after eden

and what of adam? these days you'll more'n likely find him cursin the lord jesus, laying in a bed of fleas he made himself with hands full of murder and seed spilled on his shrinking belly, reeking of dread and emptiness.
as for her, eve, the new whore of babylon? she is still wet from the fuck, all slimy with snakespit, mascara running in the mud and smelling of her rebirth in a den of feral dogs.

a humble ode

in denver back then it was all threadbare houses and drinking cheap tequila deep in the chill of july midnights. id been desperately in love with her, with that supernatural gleam and ancient tragedy weighing and lifting her skinny brown body. id always wanted that night, out there by the bonfire in a weedy backyard. she was yowling like a bony allycat under a red moon some old blues song. everyone was drunk without watches and time stretched till i could barely stand having been overcome by the smoke and her perched so high on that splintered log with her songs and scent drifting down to cover us in all of our earthly mortality.

wade in the water

only thing worse than seeing someones eyes too full is seeing them too empty. when the soul is a forgotten gray rock sunk in some cloudy pond.
after the eyes go, all you got left is your pulsating blood in a fraying body. soon it is tripping down the asphalt sticky from the heat, bellydown draggin slower and slower away from the demons,heaving into porcelain till everythings thin and brittle as twine.
i heard the splash but the road was steep so that i didnt dare turn back to see the submergence. i knew it and i just moved aside cause baby went to drown wasnt nothing i could do.

a hustler's lament

“strippers only wanna fuck and get high—an down here they want you ta think they wanna fuck jes you SO THEY GIT MORE MONEY!!!” the lonely man hollars in the parking lot to nobody in particular, alternately exhilarated and cynical.
inside the rest of them are still twisting in their bar stools feeling lusty and nervous. they are married, religious, or otherwise, and they are buzzing from the bud lite and neon signs and visions of moaning whores as the next one takes the stage.

what a specimen of thick strong limbs, drawn from some ancient majestic bloodline! she is carved out of granite with tits and ass like epic rolling hills. her ebony hair could flow all the way to the sea. when she moves surely the earth will shake and its rivers part. why is she not on the ceiling of the sistine chapel, what business has she here in this smoky den of dingy men?
and o lord! how she dances, though the pole is no worthy consort. the rednecks closest to the stage start to feel faint: there are tigers, maybe even demons buried in those Hips. beads of sweat roll between her breasts; the flimsy g-string can barely contain itself. they only want to bury themselves in her milk and honey, to be smothered in her smooth flesh. but she won't meet their eyes, no: her face is bored and haughty as a proud racehorse paraded in a petting zoo.
will someone not break her free and bring her to sanctuary or green pastures! but there is no room for heroism here between her full thighs and the clapboard walls of this swampy town. and so she gyrates, knocking unbelievers stonedead, wondering if the campbell’s soup’ll still be on sale tomorrow.

down the river phlegethon

He was shaped as a mole, with a hunched soft body and a sharp nose. beneath the large, balding forehead his skin had the permanent pinkening of a white man who has languished too long in the sun. he’d caught wind of my politics.
“you fucking terrorist,”
he snarled, accosting me with eyes long deadened by whiskey and cocaine. even his drawl was reminiscent of something washed out, faded, shriveled in the middle. though educated, he was wanting in both depth and wit. he was losing.
“sir..,” i set the glass down sadly. “hateful of many things as i may be, i know there isnt righteousness nor honor in violence; all dreams of such are vanity. the maggots waiting in the ground for the war dead don’t taste the difference between iraqi and american. it is all dust and vanity.”
he couldn’t answer and my words faded unheeded into the smoky air. he was deadset unreachable and i should’ve quit. but this strange desire for cruelty was rising black in my veins, hearing his prideful declarations having never seeing the horror of a human body coming undone and bleeding its life out.
i sat there quiet, dragging the remaining bourbon between my teeth, knowing that the last blood-choked cry in the saharan heat wont carry god nor dignity.
but he will not see this, and so did not deserve punishment— yet i found myself wanting to hold a mirror up to the dumb spittle exiting his frothy mouth so that he might gape at his own foolishness. some part of me wanted to play with him as a cat mocks a caught mouse, to disembowel his simple argument and stretch its oily tendrils across the filthy floorboards. it would've been easy enough; he wouldn't have been able to keep up.
and so verily weighted by these violent thoughts, i watched myself sink to his level. i turned away, held my tongue, and couldnt help but smile cause all of it aint nothing but dust and vanity.

hobo tomb blues

I was walkin down the old train tracks by the bayou and after an hour
I had to pee. I turned toward the scrub sticking out of the retaining
wall, and lo & behold, a cinderblock house half-sunk into the
hillside. the sea had aged it past its years but it was solidly built
with a concrete slab roof wreathed in empty cigarette packs. I peered
through the tiny glassless gap of a window, which revealed the edge of
a sleeping bag and a table. upon the table was an open bible, an empty
bottle, and a fresh book of matches. the rest was darkness and I
couldnt make out if the sleeping bag was occupied.
I crept toward the low door with some perverse urge to know what
passage stood open in the bible. but as I got closer I was hit with
the ripe smell of rot, washing familiar through my memory like the 9th
ward after the Storm.
there was broken glass all over the floor--some final rage? was it Job
or the Revelations? but I remained on the threshold in the silence,
unable to enter, not knowing the fullness or emptiness reposed in that
fraying red nylon fabric.

the sky meets the sea

Wandering down the chilly beach today, trying to think peaceful thoughts, I came upon a large heron in its last hours. it was disconcerting to see such a formerly majestic bird laying on its back, spread as if on a crucifix beneath the sand with its feet pointed toward the ocean and its head resting on its chest staring wistfully at the sky.
it gave a small cry as I approached but said nothing further.
indeed, it died more quietly than I imagine its sisters did. beneath the watery winter sun it was eulogized by the rising tide with a cairn of broken seashells and, for flowers, man-o-war jellyfish washed ashore and gleaming.

'shopping'

clutching giftcards from distant relatives, we descended into a carnal
haze of capitalism that blazed gloriously with pink neon and overfull
bodies. the shopping mall was perplexingly large and misshapen, with
no natural sunlight or landmasses to offer reference or shelter.
I hadn't been in one for some time and felt a pavlovian panic as the
heard moved through its linolium-glazed hunting grounds. what if there was a stampede, a feeding frenzy at the nintendo store? we'd be crushed!
I glanced around nervously, wishing I'd brought some kind of weapon
for self-defense, a lasso, or at least wristguards.
people stared at me, as they often do. was it the wide-eyed look of
horror on my face, the ridiculous 40-year-old dress or the enormous
faux-gold thriftstore belt buckle? obese men coveted me between
attempts to look longingly at the victora's secret postergirls, only
their equally robust wives kept blocking the view.
restless, I ran through the buffalo, dodging their adderall-addled
seven-year-olds, and crept between clothing racks that whispered like
the collective memory of the trees beneath the bulldozer and concrete.
distracted by 3 elongated starvation victims
adorned with sequins, I lost my footing and stumbled, falling between
gym calves and spiked pumps. parting their crocodile-skin purses, I leaned my unpainted face up and asked the blank lady at the Macy's counter if
she got any rosaries.