the king of carrot flowers / once inside my head

black coffee

when only the fire glows
twin dots dotted from a host of ill centuries (.)
where space and wistful longing launch
themselves wheel idly around the same
round hole, whole star swung round

my hands and knees, 1 can
ajax 1 coarse green
scrubbie blow
me a kiss, red tile and wooden stairwell
50 pounds of onions too tough
to die. kid

what came for you later only came
cause it could smell you, that same
raw stink bits black trailing
tongues around your gums, your weakness, your initials
hot knifed to
the trunk of the tree.

it loved you
through rubberized fingers
crouched round the rubberized
handle,
held wetly half past
midnight.

once it was
you and the footsteps, you
were all just the whisper
of leaves, he liked
that. "Comfort,"
he said. "Don't
you see?" I
didn't. I don't.

you want i want

you want for maleness
while i just want
for peopleness. we're
neither. i want
for dogs' eyes,
third prize,
a fast mist at night
or the lonely light
laid down
from open windows.
thrown sleeping
to the street,
complete,
discursive and brainless,
highlit and neat.
(oh lover
hold thy tongue.)

--

you want for maleness
i want for peopleness

we're neither
yeah we're neither

i want for dogs' eyes
third prize

oh brother don't believe her
yeah don't believe her

a fast mist
at night
a lonely light
laid down
from open windows

thrown sleeping
to the street,
complete,

where ever you will find me
brother you will find me

the small hours

A joyrider rip up Lockland.
It takes barely five minutes
for a precinct helicopter
to dip and swivel over lawns
and two opposing lines of cars
parked innocently snug to the sidewalk.
They haven't found him yet.
Every couple of minutes or so,
my blind soaks in outrageous light
and the helicopter hauls its drone
and feud all over my backyard.
There's a fan over my bed
that says similar things in summer:
adages, reproach and rhetoric.
I talk too much, give far too much away.
In mumbling my company, I reckon on
a twofold payoff: some echo;
being found out, consequence.
I lie low. Minutes swell.
He must be out there somewhere,
lights switched off, crouched and bundled,
foot within an inch of the get-go.
I pull the comforter up over my ears,
count to forty-two, then start over.
I'm trying, trying hard, to hold my breath.

by vona groarke

You can't feel it with your hands.
In your tooth tips,
lips,
wrenching the complaints like jagpipes
to your glasses, a broken tune.
And only across the room.
Amok we go to the morning bakery.
Amok I feel you below the blanket.
A teddy bear beneath your elbow
is no way to live.
The slug's slimy purpose, now compare:
favorable in singularity, but grand totaled
it's hardly worth the metrics.
My god, all that time punching the pillow.
Frumping and rosecheeks.
All that anger mistaken
for health.
A saran-wrap crumpled nose.
Who knows?
I sometimes have those thoughts.
A remarkable, unerring diligence.
But then we have sex and shortly thereafter,
I am free.