Tagged: the Bugs

The Music I Would Take to Space

I sing in the artist’s
voice – almost always
Rivers Cuomo is close
Billy Corgan hurts
Claudio Sanchez is like
I swallowed a laser
Cedric Bixler even higher
I can do Courtney Love
Shirley Manson – the
garbage version – but only
if my window is closed
I actually don’t know
where my singing voice
is – it’s gotta be in
my stomach, but
I keep my stress there
they fight their way out
– the Gemini twins
pulling at each other’s
skin, scrolling open
my throat like birch bark
the bugs are stars, but
they are themselves first
like all performers
I am understudy
I am making what I fake
but I have this window
one little window by which
life scrolls by – the
marquee – how exciting it is
to jump into one before
knowing it ends
it’s got you talking
you can’t not finish
there’s no way nothing’s there

Grass

the moment wretching
becomes embarassment, or
forgetfulness begetting
regret

I must purge before I’m full
like eating grass
use it down to its wick
and need more

get more. expend more
smoke it. they call to me
they are soul choice
says the non-soul

so avoidable
so unnoticed, so
they don’t break the skin
as to them

every pour
is a great cathedral door
my eyes like stained glass
manipulating the light into

church light
dried blood and piss, the
yellow-green of flowers
shoved into books

everything is a mistake
your bouquet should have been
grass, the children
should have been quiet

Worm-Like

once I let the machines
repair my body
they power washed my stomach
drilled relief
into my tail
one guy spent the entire time
in my jaw, just scraping
they must have missed some
anxiety, I guess – what I
described to my parents as
a knife above my chest
not stabbing, just hovering there
I’ve got it down to my tummy
I’m trying to push it out
I’ve ejected my appendix
anxiety – what I describe now
as a strange fungus
aboard a ship
oh to cut it loose
watch it drift into the cold
never to return
never to wonder if you love me
to devalue your love so
never to make things wrong
because it’s easier
because I know these things by
prescription, or strand
because I blame them
or make them disappear to
appear changed
it’s still here
it’s in the room with us now
one day I will loose my hair
my eyesight
my home planet
one day there will be a voice
the one who keeps anxiety
at all costs
from reaching my hands
the poles
dowels in every pore
make the rope you make
around my wrists
nothing can escape when we go

Playing Dead

for a possum to play dead effectively
it can’t look too good
evolutionary priority is given
to the ugly – the mottled fur
the hairless face like carrion
the chitinous tail, the smell

if a possum chooses another
she will do so for its longevity
its eligibility based on ugliness
therefore beauty
the young are carried on the stomach

tight against fat hanging
towards the ground, dragging
through ticks and the litter
disgusting, undesirable
reliable

no one comes for the possum
not the hungry, nor the thirsty
the possum does not pretend
to be alive – it is therefore safe
it is ready to drop dead
at any moment

a long, upturned smile
the secret – to live
while no one is looking

Fear of Dying

I beg the stars to move –
that is, to have died already
I’m still uncertain of their distance
now more than ever

what would happen if I ate one?
would it kill me? if I sleep
facing the sky, will it breathe me?
if I get bit, will I die?

I am unsure about so much
what does a virus want?
which is the universe
and which is the galaxy?

is it cicadas? or static on
spirit headlamps? or
feverish kazoo music?
Denis? Denis?

could be just a bug
am I doing the right thing?
where do I place
the needs that could kill me?

Salamander

light, like the cricket that leaves the cave
our minds which consume
and think they have been. our minds

of the palest skin
they are stuck inside
the cave of skull

blind as a salamander – seeing nothing
aware only of what is brought back

Clay Mask

I cover my skin in earth, as if
my skin is not earth
as if little mounds don’t grow from both

both are like space to bugs
or looks

why don’t you respond to me sometimes?
you’ll just sit there, staring, as if
there isn’t a buzzing
you need to cover

as if you won’t fill with ocean
if you stop moving
stop picking at yourself constantly
stop picking yourself

there is fire in your chart, without which
there can be no stone, no earth
yet I am all earth, no fire
I must have come from somewhere

another layer perhaps, deeper than skin
where I generate my own heat
my own light
like a vent that warms the sea

How to Release Dead Animals

It is hot and windy. your face
is probably covered in hair
your body out

I am reminded of the animals
I’ve kept, some of which have
died in my care – snails
toads, spiders – clearly dead

(some had been melted
in tupperwares in which
I had also caught a star)
now back into the wild

unable to throw them away
unsure of their use now, as they
no longer moved in my room
unsure of where it was
I had found them

running away, around
this whole time, open
mouth against clear
sloped walls

even the rocks I’ve kept, like
tears hidden up my nose
or in my ears
I’ve wanted to keep forever
my ultimate stubbornness

to be an everything-sized cage
to be your whole world

suddenly my mouth is full
I set the dead on the knape
of the Earth, an armadillo
rooting its vast, known circle
flinching, closing

the dead to skitter off one day
the Earth to have rings
the dead to die again and
again, having lived

again I am unsure about
the size of the world
where the color goes
on captive animals

why they feel different
how they could have died
if I can love something
without having to have it.

7-10

I run more when I’m single. I         dig holes in my skin
as if something might pupate         & emerge
I would like to be         more inwardly motivated
so my heart won’t come out black         in a rocky bed
I’m consumed by         how much
it doesn’t hurt. Does that mean it hurts?

What if Bugs Bunny Were Bugs Instead of a Bunny

I think of replacing myself
with bugs
fumbling over themselves
heaving
grabbing skin, grain
absorbed
or otherwise freed
like other, smaller
bugs. you would like it if
I had been
now that I am
but I wasn’t
a spider hurls its heart
into its legs
blood hits the wall
and goes up it
like a roach. there is no
naturally occurring
instance of me
in the leaf litter
in the rot
I descend carrots
I say what is up. I
tape your heart