some days the black mantra drowns me out
I lurch from room to room
announcing the end
the end after the end
I’m going to torture you to death
no, I take that back
I’m going to watch you die some other way
today I thought long and hard about killing my neighbor
one of these arrogant little Boomers with his little dog
who looks like he could shit on his own floor and demand you watch
while he explains how valuable his dumps are to the market
prison logic digs the grave
and my captors invite me to jump in
watching on my phone
death put in its place for me
a long winter guest
I keep digging around him
trying to catch his eye
ask him why he came
but he only says I’m him
I’ve waded back in to the swell
to look for signs of its abating
before it swallows me
poetry is like a dead mother who won’t go to sleep
she sits over my shoulder, commenting on my handwriting, playing with my hair
mushrooms growing out of her mouth
her eyes glow when she watches the horizon
a scorpion woman of Mount Mashu
raking her claws over the passageway of the sun
some decisions are like birth
Athena banging against my head
till I try trepanation
the sky lights up
a great black line streaming across it
I lie in bed like a tomb effigy
watching my legs rise into the morning