Meet The Poets

Satan's Parrot Speaks Through Me

1,000 Posts Here At the Shambling Darkness Project

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That's Right, One Thousand.

Dented, scarred, well past warranty and still grinding away like a motherfucker.

self-portrait #2

Father's Day

The Father in the foxhole
Came home again, he was transformed.
The children were frightened, stay under the covers.
The father in the yard with all their clothes. The father
Vanished, mother did not say where. The baby
In the chair, the baby’s doll left sitting in the chair.
The youngest boy grew up, quietly.

This was a short line, generations tumbling.
The quiet man had his own sons. The father
Sleeping from many days on the road, we mustn’t bother him.
The boys grew like wild grass rioting in a clearing in the woods,
Those sons whose son’s leapt.

There was the Father who ran away,
The one who crawled at night, who became strange to his son.
He became twisted and crazed. He was transformed.
Dangerous, terrible and sick. The boy became quiet. The father
Outside under the orange light of the alley. He went away.
The Father went away and came home again, restored.

A Very Horrible Song

A special thanks to Ukrops muzak. My god do I loathe Phil Collins.

Monongahela This

Fatherhood

A man has the unique ability to turn his heart to stone. Therefore
He is most suited to kill an animal, dismantle a friendship or to break the heart
Of his two year old child by telling her, You may have no more milk.
I am taking your mother back to me. It is enough. Holding her all night
While she cries like an animal wounded to it's center. Hoping
He knows the mind of his child well enough that this will make her strong
And brave. That what he does is right. That he knows his own mind
Well enough.

There is damage enough to be had by fathers, or to be dealt.
Calamitous minds of others to be shut out from home,
The calamitous house to be mended. Tidied and straightened
Before bed. Trouble enough to be kept away, forgotten, or forgiven.
There are the hidden gifts locked inside a child's hand, delicate
Like a child's hand. There is the sleeping hand to be held in your sleeping hand.

Stay Wild

Without wrath.

Never forget the joy of against

The echo cauldron of blessed against.

Forget your lifetime of hapless revenge.

Sing loud, pilgrim, your anthem of disgust

Without contempt. Stay wild.

Self Portrait

Last Letter to An Open Door

I wonder how it will feel after they bite you

And then you fall asleep in front of the news

Showing the oil refinery on fire and then cutting

To surveillance footage from the circle K

Of the clerk fighting off two men who don’t

Stop attacking him until the floor around

The coffee island is an ocean of red-red

Sticky sugar syrup in thick plastic patterns

And then you just die, expire, pass on,

A swirling set of footsteps up through

The dark place where memories don’t matter

Any more. Go ahead now, look for

The kids upstairs, your wife who took

Out the trash a few days ago and never

Got around to putting the pork chops

Away and now they smell up the house

Something rotten. Or is now you,

Freshly up from the chair with stiff jerks

The way you felt sorry for your grandfather

Who had the hardest time getting up

From that La-Z-Boy before he died, but

Not before you helped him once, arm

Under arm and he turned his yellow

Teeth and spat at you to let him the fuck

Go, and yellow toothed you buried him

Under a sky like a lid laid down over

The rest of the world as if it were a

Sample of bacteria in a dish. And the lights

Are still on and the clock on the wall

Is still clicking out the movement into

The future and the white doily under

The lamp is dusty and you get to the door

And can still manage to get it open

And then you leave out into the night

Where there is a general sense of urgency

To find something to eat, anything to eat.

Jackson Ward

John and Me shot some pictures today in order to swell the Flickr pool for his Carver and Jackson Ward News website.

Well, Which Is It?

Cookie Monster Cookie Monster

May-may's new favorite Youtube

Pan Am Discard

And shudder the unblocking which unfastens such

Like the mythical cubes of frozen urine in blue

Couched which fall upon the heads of suburban

Men as long as they search the sky for fruits

Of their unblemished faith in the congruous

Quality of the king, here Elvis means, whose

Belted rhinestoned girth-some tract of be-quivering

And famed flesh enshrined by goat’s head Fire is.

Thus the evolution of a creature who, hid

In shades of loathsome and purchasable

Products, couched also all in black-hoods, these

Continental spires still can burn and stand.

So the error erodes its pearly spines

Which you need shame yourself thereof

To entertain that lack of longing flared

Of pained edge-eyed sheets stained, their worth.

:::

Training the Many Fisted Borzoi

One: ample exit room is required, clean

All oil cans and remove bloody rags

Before proceeding with the cavity search.

