The Plainclothes
Morning demands good trousers.
Button your shirt—
top to bottom, no skipped holes.
Meet your own gaze:
no flinching, no side-eye.
A razor glints on the glass sink.
The soap dispenser gargles its death rattle.
Pump hard—
one gleaming slug of foam.
Knead it between palms.
Watch for sweat:
too damp and the soap won’t bite.
Rise. (Americans would say “rinse.”)
Your skin must emerge reborn:
taut as a drum, smelling of lilacs
on days, days, days
when nothing ever happens.
No Dummy
I crave the fjords of a real face—
not some steamrolled tomorrow-face.
Give me terrain to get lost in:
low lighting,
politics flaring in nostrils,
eyes still doing color drills.
I want a stormfront mug.
A face that survives falls.
No simpering saint
with a tin-star forehead.
Father
He dangles from Time’s jukebox,
his pompadour crackling at maximum pomp.
His leather jacket—
just shy of wide enough
for eternal adolescence.
His eyes: B-52s.
Even the apocalypse
shuffles up, pockets empty,
mumbling for spare change.
Moon Trip
Heavy as a therapist’s sigh,
cool as a canyon on ketamine.
We tickle detonated girls
and stay bulletproof.
Camouflaged
like shock absorbers
on a godless dirt road.
We graft a fatherland
in the motherland’s womb.
We wave. We flap like week-old mackerel.
On a lone volcano,
randy goats piston
glowing dickels
into overripe priest cheese.
Junk
Your body got zoned industrial—
loading docks, forklifts, graveyard shifts.
Breathing became optional.
You were the world’s
squatted warehouse.
A marketplace for
priests and poets.
Someone spackled
your face onto a cloud.
You tried to object,
but the cloud—
Christ, it clouded so perfectly.
Your lips parted,
then realized:
lips had already
negotiated surrender.
Walking Against the Wind
“Armageddon’s out of fashion,”
says the Queen.
“Ring my bell—
I’ll moonwalk in Prada.
I’ve got meetings, darling.
We all do.”
An old thought’s only as old
as it feels.
What’s the half-life
of a sugar packet?
People are button-farmers.
Golden ages dream
of prettier peasants.
“The internet made you all
clickwhores,” says the Queen.
“Just clump together
like good cells.”
Off your ass, clickrat.
Take your Queen’s hand
for a moonwalk
through the gift shop.