With memory’s dusty abacus
I find myself between
Christmas and Halloween
With memory’s dusty abacus
I find myself between
Christmas and Halloween
Despite the time of day, night seems to be falling. America’s most famous serial killers howl like Siberian wolves. There’s nobody there who knows CPR, & it’s too hot to go for help.
They wouldn’t know me from Adam
He often thought, he had a fishbowl for a television.
I smoked three cigarettes today, he told them
Their food reminded him of ash,
It gave him something to look forward to
Plaid shirts, Levi’s, and hightop boots are
a fashion statement. You won’t find them
on the racks in Paris or Milan. They are the
uniform of the good old boys.
Car tires crush crabapples
with the sound of distant cannons
shade trees explode with golden leaves
showering the digging squirrel
i.
Nine days I hung from the
boughs of great Yggdrasil;
limbs wrapped tightly ’round
my neck – a choked and dry
tongue scraping across lips
as I tried to speak with the taste
of ash and leaves in my mouth, as
I prayed to Odin, as the branches
clawed at taut skin and a swollen belly.
But the runes were silent.
Pale light and her face is not her face,
a mask, creased, painted cheeks, indifferent.
Her mouth rakes over sound like garden pebbles.
The Electrician latches his lunch pail
wipes the crumbs from his beard
and carries in his tools
Downstairs, he finds the breaker box
with a flashlight between his teeth
and takes a screwdriver from his belt
While tiny boxes of cereal and the Danish
under glass with tiny black tongs sit,
I drink the coffee air of the official morning
with pink Sweet and Low and blue Equal
sugar packets leaving a few crumbs on the table.
Crowds scream in horror outside. Car horns and whistles waft in through the window behind the warm air. He slowly shuffles down the last couple stairs toward the vending machine and drops the coins in. Ca-chunk! His shoulder is still sore from earlier but he pulls out the Coke and pops the top off.