Two: De-claw all relatives. The family

Is a neat place to die but none I think

Do there meat pie. Get your house

In order. Through fire is recommended.

Three: Get your louse in order. The louse

Is best caught with the bones of fingertips.

Peel back the skin. Try it with teeth, fun

For the whole family.

Once you have prepared the Borzoi, you

May begin with the fisting. Lubricate

The hallway with blood. Cram a cadre

Of toxic friends into plastic bags and

Shove them through the opening.

All the rest is teeth, glorious teeth.

:::

Andean Appalachia

When I was little there was the highway through the mountains.
I knew my town was up there, somewhere. I had found it only once before.
Between two rocks there was an entrance. The houses were built
Into the cliffs either side. It was very cold. Mists smoked.
The stone road was narrow, the houses went straight up
Beside it. There were pine trees. I was the only one
Allowed in from outside. It was my town.
Even now, when I sleep, I try to find it.

The Body In A House

Gone To Ground

Fox Hole

The woods were the same as our woods in north Georgia

Low cedars and pines. The same clearing rubbed through

With slabs of prehistoric limestone. Our same rock circle,

Our fire pit under low Georgia winter skies. The fox-hole

Was still there, etched under a stand of raw cedars. I stumbled, I fell

Into the hole. It was light and tall, egg-shaped like the inside of a

Wasper’s nest. The red clay walls were lined to the ceiling with

Silent children. Applied there as if by some massive mud dauber.

And I think I recognized them.

Water Lilies

It wasn’t decay that consumed the ancient gardens

Surrounding the manor, but something like it.

Ragged hedgerows gnarled out of line, moss covered

Pavers rose out of walks, urged by roots. It was very dark

From all the trees and the green smell of everything.

Ivy wrapped thick over brick walls. Ivy choked

The stems of the great oaks.

There were pools above ground, tanks really.

Intricate Victorian iron bound glass above ground.

Taller than a man. Lilies spread thick over the surface,

Leaves floating like the open palms of many hands, flowers,

Roots winding past the glass through the murk.

There were bodies suspended upright in the water.

Limestone

The New Decay

The smell of wood smoke in the kitchen

After three months of fires and draught

Is the sun bare knuckled upon windows

The zombie bit me on the shoulder

Spray hard red and string of white tendon

Bright like fresh paper.

Vivid because I was going to die

But relaxing because we all were going to die

And it was going to be over for me,

I wondered if the dog would become one

Loose hound eyes all green, and if so, would

He only want to eat other dogs?

Because of the smoke, the light was like

From a jelly jar of orange something too long

In the fridge. The pain was electric.

The zombie had a fresh look, besides deranged

Eyes, kind of no one would know sneak

Up on you and bite hard on the neck kind

Of business man ordinariness. I think he was my

Neighbor who always rubbed his car

In the morning before he got in it, cat paw prints

Over the hood and windshield everyday like

A curse against gleaming. Now the sky

Is a tube of toothy light. Car, sky.

A Joke

Henry: Who are you on the phone with, Dad?

Me: Why Jay Snodgrass of course.

Henry: Tell Jay-jay I have a joke for him.

Me: Okay.

Jay Snodgrass (on speakerphone) : Alright, Henry, shoot.

Henry: Why doesn't, no, why can't you iron a rhinoceros?

Both: Why?

Henry: Because he has too many wrinkles! Ha ha ha!

Me: Wait a minute, I'm not sure that's how it goes.

Jay Snodgrass: It's because he will gorge you with his enormous horn!

Marks

Through the sighting scope you see

One zombie carrying the head of another zombie.

Both are dead one perhaps more so.

The walking one has a shirt on open at the neck

His face is carved with decay like tattoos of protection

Consider what one will do to keep the world upright

Covering your face in protective markings

To preserve order as it hazes about in the airs

Consider Iraq or Darfur or Prison, the stately engine

Perusing history easily overlooks

Our careful documents designed to preserve us

Ever after.

Then another zombie, casual Friday, tries to take

The head from the one, a tussle ensues then

Disappears behind some trees.

The zombie who had the head no longer does,

He gropes the air. The one who took it is holding

It up to its ear as if listening to what it is saying.

Recovering, they both turn again and begin

To gravitate to where you are watching them

Through the scope of your high powered rifle.

The sun is as everything else is, normal.

Sometimes you wonder about the sounds

Of friendship, the glissandos of before and after.

You mark another day on your arm in knife

Let the blood leak down, reply to raised questions.

