Drop Forge

What space is this, here in my belly? Dark spit. I can never go

If you like. Streetbright racketing loose

                To blackdamp

                        More mercy

Fourteen welds or snow hammering my eyes 

And it is the fist-globe within me that

        Lashes—

        Frenum, sweetsharp and wet

                    Seeping the margins

This time, it might not be

                Like that. The hollow ripped

        With bark mantis. Night

                 —What can help any more

                And then impossibly

The truth of warm mouths against glass is everything. I've

Loved this life. And having stared at passing cars

And missed the shape of faces there will be

                Another—

                    Halo

                Up there. Double-lipped

And now, near—

                    What is this, bolting my hands

Superglue

and I tell you as gospel: the sky shuddered

-D.A. Powell

We are blacklight & fly-faced, nodding the jukebox because everyone knows

That night is filled with bronzed babies & I told your dad

The strobe thunders off. Purple & rusty. The lounge shudders open its fly

Up goes the volume & the neon leans tragically, everyone covers

                                Their genitals

                                With their hats

I am the only one & I have a purse of exploding honey

An X-ray of my favorite mouth singing that one song real fast

All of the hats turn pygmy & bird, flapping up to sentry the windows

So we strip & mosh each other. Give ourselves lap-dances

Night can only be so large with these tiger-moans. This holler

Our bodies shaved without perfection. We run in a circle

At a very high speed. This is love, we whisper to each other

Contrary, to what you might hear, it is a tempest

Of black eyes & bitten thighs—Come in: you’ll lick your teeth

                    Spying us split our lips

Denver Omelet

Pour coffee on my crotch and I will stop

Barking like an ostrich. Chorus girl or chaos theory—

What are you that I want to hold

In my palm for so long your likeness

Skewers me to the telephone pole

Like a yard sale sign?  My doctor

Says I should eat nothing

But deep-fried oysters

But the sun is palsied

And I can only hear the howls of the fat man

Who is being carted from his home

By a forklift—I heard he needs help

Bathing his unmentionables.

Did you know I get most of my news like this—

POP—from silence. The certainty in that first dark

Of a mouth opening before bite.

Before I go on, have a seat, let me

Tell you—I know who came to me

Last night dressed as a baked potato

And, stoned and blitzed, called

Themselves space junk. I followed the trail

Of shiny misgivings until I found

You. And now, just think, I can’t be

Fooled and they are engineering clones

And miniature pet cows. Just wait ‘til I show

Up flaunting my mouthful

Of today’s special. We’ll do 

All the best tricks—the rolling-

Over and playing-dead. My little

Walking steak sitting up like a prairie dog.