Nipponskis

from the deep forest and the black-earth provinces,
blue-eyed boys are emerging
following the smoke of the factories
and bonfires of confiscated books

melting down the cathedral bells of Kiev
and forging them into cannon

while the battleship Imperator Aleksandr
dreams its way to Tsushima
beneath the nameless constellations of an
alien hemisphere

could have consulted a thesaurus but

looking at the Wikipedia page
on the “Succubus"
it sounds a lot like me

that’s all

that’s the poem

kaleidoscope eyes

my body is an

optical illusion

from one angle flat

smooth

the fucking reason to

be a flesh-and-blood female

and next it expands outwards

a house of mirrors

there short

there tall

stout

skinny

-

I feel like the man in the room of

ten thousand clocks

each a perception of my thigh

my stomach

the back of my neck

some my whole fucking body

They tick away I say

What Time Is It?

what time is it really

tell me

so I can abandon

this disgust I sometimes feel

of having a body at all

make of me a martyr
with yellow jokes springing
from my red hair
take me to your bed
kicking and screaming
I will bleed all over your
sheets

I might never grow out
of drunkenly sobbing
under a streetlight
but I can play a mean
sad air bass echoing
handfuls of girls, their
screams

michael stipe, my muse

r.e.m.

is on the radio

as I roll another joint

another night

slips through my fingers

burns away to the end

this is out of control

this all feels

out of control

stipe asks me

hey, kid, where are you?

I said something weird on the bus
sorry
I am doing my own thing more and
I feel ok about it
finally

It's hard to catch just sound
I'm banking on it slipping from your mind
A whispered reply
is something to think about

come away from quietly dreaming
the unexplored space of the ocean
and the sound from which there is no origin

somewhere there is something
that sleeps in the sea and
when it crawls onto our shores
your possessions will not save you

How to treat a broken leg

Can one become a poet by accident? I'd have said no
before working here, but listen if you dare to intrepid newcomers as they twist our language with ease into insight,
unexpected,
and entirely I fear, unintentional.
How to avoid being struck by lightning? Trow away moble phone.
How to survive an earthquake? stay with strong persons.
How to deal with a charging bull? be away other place.
And lastly, preciously, perfectly, how to treat a broken leg?

Be gentle.

Octopus Eyes

octopus eyes
you got
octopus eyes
peepin out through your
human disguise

tentacle mind
and a
suction-cup heart
wrappin up everything
tearing it apart

The wave feigns sleep
as I spring first,
only to fall down the face of it
when it heaves.

I see sparklers in water, going out.
The thought bears me down,
but I float gently on the foam.

I fear again.
I hear the knocking of my heart.
A realm concealed
reveals itself.

autumn of the dog-day cicadas

all the cicadas have hollowed by now
their husks fall from the sky like
leaves, wispy little bodies
that crunch beneath my shoes

I sleep under trees in the afternoons,
wake up cocooned in wings
and hard red eyes
a second autumn

the sun waxes distant
as it wanes
winter knocks sharply on my door

--go away,
I say to the wind
--please let me sleep
for seventeen years
under the earth
let me be a cicada
and rebirth singing