In Death, Your Cold Slack Lips

Like in the dream
I had last night – to my horror
they assembled the small bones of your feet
together with bits of driftwood and shell
into tabletop shrines -
cunning bleached monuments
to their pathetic shoe box diorama
vision of your supposed godhead.

But instead of bones
they presume real words
right into your dead mouth
to confabulate how you would presently feel
about this or that
as if – as if -
a dead man has opinions -
as if they paid attention when you were alive.

Never a gambler, still
I recognize a “tell” when I see one.
In life – depending on the angle
and degree of tension -
your pursed lips
betrayed disapproval, deliberation
or anticipated pleasure.
In death – your cold slack lips
signaled withdrawal from this plane.

I wish you would stop being dead now.
I have tried to make it work
but I just can’t get the knack of it -
can’t muster the arrogance
to counterfeit how you
would feel about anything.
Dead men have no “tell” -

And isn’t the point of gods
that they wont stay dead?

In the dream, they placed
these frangible shrines precariously close
to the doorway or the edge of a shelf
inviting my careless hands
to encourage gravity
arched left eyebrow my “tell”
of vindicated wicked complicity.

Process Of Elimination

Remove the burden of lonely knowledge

Scratch off the dance card any image and likeness referred to
as an image and likeness

Forget the rules, especially the ones that seem to apply

Don’t eat anything that begins with the letter “food”

Don’t put anything sharper than a scalpel in your ear

Cancel the date with the friend who talks about you behind your back
Cancel the date with the friend who complains incessantly
Cancel the date with the friend who complains incessantly
behind your back about your canceled dates

Give away any pets that shed, that you need to keep in the shed,
that shed light on your dependence on human substitutes

Toss out extraneous stigmata:
the nail wounds in the hands and feet can go
ditto the lance pierced side (The little crown of thorn slices
dripping blood down your brow is a nice iconographic visual
for a rainy day – label and store)

Get rid of any machine that dares to talk to you

Haul to the curb the fingernail parings and toenail clippings
you collected into ovaltine jars labeled by date

Return to the author any self help book you didn’t write yourself

Eliminate redundant rorschach cards such as:
two monkeys leaning against a palm tree eating bananas
conjoined ape clowns wearing banana shoes
two-faced baboons worshipping a banana
trapeze monkey demon twins brandishing banana genitalia
all of the other cards which involve bilateral mirror image
simians and phallic fruit
(the cute butterfly-bat blot escaping from evil primates can remain)

The Betty Boop memorabilia goes right in the garbage,
surgically remove the Betty Boop tatoo if applicable

Trash any recipe cards inherited from your maternal grandmother
(lard is a disgusting ingredient)

Torch any orange clothing – it is a horrible, horrible, horrible color
that looks horrible on everyone

Scratch film remakes and song cover versions -
barely time for the originals

Remove from the medicine cabinet any prescription that claims
to make you thin, happy, young, calm, powerful, sexy,
more colorful, more monochromatic, more awake, more asleep
or undead

Evict from your head your spirit animal, psychic guide, ancient ancestor,
your doppelganger, evil twin, past life regressions
and alternate personalities – barely enough room in there for yourself

Just let Pluto go!

Eliminate the words jealousy, anger, fear, hate, alienation, despair
and failure from your vocabulary, also any compound German words
that express nuanced complex states of dark emotional turmoil
Now you can just say “I feel like shit!”

Whatever takes up space is obsolete – abstractify

Wet Haiku

pink shell crumbed sand lips
tide wave flicks its salty tongue
blotting tandem prints

stippled patterns shift
water strider’s contra dance
pool ripples spiral

fearful ones flounder
water allows buoyancy
when struggling stops

sigh of wet lament
bereft of water bearer
brook keeps flowing on

water’s tastelessness
mouth’s wet desire remembered -
baseline of all taste

cobb webbed rock cascade
moss laced fingers trickle tears
needle waterfalls