wyrdwind

Uses and Customs

“First the woods

and then the women,”

those talamontes taunted.

Forest rapers.

Illegal loggers, bad government,

and cartels.

The village men?

Didn’t know what hole

to shit out of, sooner raise a hand

to beat their wives

than wipe their own ass.

70% loss, mushrooms gone,

mother tongue starved.

Fifteen women had enough.

Sticks, firecrackers, threadbare

shawls, and masks

against thugs and police

with AK-47s.

They took five hostages

in a stone church, made barricades

of burnt out cars.

Those bells rang

high over women with seized

machetes and guns.

The villagers rallied.

Purged them in one—

a menstrual clot.

Their fogatas burned

for nine straight months,

became a pulse, a forge.

Signals, defense, cooking

and more.

From mothers they learned,

everything that ever mattered

passed kitchen to kitchen,

Mother to daughter.

The right to rule

their own territory upheld

by Mexico’s judiciary.

The women restructured

their entire society.

They replanted their trees,

went jogging at night.

One bonfire

remains, the beating heart,

where ten women gather

to discuss affairs.

“Things can always be better,”

said sensibly over stew.

If the forest is a house,

and Cheran is a kitchen,

you might say

a woman’s place is the home.

As usual, men get it wrong

about who’s got

the huevos.

Archetypical

Listen, listen,

gather ’round my cauldron,

the best pair on this green earth

is some stern, gruff warrior woman

and her fancy peacock husband.

I’m talkin’ imperial concubine shit.

Long, thick hair, thick lashes, chest resonance.

Raspiness, accent curly and homey

like tigrado sheepskin.

Listen, woman’s got preferences.

Don’t you ask this fool

’bout no power tools, hell no.

Does electric guitar count?

He should make good sounds.

I’m talkin’ Spike Penny Dreadful Gomez Addams shit,

‘cept She’s a sunshine Terminator

full fat froth over those hot goth lips—

do you see my fuckin’ vision?

My love, Osiris.

I’ll pull a Frankenstein.

It’s bedtime with Isis when I read his rites,

way I spit tongue twisters off the Book o’ Life.

Remix on Dracula, Castlevania,

Hades and Persephone—

yeah, I know, I rolled my eyes.

I’m talkin’ satin bowerbird shit,

his woman’s favorite colors

are his entire personality.

She is not easily impressed.

Lemme tell you ’bout men:

They gotta know who’s Boss,

who’s Baby,

who’s a Good Boy,

and who among them

is the Best.

Writers’ rooms hate His ass—

shit, just ask Jesus—

’cause he’s the only One

a Goddess be fuckin’ with.

Want a better world?

Build a Better Man.

Ya’ll just petty sons

of Judas Iscariot.

La Llorona

Heard people dream

’bout goin’ to work naked.

School or some shit.

Wouldn’t know what that’s like.

Dangers of a creatrix,

they ain’t just nightmares,

it’s gore-ing the lily,

a crucible amaranthine,

older a woman gets

it’s hardly hyperbole.

As it goes,

if you would know,

do not fear to see.

Notice she’s always crazy

for shrieking, weeping.

Only his hurt is holy.

Take a plain clothes office buildin’

and put a sea of howlin’ faces

strainin’ through metastasized flesh

burstin’ at the seams.

Fry that amygdala early.

Don’t ever look away.

Call your target by name

and incinerate.

Remember that scene

in Smoke Signals?

Where the very worst insult

in Thomas’ arsenal is to say

you make your mother cry

and ask

what are you doing with your life?

When my Mother greets me,

her smile’s all teeth.

Dog Star

Some dreams have sequels,

total recall of more than you know,

something greater

than the sum of its parts.

My back was injured

and I bed bound, and boy

if you can’t move topside

you’ll do it underground.

All the way down.

A place I know well.

The sky was pitch black,

like the backside of time itself,

unblinking over an unlit below

somehow visible. I know now

that it was the sprawl of Mexico.

Lost to a flood. Uninhabited.

But trust

some asshole left their dog behind,

still chained in the yard.

Guess that’s what I came for.

A big fat black lab or some such.

This boy ate good. Largely unconcerned

with his fate. Made no move

to escape. Glossy and healthy.

I broke the chain easily,

hoisted this jolly idiot

into a fireman carry

only to wade

miles

through unknown territory.

Shit, he was heavy.

But, he was happy,

so much potatoes

on my shoulders.

I made quick work

of the labyrinth.

Junk jungle of refuse,

tangled.

I found

the farthest edge

of “town.”

Then

by the dumpster

of a pristine gas station,

the ugliest dog

I’d ever seen.

Hairless, emaciated,

twisted into unnatural shape,

backwards legs, missing teeth, drooling,

cowering.

Said alright buddy,

you’re coming too.

I’ve still got arms so

we’ll figure it out.

He was so scared

of the light,

certain I’d hit him,

nursed his abandonment.

For all I’ve got teeth,

I can still be soft and sweet,

and there’s never been a dog

wouldn’t come to me.

So Fatty ‘cross my neck

and Scaredy ‘cross my chest,

I hit the last leg

of the journey. Jumped

onto a moving train

into night, we got out

us three.

Xolotl

Round two

of Disaster Pet Rescue

had me digging rubble

off an aquarium.

Buried

this pale fish lizard thing,

frilly and gilly, smiley face.

God damn it

gotta carry a tank.

When I woke,

where pain had been

full tilt orchestra,

now a shut door.

A dead silent room.

Where the fuck

did it all go?

How?

I never took drugs.

All oxy accounted for.

I am occasionally

somewhat stubborn.

Cold body, spine sweat.

I could walk again.

First of all,

no way that guy was real,

Google triangulated his ass up.

Axolotl. Water dog. I’ll be damned.

In shrinking and polluted waterways

they choose to stay

instead of mature on land.

Stuck. Backward. Yet.

They outlive their peers by wide margin,

and unlock an ability medically significant.

Axolotl regenerate.

Dismemberment, damage

to body, brain, or spine matters not.

They just…fix shit.

Put it back

the way it was.

It was there,

and then it just wasn’t.

Another thing:

named for Xolotl,

a god of the underworld.

The ugly twin.

Hideous, mutilated, misfortunate,

filthy, diseased. You guessed,

a dog.

Finest Moments

I wandered

as a child. Knew every dog

in the tweaker ghetto.

Also some old folk, here and there.

Knew enough

to never trust men. But one friend

in common, man’s best.

I farmed affection,

muzzles, tongues, and tails

through a chain link fence.

All I needed.

Now dogs like to dig

places they shouldn’t,

get into shit,

things people want hidden.

That’s what Xolotl did.

Dug up the bones

of humanity, drug them out

for his beautiful twin to see.

The winged serpent of heaven

had to bleed.

Regenerate.

I have a spot

in my garden. It’s dark red.

Stained the cement, naked

when I hit downward dog

to vomit wine.

No running water, not even a pot

to puke inside.

Me and Guinevere

in the moonlight.

Corgis were bred for herding.

I have a spot

on my low back. A mole.

Looks a bit like a dog’s nose.

‘Bout where she’d boop ya

if you broke formation.

Biggest lie the devil tells ya

is that you’re alone.