The Gun Room: Official Report [2011]

I'm not sure who brought him home, but suddenly my eldest son came crashing through the screen door and collapsed in the entryway.  He was crying and clutching his knee, which, from what I could make out, had been gashed by some broken glass.  So, I scooped him up, and though my back was killing me, I managed to carry the bawling and squirming boy up the stairs to The Gun Room.  (I figured, with all the blood, the tile would be easier to clean than the carpet we'd just had installed in the living room.)  I sat him down on top of my old service footlocker and tore away the remains of his pants.  His knee was bleeding profusely, but I couldn't tell whether there was any glass remaining in the wound, or not.  I remembered that my toolbox was under the bed in the next room, so I left him there and went to retrieve it.  As I entered the bedroom, the wife ran past me, smelling like the steak she'd been tenderizing, and I managed to reveal the gist of the situation by showing her the blood on my hands and shirt.  She moved to comfort the boy, who was growing hysterical.  I found the toolbox and moved back into The Gun Room just as the wife was placing a rolled-up towel into the boy's mouth.  He panicked, and I told the wife to leave so that she wouldn't do the same.  I threw open the latches on the Craftsman and rummaged through the tools looking for my dad's old needle-nose pliers.  After a few stressful seconds, I found them, wiped them off with a rag, and plunged them deep into the tissue beneath my son's kneecap.

by two strong men [2011]

  "I wasn't allowed to do…
                    he wanted to get even…
                    I was a year then"
                              I do not)
       I was your finger cut off     on the time

made perfect as God

                    "When I wanted to be hated by his boyfriend…

                    on me down…

                    if you got your age"

                              he knew I do not)

       I loved my thumb     until I ran away

nothing happened for almost a [          ] because he knew I felt like 
a square piece of killing him and he also knew that [          ] 
(spoken eloquently) was the only language through which 

the thought of killing him could be payed top dollar and [          ]

so he really cared about [          ] but maybe had no feelings toward 
or against other people [          ] either in a contemporary snowstorm or 
a medieval castle or a prehistoric [          ] rather than this 
which he would call a [          ]

                    "I wasn't allowed to go out or talk…
                    he was six years old…
                    he'd call the toy gun"
                              even now I do not)
       I didn't provide my hand     as a clock

made perfect as God

                    "I sucked my father…

                    and he didn't know that I…

                    pulled apart by imitating his life"

                              I do not)

       I was a pile of severed toes     in the canoe

I hated Listerine

I hated Listerine and he wanted to play with his family

shared his family

shared his family

shared his life

by becoming more ineffectual daily

people would generally hide from him

rather than be exposed to the glory of Him by two strong men

fall of '45 [2010]

  graduation photos

along a day in retard of the last great war

you disquieted an industry booming

and the nation's pastime

  born of lame-legged bull 

and naive degradation

given a name as mine 

you were

swept up    as the shit from the chicken coop floor

swaddled in kerosene rags and newspapers

delivered as a curve     balling 

to the stop of an elderly minor leaguer

                        and     at 87 mph
                        (a personal best)

                        you were pitched

We Are Colony [2015]

animation [2012]

an animal is a feral lecture

chattering

and a (human) child is waiting

for its black-rooted fur to grow thick

with the perpetuation of conjecture

chattering

a tattooed arm is obsolete

a mouth full of polished-round teeth is joking

running is alone to the alone

and conversation is something to be 
                                                              bitten off and chewed up

chattering

caged into a heightened state of appropriation

this child might begin to consider cohabitation

chattering

a lecture is a feral animal

size matters (a 'mismemorial' remix) [2011]

to witch the ripped number

is to raise an infant from the wreckage

with Ouija fingers     and naivety

in relation to the size of it

I misremember its birthplace

in relation to the size of it

I misremember its name and address

(misremembering it is an expertise)

in relation to the size of it

I misremember its blue-black eyes

in relation to the size of it

I misremember the time it almost killed me

(nothing is misremembered like survival)

in relation to the size of it

I misremember its temperature

in relation to the size of it

I misremember its wrapping

(the gift is in the misremembering)

in relation to the size of it

I misremember where it had been

in relation to the size of it

I misremember its identical twin

(counting is misremembered in the end)

in relation to the size of it

I misremember nothing like it

in relation to the size of it

I misremember its death

(dying is misremembering)

to witch a rendering

is to sweep ash athwart the ghosts

and witness     a living thing

"Size matters when mismemorializing yourself."

-- Anonymous (2011)

The Morning After Halloween [2015]