wyrdwind

Apocalypse Jelly

Saying goes you are what you eat

and grandpa who taught me a very busy

bee. Seven babies of his own plus one,

the number of instruments he played

and sung. I do default to soldier foods:

shit on a shingle, biscuits and gravy, sardines.

Keep half my meal in a bag, uncertainty between.

In the mean time, I sing.

Well grandpa had burning passion

for Irish verse—Shakespeare who?

A basic hoe. I crushed his work

at nine years old. Give me English

with a soul. I’ll have my songs

with meat on their bones.

The blackest rose.

Silver spoons puff their chests

over plays written for the poor

and grandpa, he carried a book

of filthy limericks all through the war.

World War. A curious inheritance,

himself bein’ Norse Dutch, if askin’

why it sounds like that at first. My verse.

Death Roll

It’s clear that He’s a fucking idiot,

the same clown shit it’s ever been,

that’s the thing about Emperors—

they’re always naked. People forget,

they’re just men. They’re not narcissists,

they’re just men. They’re not special,

they’re just men. Money don’t shield his skull,

nor God, papers and prisons the illusion of principles,

oops, those are spicy words. Can’t stand

for those. You can only claim to hold

what you’ll sacrifice for. Your innocence for.

You ignorance for. Your hands.

When my line of colonized mothers

look to me from beyond, I don’t ignore

this slight to them. Their ancestral land

in rapists’ hands. Forests of plenty

turned to sand.

Laughing Matter

She said she knew it

when she saw me dancing

all alone among the trees.

We’d go down together, free

as Anne Bonny and Mary Read.

Nothing I could ever do, damn

the rumors. If all be true.

Call us sisters, like those two girls

from Wolfwalkers. Wild hearts

howling at the moon.

Hyenas, Ice Queen and Medusa,

bonding over Silent Hill songs in her room.

We won’t smile for you. That much

bleeds through. Pants down maybe

we’ll be amused. Made a family

of sorts—your church-nerd sons

call me father now, who disowned who?

All that trash you thought made men,

spooked the Holy Ghost right out of ’em.

You’re welcome.