has prepackaged bitesized Christian decadence come to thisTuesday, June 16, 2009
at 11:23 PM;
instructions from a serial killer
"I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing."
- American serial killer H. H. Holmes.
after the first four,
you keep score on the bedroom wall/
an etch for each bitch/
no room in your head
to host the dead/
she will grow on you, like cancer
laying claim to your brain/
let the dead bury the dead,
but leave her eyes and remains open
to sudden hands,
the way your rope
strains the death mask
as your knife, eloquent
and rehearsed so often,
quills a stark grammar
on her face,
parts speech from death/
what drives the artist
becomes his method/
you learn to feed off registers
of rage, violence of art,
and there will be no finer moment
than this spell
that keeps you singing hours after
the trespass of sleep,
dyeing of sheets,
the sirens calling forth another chase/
Apathy
There are no extra drugs
In our coffee.
We sleep with our lights turned off.
On the television we watch
With tabloids on our laps: the news,
Yesterday's news.
What are revolts? Rashes on a map.
Strikes are some dishevelled men
Handy with paint and plywood.
Conspiracies? Only in yellowed novels,
Stalked in thriller aisles beside
That other elusive delusion, romance.
Numb does not describe us,
We have nothing to offer for thawing.
We still fly our kites
In designated parks.
We watch our ports in wonder
And still think of ships loaded with wealth.
To the camera we still proffer smiles.
To the orators who slammed
At the tin-sheet sky with their fists,
To the rabble-rousers and rebels,
The ones who weighed the strength
Of a rock in their hands,
The ones weeping from tear-gas,
We owe them nothing.
The window offers another view.
Our hands do not tremble
As we part the curtains
To witness a riot of sunlight.
The pandemonium of traffic,
Yesterday's traffic.
We fall asleep under a moon
Whose luminous nakedness
Makes no ripples
Among the grey clouds.
We sleep on headlines
Plumped like pillows,
Stuffed with cotton;
Plucked by the hands
Of the silent and dying,
From the gaping mouths
Of the silenced and the dead.
the rest is silence;
