Hawaiian Punch [2014]

it was a cistern
no
a furnace
no
a headstone     
or something as yet misunderstood

but it was walled up
nonetheless
in pale aluminum siding

and someone had written "physiognomy"
(in blood-red lipstick)
on its northwest side
failing to make note of said side's visibility to the occupants of the backyard

  [Grimace, and you are imprisoned in paradox, or ordinary, 
                         and the synthetic wasteland from which you were born will 
                         cease to receive the knowledge it so desperately needs, 
                         knowledge it manipulates in order to continue generating 
                         hexagons and polygamists and cylindrical blossoms of reason 
                         and meaning, and you.  It is of the utmost importance that you 
                         know no pain, and that your scars and bruises DO NOT exist.]

there was anger
some crying and astonishment
and some screaming into the garage and surrounding areas

someone would have to pay for the crime

and someone would be required to retrieve his own switch
or to remove his belt
or to get the paddle board down from atop the refrigerator

                         [Disbelief is suspended, thoughts turn to me, and nipples grow 
                         stiff.  "Discorporate", the Concentrated She says with a smile 
                         when he catches me with my dick in my hand, and I ejaculate 
                         onto the silhouette of something negligent.  Parentheticals 
                         pop up all across the board and others are watching.  This 
                         becomes habit.]

the temperature was in the high 90s

or perhaps even slightly over 100

and someone had loosened his belt and was making a startling discovery

sadomasochism

                         [Even though it was possible to see clearly through the stained 
                         glass, I sought implications and paradox.  I was momentarily 
                         righteous, or morphemic, and I reckoned with all those 
                         convenient images of the Underworld.  The pastor called me up, 
                         and as he announced the award, he turned so only I could see him, 
                         furrowed his brow, and stared me dead in the eyes, as if to say:  
                         "now's your chance, LIAR!"  I served testimony, checked his 
                         accusation, received the book from his trembling hands, and 
                         skipped down the center aisle, through the big white double doors, 
                         and out into the sweltering hot summer evening.]

(…)

                         [I am not virginal in the eyes of reasoning, nor prostrate to 
                         the machinations of colloquialists, and I am NOT a metamorphosis, 
                         certainly, but the time the dog didn't die on me, didn't bleed out 
                         all over the new carpet in the living room, reminds me of the time 
                         in which I didn't find vestigial appendages -- coated in blood-red 
                         secretions -- all up and down the facsimile of my body.  A portrait 
                         was not rendered, of course, and physiognomy is not a word.]

and later
cascading down
from the tips of familiar fingers
into the cup of a palm that once held genitalia and the tools of another man
was an opaque formulation
not unlike Hawaiian Punch

one that might have been best observed in the shadow of Geraldine's derigible

or in plain sight
while surrounded by dozens of feral cats and doctoral candidates

but was
instead
dismissed

and hastily rinsed off with the garden hose

                         [Membranes pulsate and invite the carnal, as Javanese gamelan and 
                         an oud create "the soundtrack to Hell".  And I've never known such 
                         ecstatic peace, such religion, as the temperature begins to rise.]