12/27/13

I built a dam out of stained soft

                Chairs and paper and unnecessary

Unforeseen apologies received to

                Hold you at bay

Friday

And I spoiled myself and

                In return dealt out thirty lashings I

Felt your breath on my skin

Fight or Flight I did not

Fight I hid amongst the wooden towers.

They called me the Chai Guy and the H is

                Branded further into my

                Forehead        here          here 

I wonder what my teeth look like to

Strangers or my debit card all stars and stripes

And scratched with anger Last

Summer I wore them with a dripping doubt

                But last summer was last summer and

                Last summer I was pushing dissecting pins

                Into plush

Perhaps I tossed the cellophane and the

Glittering pinecones into the barricade to

                Fortify.

The tables don’t turn they shiver and clatter and

Somersault clumsily reflecting about the axis and

                You become my friend, shape-shifter,

                Therianthrope, the lean whisper beside me the

Fan belt whistling in my head I

Often fail to realize the oceans you have left

                For dead

I elbowed down a family frame as if

By Fate, the severed thread

                F 8 , F 8 the keyboard chips a sliver from

                The polish as they grow irate

Is your policy out of state?

You straddle into welcome and I cock

My elbow for my bride

                (my groom) an occupied upper-lip clothed in

A prism of foil I pace the aisle and by the time

I say I do I am clutching to your muscled knees just

                Leave me be

I Flee

And with a stop-motion flashing of page numbers

Elude you deep into the labyrinth it is Friday I

                Was saved by an over-priced singular poem

Hardcover

Fifteen dollars the title always brings to mind my

Father’s favorite, the

                Skull-faced locomotive that I conquer three-fourths

                And then flush down the toilet

Fifteen dollars is a worthy price by quality but

Fifteen is the saddest exploitation fifteen in

                Florescent cloudiness

                Centimetric binding and my fist, a fork, devours despair

My eyes have fucked a thousand times

That hung so damp in the post-war air

I blanket myself

                in a handful of dust  in the wake of

                prior Armageddon

Fear death by water I fear death by my

Own steel-tipped fingers

You obey the border, but linger.

-BENJAMIN SMITH