Pretty models: the contraceptive of truth

I want some ugly (just a little, please–on the side)
but I guess we have a lot of–of makeover shows,
which just goes to show the need for:
an equal opportunity leer of leg hair and some
lips to drip of metaphors and intellectual orgasms,
a mouth to keep me masticating my pens up and down,
and some hands to remove these synthetic condos
that prevent my copulation with truth

Clad in indigo

Clad in indigo, the past’s presence holds firm to the railing,
a reminiscent grandmother picks us up and turns the pages of childhood stories:
of glee, shame, and the meaning of family.
Ahead, skipping up steps, facing forward, off the page,
we follow a little girl, rekindling youth, dressed in red,
she grips our hand and pulls us into the surest unsure we’ve ever known,
always two steps before us, exploring–

Scribbling an idea about an affair with the pool boy

sitting by the window, upstairs, next to our bed,
she envisions him dragging her vigorously onto my favorite sheets,
the navy blue ones with maroon highlights.
She grins, remembering the time she short-sheeted me and we tried to sleep on the floor and we ended up in a pillow fight.

He’s sucking the film off the water, she writes
and collecting it inside a small container that reads “We Suck Pool Service.”
(sounds like a bad porn)?she jots in the margin.
moving between the shed and the house he disappears.
Where could he be?
Is he stepping up the stairs to the door that the husband carried her across when the house closed? (Is this clich?, Stephen?)?she continues imagining the rapture of a one-hour stand.
the film would remain:
when he leaves to pick his motherless child up from day-care,
that night when the husband (help!?need name!) would arrive home,
the next day when he (hubby) wants to dive in the pool.

The teenager knocks on the bedroom door.
She allows the wood pulp to soak up her fountain ink,
before she removes the tip,
love always, your wife?she scribbles and leaves the open journal on the bed for me.
“What was your question?” she asks.
“Ma’m, did you all request the steel or composite Multi-Cell Pressure Filtration System?”

Its creators–us

I barely know tonight this guy
that stupidity could only buy
stay up, tire my inhibitions
till the pants
drop the emotions
penetrate the head
of a lifeless body flailing on the bed?
don’t make it, I unmade it, I’ll lie in it,
let the fluids flow, the chemicals collide
into the creature we love as much as we hate its creators.

Of cricket-song

I saw your leg hair tonight
and it turned me on;
I thought of the intimate beauty
we will have–how it will go on and on
no matter what they prescribe
oh–the sound of them scraping
more beautiful than a summer
of cricket-song.

Maybe the encore will save us

Slow, steady female lead holds her note (and me),
baring her soul and troubled she’s paring too much skin
the concert pilgrim cries, “Can’t remember when or where, but I know I wasn’t lost last time,”
should have worn more deodorant though it’s not as strong as your drink or theirs, the iconic chorus words:
Ahh, now I feel peace–they
tell me to pick up my mat and walk–but where?

Tickle ivories, tickle tears, get drunk on the non-words, the non-rational, the misunderstood–could God do any better? Is this what He did?
tense like sex, but the clean up’s less,
yeah, it’s a mess, and so are these lives–floundering in (y)our words:
the amp wind rattles the couples and the hardwood,
the 40′s and the 20′s wiggle in this human concoction breathing your wine song,
I
pull away like a closing art house movie:
the soundtrack fades in, the unknown actors fade out, the credits roll in, and the patrons yell out:
“What does it mean?!”

it’s funny what puts down the PDAs and pent up phobias,
some say it’s best to minister to those with a beer in hand,
you sting them to sleep with your microphone
as they float–over the rhine.

When I found out they were humans

I never wanted to rape girls that got close enough to love,
unlike middle-school crushes and models’ airbrushes
that dreams are made of,
if I know you, I wouldn’t want to know you–biblically, that is:
imagining you bouncing and wincing upon my waist
if I tasted your dreams–your heart,
nothing else would tempt my tongue?
well, at least anytime soon.

The quiet rape

the stranger
the victim
the dark alley
a weapon
a struggle for her
the blood
the hospital
the report

yeah, right. . . .

the friend
the victim
the home
no weapon
no struggle for her
no blood
no hospital
no report

Til death due us together

the beautiful hurts me,
and she asks me five ****in’ times if I really mean it
when I tell her she’s the most beautiful creature that God ever made
(You know. . . at least I believe you when you compliment me!)

rules are broken in pairs, it seems
actions more valuable than boxes sitting on my chest of drawers,
and I can’t cash these actions until I die
(because we both know we’ll never see each other again.)

Dead plant on the countertop

Her angst minces my onions,
carves into the skin
and out the flesh
and into a nice salad
to serve to company;
after church, of course.
Eat me! There’s no whittling today,
this is the county fair “devour your plate and fork and everything else, too” consumption contest.
He’s not a savory sap,
but I’ll remember that the next time I spend years on a commode
just thinking about Him–after dinner that day–it was great!

(Cry / cut / sever / fingers gripping me: the dead plant on the countertop.)