Dream of the Glistening City in the Distance

There were all of these once unnoticed vericose veins across my stomach and they were bleeding profusely while we exited the house that may or may not have been in Europe so I squeezed out my stomach like a wet gym towel and the sky outside was black with heavy clouds but there was a glistening high-definition purple city off in the distance, bursting through the air, Chicago maybe, and suddenly the pine trees were on fire, and the ground was flooded, and Zoe was gone, no there she was, in a cheap boat docked by the back porch, sleeping.

Where was there to go? I went inside and tried to keep this giant squishy Yoda head in the living room bookshelf from sliding but the thing wouldn’t stay still, and even though I thought the shelf was level this squishy head, which belonged to Mila’s father, wouldn’t sit still. I just shut the glass door and let it be.

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Michael Jackson

They all go from geniuses to freaks
emerging from brilliant white closets
to faces painted white
they all go from geniuses to freaks

They pop out of nowhere like stray bubbles
and linger like steel memories around our heads
always there to hold and caress
when we need to feed, to talk about the others
stray bubbles shot from an imaginary flesh cannon

They recklessly dangle their babies from balconies
and dance on limousines at their own child molestation trials
and under the knife they squeeze themselves tight
allowing their souls to recklessly dangle

They die and drop from the stratosphere
to a thud that shakes the earth
and a huge splash of teardrop
as they drop straight from the stratosphere

Fat Jimmy

There’s a guy leaning up against the streetlamp
smoking a blue cigarette and sporting a brown fedora
looking directly at me as if he knew me from somewhere
some annoyed questions projecting ripples from his aging brow
and I could sense his wavering agitation
like he knew me but his memory was failing him

There’s this panic attack I’m having- I say to him
and he just stares at me skeptically smoking that blue square
do you work for Fat Jimmy? he asks in a lazy drawl

Who the hell is Fat Jimmy- I think
watching his fedora unfold into a small spotted hawk
and the street peel away like a candy wrapper
revealing my fizzling brain underneath the whole block
neighborhood town state country earth universe
infinitely asleep
graciously awake

Insides Out

You know
sometimes you live out your nightmares
and the whole thing seems unreal
because it is very, very real
like the time I had a hole in my head
just below and behind my left ear
and with supernatural ability I peered into the hole
at my juicy, fizzling brain
and with a detached finger I massaged the tunnel of bone
that dipped for a foot until it reached that gelatinous thing
and I was so, so fascinated
and so terribly disgusted
and so damned mystified
by the hole

You know
they really can put holes into you
and I’m shirtless looking down at my abdomen
at a little red flower
glistening under the florescent bulbs in my bathroom
and I’m suddenly remembering the dreams
about the bewildering holes
as if I had them last night
and the worst part of me wonders what it would feel like
to gently insert my finger into the stoma
and feel around a bit
but I just don’t seem to have the will
or sense of in-dream security
to do it

For this is very, very real.

Stoma

Using a cosmic mail-order fillet knife
they ran off with my sigmoid colon
and my hard drive

One bitter week
where the sun blasted orange through the blinds
and I couldn’t see the rays even if I asked politely

They took away the moon craters
infesting my only organic dumpster
and used twenty one metal staples to hide the evidence

I tried to tell the story
but the words wouldn’t boot

Every letter I produced for years
gone
the Whooshay snatched his belongings
and sizzled out through the electric doorway

It’s tempting to talk to myself
or converse with the alien poking his meaty head
out of the left side of my abdomen
instead I just cover him with a solid plastic bag
and wait for him to cough up the truth

I ask them
what are you trying to tell me?
and they never answer
except the with the occasional nod of the head
and shuffle of the loafers
out of the room