"This is my first chapter on home forensics,
and this is my new girlfriend, Sea-Bass."
More Perihelion:
BobSward's Writer's Friendship Series
A quick list to poets featured in this issue:
The Horse Leech's Daughter
The Horse Leech’s Daughter is a closed system.
Samuel Beckett
From a coffin hinge you've made yourself
without perfuming your bathroom mirror
rises each morning, like an intestine,
the required lavender heat to send the stable hands
satchel, packed with the good daughter's cure.
in your closet, above the fingerprint kit,
soaked rags, the day I left? And here, I am king
and one hundred oblong egg-casings spacing
This is my first chapter on home forensics,
Look at her dress, so rough and slippery.
of the earth, on into a fresh, libertine nexus,
but there are so many names mouldering
Like the peg-legged dog of an old crypt-raider
from the dirt, when your time comes,
Some days I watch the ocean down the street,
the sand into ribbed shelves, and it's like with love
of the beach, and it's like the tide that I invent
a wedding ring, and I hear you can't get to sleep these days
on the spot where the reflection of your white neck
as if even your glassed-up jugular could pump
running to you with your daddy's leather
Don't you think I saw the pair of coveralls
below the formaldehyde jar, beside your ether-
of all I survey-a teapot, the ocean down the street,
the beach: the water's insectile come-ons, bereft of hope and slime.
and this is my new girlfriend, Sea-Bass.
And look, my time has come, my name on the next superfetatory convulsion
a crease in one of god's little footprints,
in the bone-yard, without bodies to inhabit.
I will fetch you a new name like a bone
and I will fetch you your slippers and your pipe, when the time comes.
and it's like with a tongue that the water cuts
that the tongue drools on the taut, brown stomach
a thing to love, then cover it with water.
_______________________________________________________________ Pantoum for Houston (Director’s Cut)
Well here we are in love again & don’t you fly
inside a pretty face, Houston, a pink pill
& stuck in the throat, so very hard to get them down.
& secretly she reads my private mail, although-
must it be said?-she also writes my private mail,
or please save your spit in a jar or I will milk you
like a viper. I’ve read everything Jupiter published
& I don’t think I’m much of an actress. I haven’t _______________________________________________________________ Drugstore
I finished the baggie of blue pills
sends her regards, although she
and Ramona, do you have any new pills
for your only boy? I fell hard
that mailbox, I went fishing
twenty feet. Your lost lures glared
which was a plug in a reprobate
instead of down? If we go down
Yes. I'm tired of the astrologies,
that are enough for me. I grow old.
I’m concerned that what we have
by the skin beneath your eyes _______________________________________________________________
& hide your pretty face from me, Houston.
I haven’t had hands in thirteen years.
When I had hands, there was a pink planet hidden
stuck in the throat. It was so hard to get it down.
When I had hands there was a pink planet hidden
& sad stories of how I lost my hands, pink
Lt. Jackson reads my private mail, sad letters
w/theories on what happened to my hands.
She hunts archaebacteria w/tiny sharpened words
it must be said-she also writes my private mail.
She hunts archaebacteria w/tiny sharpened words
or chews the air so I can breathe, & like I said-
ie, please save your spit in a jar or I will milk you
& then she chews the air to paste so I can breathe
& asks me where’s the scalpel, please? or music please?
like a viper. I’ve read everything Jupiter published.
Where’s the scalpel when the music in me
is a giant spider? Swallow me gently, Houston,
& I don’t think Jackson’s much of an actress, her
or the giant spider. Swallow me, Houston, gently
feed me my lines, my pink hands are missing
had hands in thirteen years. Feed my lines
to Lt. Jackson & use my hands to mime the story
of Here We Are In Love Again & Don’t You Fly.
that made the planets so tolerable.
The toy hula girl on top of my dresser
doesn't dance until I touch her,
you're not using, any spare lows
for the mailbox, I sent flowers to
in the reservoir, but they'd drained it
cheaply under the morning sun,
bathtub. Will we drain up
is that the first we're heard of?
the icy pharmaceutical rites
I encounter philosophy at night.
is each other, for as long
as prescribed, and I can tell
that as far as I go, it's your word
against the universe and sleep.