Apotheosis

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The nails are in search of a man to make
not a god, but a Tonka toy inspired
by track star haircuts leaned in from shaving,
milk wash like flesh over Formica until
it’s transparent. All art should be smooth.
Two handed but concrete soft, like in a dream.

Read the air. Not god but deception dreamed
this bomb. Not juice but horizons made
this confirmation of madness secret-smooth.
Print outs of not god but robot inspired
insects. The carnival secretes a visit until
I dissipate like a sink full of shaving

cream, a cake covered in chocolate shavings
radiating out in ripples like a dream
of denuded faces cutting density until
the lord uncorks in a wild fiasco made
for the people in the dunking stand, inspired
by the amoebas all over the smooth

carpet. I am almost never smooth
no matter how much combing and shaving
I can’t quite get the ladies inspired
to stitch their pulsing cages to my dream
or to climb through pressure and make
that noise that heats the room until

the wallpaper droops, or at least until
I convalesce in wheezy flame and smooth
the sheets. Involuntarily I make
the folds of a chair ration out the shaving
light between hard stomachs in a dream
in which I am almost nearly inspired

to give in and fall down the stair well spire,
to turn within the hospital parking garage until
there is nothing but fried ampersands, dreams
of grease & gravy, secretions holy-smooth
where I am the prisoner desperately shaving
a gun out of innocence or whatever I can make.

I’ll inspire you with a ring made of wax,
shave a little time off my dream until it is smooth
and hairless and ready to be holy, holy.









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