Skeleton

Up from a cutting

Straight knife through blue

Vein jack to traffic timpani

Through hoards a thrumming lobes

Little brittle neck line

Not much tube to thorax

Yet yelps the perturbed-ly at lack’s

Staunch vicissitudes of weight loss

Your mongrel mouth

Stops short at bone

But bone comes ever after

As reanimated shoulder jags

The Jarring swing and flex

Tumbles limp armed after.

Bone

Slugging from the down

Bent wagon typicals a rhythm stew

Brain squeeze she brushes knots

Because a churning squalor

Ticks juices out of temples

Speak neck notes to zipper

Dimples unhurried vents

Wind tubes out of symmetry

From half lives clawing

Until decay

Sandwich token subway grounds

No call signs left aggrieved

Afterwards ever nerves

Spaghetti-ed juice and slither.

Sometimes, While Riding My Motorcycle

all I can think about is this.

The Shaved Survivalist

If you’re worried about the world turning zombified,

By which means we will discuss later,

Then who better to rescue you, us all than Mila Jovavich

Her perfectly un-perplexed facial recollections


Administer to faces everywhere worn with neglect

The fear of decay. Plus what other evidence of her

Messianic perfection than that despite the end of civilization

And her rampant dezombification policies

Of the newly uncivilized imagination of the post

You and me world, what it takes to fill the imagination

Up with a world less human and thus zombied

The fear of zombies being the manifestation

Of a multiple human forms of social degeneration

Finding face, or facelessness, in human hunger

For self redemption, that is self inflicted vengeance,

We brought it on ourselves people, the homely

Priest or insightful scientist calls out from the rooftop

Or over the lab radio to undignified ambivalence,

Thus the princess arms herself with heavy guns

And low cut American blood lust, blood being

The price of virgins, of innocent thinking or simple

Complexity, the world confusingly balanced upon

Fingers pulling triggers or pointing to the kindred

Leftovers of us wandering amongst the eaters

Without aprons or gibbets. Who better, then the holy

Mother, Mila Jehovah-vich, her physical vengeance

And insurmountability un-complicating the hatchet

Or bow and arrow sequence, the blow it all up hot

Attitude which threatens to save us all. We know she

Is perfectly suited to beat the teeth, to show us how to

Get back to the shopping mall after the credits roll

Because despite the length of civil decay, the evidence

Of zombie hoards beating at the fence, of desert mouth

Brigades tempting staunch perfumes, she can perform

The ritual of cleanliness because she is the only survivor

Yet who maintains her make up and shaved quality.

::

Gumbasia

Everybody Loves Hypno Toad

Ruin

At the camp, in the morning, everyone pisses on the fire.

The sun hides in a wind behind the squall of pines

Across the field. In the smoldered remains of Dillard’s

Double wide the ghost of his dog, Darling, noses.

The woods from here go on and on into strangeness

Through a dirt road which always seems to take your time.

It’s ok to be naked if the winds are down. Right before

Falling into the fire last night, one of us, Pericles of

Any righteous moment, declared all the rest of them,

Us, were pussies. We gaffed him out quick and all

Was well again. The Big dipper scooped more portions

For who ever comes later to examine the wreckage,

A hefty bit of aluminum and broken glass smelted

Like ore in the very monster’s heart of the fire pit.

::

Heironymous in Aftershave

Heironymous of the underbelly informs on his paperweights

Showering only when there is enough moonlight.

The concentration preens itself as though a surface of soda bubbles

Lime light reusable as ink and restaurant stains

Heironymous of the moonlight screws fixtures to the evening

Like dead light sprinkled with lime.

The hole through looking is which one intensifies as on a loop of curled

Light fixtures intoxicated to pavement

The ling way down sees its present for the tree in hyperbolic

Taxi rides through endless tunnels

The chirp-chirp of later evening is wide awaking me to psycho eye

Delimited confluence of ought to be-s and damits.

Show me the rebels with their bicycle tricks Heironymous

Consuming habaneras for the good of man.

Heironymous of the decayed light wears usher’s epaulets for diplomacy

Our waged war of contaminated

Heironymous of the leaded belly ache outs the land spoils and flood margins

To bereft the cleft in her moonlights.

Heironymous arranges his flowers like teeth of broken flowers

Such marginalia of porcelain shines, shines and outshines

All the Lower Heironymous penned to large mammals and hurting sweet

In their inner wards, inside, counting innards

Of the hippopotamus link to ligature to bony arrangement to party favors

In the limey fresh drinks and lamp light chirping.

:::