Inkblot

a poem

This was the first murder, last lamented,
bullet, bomb, buzzing drone. The telling then
from shadow to shadow, glass to fragment,
choked on the clay clots, apportioned, abstract.

Oaths and reaping, creeds aplenty nether
in the oat grass, fallen as shot songbirds,
loathing the words, stirring the sizzled vat,
brothers suckled from birth on bullet breasts.

What shall the hot prism say, my darlings?
For say we must. Amber is without speech.
Speak! “friends,” it’s our final delectation,
before the short moon sets on children’s screams.

We’re dead already in dead crowns, washed white,
coffee-spooned, flat, fruitless, Frankensteined,
tearless, electrocuted into speech
and gesture in the dead’s cavern angle.

Who made you, what? enjoins the Rorschach blot.
Nothing splendid, nothing lustrous, nothing.
We’re rats, flakes on coat shoulders, cold asphalt,
and yet, politics is our redemption?

Here’s my two cents, “friends,” here’s my two dollars,
read from shadow to shadow at surface,
“I’m here, I’m over here, I’m over here!”
A nymph fly, ready to run the dead world.

This was the first murder, last lamented,
not the last—you can’t outshout the thunder.
The bitter wind bends back on blood and tears,
howls in our mouths and out of our asses.

Love lies gravely wounded at the roadside,
passed by, our despondent odor floating
like nettle seed on prolix breezes caught.
We suckle the bullet breast and spit words.

Limber up those tongues, you platform sages,
wiggle the old fingers warm, peckity-peck,
each a minister with a ministry.
Flutter-tongue the flutes of your reptile halls.

Daughters wait with mimic consequences,
wives, sisters, in blue fluorescent passage,
men, shattered on prophecy like mirrors.
We suckle the bullet breast and spit brass.

Where is home, why? enjoins the Rorschach blot,
whither the threshold, our welcoming work,
bare feet under blankets, the languid stretch.
Where in the dim dead’s cavern angle?

Lost in the flood—even though you multiply prayers,
I will not listen. Gathering our words,
strewn cold across the massacre fields,
we stack them in gray rubble castles.

Days without mystery, nights without stars,
from shadow to shadow, glass to fragment,
boredom to rage on this dead latitude:
“I’m here, I’m over here, I’m over here!”

Shudder! The paint of the phantom sky peels!
Shout! No one hears above her own wailing!
Speak! against the table of elements!
Write! in the dead intellectual sea!

Love lies gravely wounded at the roadside,
a kettle of vultures soaring aloft,
God buried in billboards and weariness,
the phantom sky keyed on a flat axis.

“I’m here, I’m over here, I’m over here!”
A nymph fly, ready to run the dead world.
Bring your worthless offerings no longer,
What say you, how? enjoins the Rorschach blot.