radioactive candy corn newsprint
leaves orange glow-in-the-dark ink
on my fish-nibbled, whorless fingers
that do not leave visible or dustable prints
on this volcanic glass-smooth crunch-spire,
upon which i perform mental push-ups
my human presence undetectable except
by monsieur geiger's little clicky box
of wire-wrapped, assorted chocolates
don't eat the round ones; they're gross,
domestic--a product of unrefined oil
scraped from the gulf of mexico's floor
on which i strolled in the slowest of motions,
tethered to a raft of plastic bag-lashed moorings
that floated atop the sea-turned-mercury,
because everyone knows mooring anchors
don't float on water, they sink, they hold
the line of crap oil companies spew like
broken pump-pipes about safety in great
numbers, the safe sex of those pipes entering
drilled earth with no risk of oil baby defects.
that the manufacturer has sand-blasted
its non-existent yet multitudinous hands of,
knowing that purchasers will never read
the operating manual, even though it is
written in 101 languages: xhosa; khmer;
inuit; sumerian; the same manufacturer
of the tainted ink used to print the art scene
newsletter (the publishers, a canary named ty
and his sidekick, joe, bought it for a song)
that i have just consumed and excreted via
reverse osmosis to create this paper-mache
tower that crackles in the cold, quick wind
beneath my bare, frostbitten-black feet
and await the results of my poison-ink mutation
of body, mind, maybe spirit, and, if body,
i can guess what spirit will makes its nest
in the distorted form once me--a grey wolf,
howling for a careless, candy-ass canary.
Damping
The reactor that exceeds
two hearts' tensile strengths
looms in the car's headlights,
as he rehashes the dark
spots, driving under the
gravitational influences
of imposed logic and stifled
emotion on a starlit ranch
road that leads to this hot
vacuum of a house, home
to two suns in wobbling
orbit that flare at close
proximity but cannot pull
or will not break away
from blinding attraction.
It needs to stop, he knows,
this dual supernova in the
making, and he parks his car,
takes a few deep breaths,
puts on polarized shades,
and leaves to cool the fires.
