of a thousand kings

.....

black shoe
come take my anger
go back and see
how these intelligent fists
stagger

you have no name
frustration goes limp
I've kissed your
wet tongue

there is so much
here for you in
the greenish tar paper
of a throbbing afternoon

beyond the pulsating monday
my mothers hair fell into
the sink
I tried to stand over her
but the acres of infected flesh
didn't understand

at the curb
she cried about texas
my grandmothers wedding cake is still gone

there is no light from the kitchen
only the screaming of my pride
the backdoor is opened

I have no beauty in this moment

someday when I live
burnt with the bleeding of agitation
I shall redeem that cut stem of brain
rekindle the piles of waterlogged texas

here I am though still old
still older than your little hand

stand back mother
I don't want to know
each and every thrust
pushed out of my eye
into the mouth of abandonment

take me into your arms
savor the boy who can't look
at the reflection
as a black spool of thread carries
me into the guts of a needle

there will be america tomorrow
but for tonight your love will
have to do
the kisses will have to
succumb to something

was agatha there when you let him
let him violate you
was there ever a bust of
screaming
from the river of disgust

as you know I have my thumb
on the bottom
against the slippery version
of my father
the face in the fog tells me to
listen
listen

I didn't hear the nurse
tell me it was time to leave
explain yourself
preserved in metal
there must be a telephone
here to dial 911

drinking brandy you entered
the hotel
wearing sunscreen in winter
your face was crusty white
and the picture fades
spines out of the choke-box
from the wisdom of a thousand
kings

I close my mouth as
you say that mother has gone black
you say she was not fast enough
for the railroad

I see her caught in the tracks
pushing her hands under the rails
upset that father came home
from the war

the distant banter of 1990
makes sense here
wet in the stain
clustered on muddy shoes
that walked so hard into town
like two hearts from
the fire of battle
hoping mother would
ride over the valley
back from a raped past

it was so frozen over the years
sustained by the tinkering of
motor wheels
the back and forth footsteps
of surgeons who couldn't save
mothers flattened frame

family has weathered my head
conjoined with soil spots
sooty with promises
the blurred night is what I have

a train stealing housewives

I'll stay
as drops
of blood

with blue
the color of balance
dusty with the bowl of
a plucked quality

so virginal in its difference
held in my highway window
on the way to see you
in the cold earth of grass

I want to write on your grave

" there is buried in this plot
the sum of dirt and bones
an old crack across bethlehem
a mouth in the shape of an egg "

instead I write in tumors on
the floor
with the grit of my entrails
the tattoos of birth

the essentials of how
you were
.....