Such tarring compliments greet me here;

the twisted sweet buds of too clean a word –

they nuzzle their knuckles into the very distant me,

a glue of ant legs for my body.

 Take away my fingers, take away my fist,

remove the bite underneath my lip,

 suck,

mother, a plagiarism,

something remembered, never born.

 

 God, give me strength to believe in you, give me death as placid

as math, give me love to burn the wax of sex, give me tools to rhyme, give me water,

and if you can’t give me that,  then give me alcohol...

 

I am stripped of bacteria.

My body is white like a pickled salamander -

limbs, lungs, liver; colonized.

Every sunset is pasteurized, the eye flicks forward like a salute,

days report the Damocles and a hair line fracture disputes.

 

Give me syphilis, give me an illegimate, give me a song to drum my skull

into the shiver of your gravitations -

my arms vibrate,

a memory of a salute, non public -

and if you can’t give me that, then give me religion...

 

I am stripped of sentiment.

My heart is grey like a wall –

memories, a fudge of cement, and love, a fibre-glass.

Every sunrise is a bird recording, the eyelid clicking propaganda -

spoken word is suicide, and thought unthought is slander.

 

Give me nonsense, give me hate, give me the hollow of my own grave

but please don’t give me that...

 

that gnawing grin, wide to show

 myself,  naked,

 before me.

 

They had me at “Hello