Fishhook Theater

Meurtres

rhinoceros horn
covered in blood

box of chocolates 
covered in blood

railroad rail 
covered in blood

discarded nightgown 
covered in blood

café waiter’s service tray 
covered in blood

bank teller’s visor
covered in blood

new roll of duct tape
covered in blood

now empty toolbox
covered in blood

bronzed baby shoes
covered in blood

sophomore yearbook
covered in blood

native headdress
covered in blood

miniature flag
covered in blood

map of Antarctica
covered in blood

first edition Malleus Maleficarum
covered in blood

Sonny Bono 8-track
covered in blood

sticker-less Rubik’s Cube
covered in blood

cigar-cutting guillotine
covered in blood

modern-day woodstove
covered in blood

antique turkey baster
covered in blood

Mickey Mouse candlestick
covered in blood

broken sunglasses
covered in blood

spare key to the mudroom
covered in blood

olive drab canteen
covered in blood

perpetual motion machine
covered in blood

De Facto

The world is going where?
Power never existed before
Poe and Nietzche got it wrong, then died

We never saw this before:
the chance to make good
where there once was none

Where the sun clips your wings,
where the wind wakes all singers,
there remains the possibility
of cancer in the fingers

One hand is writing while
the other counts its blessings:
six days for every life,
the seventh second-guessing

Forum Poem 4

When I die, I want to be buried on the internet —
woundedknee.org.

Let’s build a house, so we can fill it with assholes;
a house so big, you can only see it from space.

Apart from these ideas, I only ever just had one other one:
to break into a grocery store
and then steal all the crackers.

Why crackers, they would ask,
when there’s beer and ground beef?
You’ll get it, I’d say,
when you come to the feast.
There’ll be music and dancing,
and the funniest person I know will be there;
but the crackers, my friend,
will be something to see
indeed.

Forum Poem 3

Wicked as the Way we walk, Widdershins and Wasted

As the Arrows Aiming after all the Angry Asking

Repay the Ruined Riskers, Raping Roil in the River

Forum Poem 2

I don’t want my friend to give me his money

I don’t want my life to end on a gurney

I don’t want to trade my two cents for a lie

I just want to know there are fish left to fry

Forum Poem 1

My poet’s plight: soft copper in the night air:

spent casing clinks after bold bullet’s brain.

The old ones are still the good ones,

though we’d never know the better

of this reptile’s rhetoric, which is fine with me:

I flick forked tongues like chili-farts,

fire men in the boiler, blaze stockings

back-talking. Each window is a ledge,

each ledge an opportunity

to catch face upon the morrow

a chance to grind that system under me.

My poet’s plight: soft copper in the night air:

spent casing clinks after bold bullet’s brain.

The old ones are still the good ones,

though we’d never know the better

of this reptile’s rhetoric, which is fine with me:

I flick forked tongues like chili-farts,

fire men in the boiler, blaze stockings

back-talking. Each window is a ledge,

each ledge an opportunity

to catch face upon the morrow

a chance to grind that system under me.

The Phage

It swims like a torpedo with legs.

Single-minded.

No mind.

Single purpose: expansion.

A robot of unknown origin.

Crystallized protein on skis.

It marks the return of dread to these walls.

This mania.

These cardioviralia.

Felicity carton twelve times a spunk handler missage report. Best Book of Mormon tickets always.

Upon The

Your words are spit tell / me more

It is not with in / your power to act

To act according / least of which

This sacrifice to reality / the universe(s)

All that is not / your attitude(s)

Each according to his means / this means you

That means me

Tom Waits

Prowling the pavement, equal parts
troll and billy goat gruff,
less a street-sweeper
and more a mobile refinery:
garbage in, bullion out,
night’s own pacemaker -
‘If only that Grammy played records…’

(My entry into the Studio360 / Tracy K. Smith contest)