the moon comes out
so that that shiny rock can peer into my pores
and see the waters you've been stirring

Monkey and Angel

there's a word that no one can say
the weightless blood in the fingers of this word
draws a circle on your grandfather's back
while he drinks a glass of wine
wearing tattered sweatpants
on a nude beach
and a squirrel licks the singular coarse black hair that grows from the side of his neck
and somewhere in a jungle
an angel is peeing on a monkey's head

today is the first day of the new year

A Star Called Skin

they say when you turn seventeen
you die
on the eve of your birthday
a purple head crawls without legs
out from your belly
while you sleep and dream
about a future you forgot

it sniffs the bottoms of those you love
then pees on a green place
as all good doggies do

you wake up
you don't know it
it doesn't look like it
but your body is gone

and now you're breathing in a star
that you call skin

The Fingers of Those Who Climb

I asked him why
our dreams are blue
he told me
it has to do
with the feelings
of orphan monkeys searching

I asked her why
the marsupials bleed at midnight
she told me
it has to do
with the fingers of those who climb

I asked them all
why
my feet are itchy
they told me
they need the ocean

water is on its way

The Cumming Itch

a peanut butter and jelly sandwich
said to me with its lips and tongue:

you are the shrunken head in my pocket
the cumming itch between my toes
the hairless goose who sits on sundays
feeding crumbs to folks with crosses

tell me your secrets
and we'll see some moisture in your skin
tell me your lovers
and we'll see the wrinkles writhe and smile beneath the green balloons
tell me I'm delicious
and let me feel the tubes inside your tum

Love Poem

you need a blanket?
please
take my skin
i do not need it
may you be warm
i will be raw and naked muscles

please
won’t you stick your fingers
through my meat
pet my bones, my jaw, my ribs
tickle my clavicles
as you would the kitten’s chin
i too
will purr fur you

we can be nude together to gather
our sweat into each other
my skin can be the pool
where your beads of sweat go to swim skinny-dipping squealing
your toes can be the logs
i lick before i sleep
in clouds in our heads
do mothers and fathers watch us?
turn them away
let them eat the soil of their world

we’ll make love in the sun
not in its light but at its cores
o that our bodies explode
as we are doing the thing
that lets the love flow go
wherever it must go
which is everywhere

A Poem about Scabs

today my skin flaked off and i cannot stop licking
the red juice around my bones.
someone braided the hair on my knees
while i was sleeping last night.
and in my armpits
more braids, there, too.
who is doing this?
i'd like to feed them the bread in my bag
the pigeons can wait another day

A Brand New Chair

this morning I woke up dead
my body had become a house
with too many people inside of it
I watched them with the eyes I no longer had

they made dinners
they peed in the toilet and on the walls and carpet
"you adorable miracles" I called them

they laughed at words and sounds I didn't know
and they cried
when the children exploded
"you funny bubbles of skin and thought" I called them

"Why are you here?" they asked me
my body with no lips
it said
"I'm not"

and then two people
rubbing their skin upon the other
in a fit of procreative friction tickles
"oh baby oh baby oh yes yes please"
joined their cum
and made a body
to house my Me-ness
and a babe was I again

a brand new momma
a brand new poppa
a brand new flesh bag
for my old and ageless mind
a brand new rib chair
for my bleeding, laughing heart

Soft Touch Free Way

please please please
please tell me it's true
the lie that you told me
about the soft touch and the mountains
and sailboats and beauty
even if they say it's a lie
it could still have some truth
couldn't it not

Two Barbs

there is a cube room
of blue and mud and apple it is made
there!
in the room
two ladies sit
one is named Barb
and the other
her name is Barb too
two Barbs
and that is why
all of the hot dogs
(300 degree puppies)
in your cupboard
are now gone

The Way the Baby Dies

this is the way the singer swings
this is the way a baby dies
and becomes a person
an eater of life
a crumb in the sweat of the tongue of the world we are

you feel that breath beneath your arm?
given to you by the aunt of all ants
whose finger finds the folds
between the something old
and the something coming up

Frog and Spine

do you remember when we were babes in momma's arms
and she pet the purple fur on our backs
the fur she didn't know was there
when we cried and the sweat poured down our backs
into the mouth of the frog sitting at the base of the spine
the kingdom comes to the petals' petter

The Drool of Naked Strangers

the child will tell you the answer
it is no thing made of words
it can taste like pudding
it can smell like an apricot
hiding in your lover's opening
it can feel like the skin of the air
if the air received a body
and drank the drool of naked strangers
they be the souls who will offer you milk
when you are lost and lassoed
by the hairs of the illusion that steams up from your sweat

look up!
look out!
right there
right here

you will find the friendly stranger's hand
and the milk of all the mommas
begging for your tongue
so that it may enter your belly
and unearth the secret being

The Sliding of the Sex

a bird became a newspaper mid-flight
before it hit you in the face and fed your nursing mouth
the headline about the sea gulls who ate lava
burping yellow bubbles
on the same day you first made love to the blue ocean woman
on the roof above your momma's and poppa's bed
where the magic happens
where your portal was opened
by the sliding of the sex
and the blurring of the lines
called Ma and Pa
wake up wake up
dear beauty in the booty
as they did in the caves
while dazzled goats howled

Pony Magic Maker

my pony is the magic maker
she tells me how to be
a stranger in a puddled world
a dancer in a toilet's fire
an eater of the unseen flesh
a swimmer in the unknown organ
a singer of the tickled heart
a player upon the elephant's palm
happy birthday to us all at once

500 Babies (A Lot of Babies)

500 babies
500 years old
500 breasts
licking at their lips
a cowboy on a saddle
eating hairs of lamb
tells his favorite apple
how to skin a son
when you're not sure how to go
gone down to the marketstore
to buy the yellow hand
taken from the arm
of one who plucked the one last hair
from the scalp of Lucy's boar

"OoooOOooOowWw"
the final words of the man without a stool

The Tunnel

I am Death
but you can call me Shirley
or Tom
or Monday
or yogurt or babies or booty
or cheese-face of the Tunnel of Love and Grooving

Skin upon Stone

i am the ass' flesh
inside your palm

i am the sound of the smack
of skin upon stone

i am the fear in flesh
become love

i am the choice
in the womb of your heart

i am the sex behind you
before you

touch
the shadow

hear the word
on the tongue of the bird
the one in your lap with its palm on the bag
of ears from the grandpa

it is not a sin
if you let it all in
it you let it all go
all you will know

bye bye dirty
hello sky