Joining the Hird

even as he skinned his first young deer, he held hope
for the day he'd wear a wolf's pelt into war.

even as he stained his chicken skin with char and tallow,
even as he smeared his dirty face with curing sapo.

even as he grinned and skinned his first grey wolf, he hoped
for the day he'd wear a bear's pelt into war.

several familiesworth

a lone cold bone amongst brush
slow to roast, slow to blush
the crunch and lingering still of a crush/

tonguing my cud
slobber and gravel, a cheek of mud
baldfaced boulders, mountainous molars
the scent of menstrual blood/

a winding height along the lake
a silent white meridian wake
stretching away at the polars.

afterlung.

In his stomach was an acidic lather as he peered through the trembling bay from the cold.  The far side of the mudded alley in which he stooped showcased the object of his greying curiosity.  Naked behind a bricked in, ripply window she treated her wounded skin, dabbing at splotches and sores with what he tried to imagine was a cool, wet rag.  The stone walls which kept the wretched voyeur from her were crumbling in the undying winter, weakening by the windgust.  He wavered with doubt and hunger in the brine fog as he considered the scene.  He coughed and choked then swallowed down the pulpy froth in his throat. Bloody mucous bubbled in his nasal cavity incessantly as he corroded slowly in the diffuse phosgene mist, and as purine tears culminated in the folds of his skin he shuffled away with a pule to seek quarter from the burning air.

chemical tenderizer

the nerves embrace relief
moments after they receive
their daily dose of deadening,
the marrow of the leaf.

the Inebriate Smith

handfuls of anvils for aches and spills,
rhythmically hammering advil pills,
bellows and coal
bourbon and skoal,
the loitering smoke a shill.

faithplant

just whose breath have I been stealing?
and how to explain this feeling...
it's the mind reeling
as the heart dissolves through the ceiling;
it's kneeling,
at last believing,
arriving only as the spirit of god is leaving.

braincloud

the voices of the day
hoist and force their way
unbid
into my sea
and say:
are we new thoughts or memory