Slave Ship Logic

slaver \SLAV-uhr; SLAY-vuhr\, intransitive verb:

to let saliva run from the mouth; slobber; drool.

[Origin: 1275-1325; <>Middle English slaver (n.), slaveren (v.), probably < Scandinavian]

What is spittle?

the black rust of ground water;

the leaky soil?

What is clung to the cleft of my lips?

(Where is my tongue?)

I have fallowed the bed, searching:

sheets, now, of strewn stones;

veins; banks; belching; bones.

I have followed the red.

But blood is deceptive:

it pushes without pause;

pumps all ideas the same:

Blood is ever deceptive.

And it is,

unfortunately,

everywhere.

Except in my lost tongue:

there there is only

ash;

Dusty, grey, rolling swells of lonely carbon;

A profane land teeming with a seemingly endless absence;

There

there is

only gone.

Essence escapes me.

(gone)

Time drives home.

(gone)

Life is almost.

(gone)

A Printed Parable

I see a little bug

walking across the page.

I put my finger on it

and think:

Where did that bug

come from?

Where did that bug

go?

A Bird in the Rafters with a Chestnut

"The best Truth I can tell is Fiction."

-Your Humble Narrator

"People are funny: they're like the people in the stories we write..."

-some idiot

Dark Days in the Night

subfusc \sub-FUHSK\, adjective:
Dark or dull in color; drab, dusky.

[Origin: 1755–65; <>subfuscus]

Subordinate ordnance ordains
Our upturned faces singly in the night;
Obligations spit and crackle
Peeling the subfuscous nothing above us
into ribbons of razor-light;
Washing the pride from our countenance
in sublime strips;
Leaving our hearts beating sluggishly
Underground.

The Spearminter

vehement \VEE-uh-muhnt\, adjective:
1. Zealous; ardent; impassioned.
2. Characterized by rancor or anger.
3. Marked by great energy or exertion.

[Origin: 1475–85; <>vehement-, s. of veheméns, véméns violent, forceful (of uncert. derivation)]

Vehementhe behemoth
Making 'I's at my wallet;
Christening the spot with
Its putridium erectile drip:
"My Time! My Time!"
Again and again.

But this is mine: this
Thistle-lime and creeping doom.
This is yours and mined time;

Ours, if you kennit, or
'ours;
Whichever is less.

But this time could be different!
This Time
We could be different!

We could escape these paper folds!

Minty Magic Land is our
Nightmare pancreas;
A constant demand
Of soul
And heart-juice;

An acid wash of highest caliber
rinsing your brains wholly holy
and 'holy'.

Nothing: ad Infinitum

ersatz \AIR-sahts; UR-sats\, adjective:
Being a substitute or imitation, usually an inferior one.

[Origin: 1870–75; <>Ersatz a substitute (deriv. of ersetzen to replace)]

Ersatz Earth in the Tube
In the Bill
In the whole damn schemata

Replacement parts for
Replacement parts for
Replacement parts...

And to what end?
A frightful image!
A jingle janglin' jungle of justifications spread
Like a taught and torpid
Diamond spider web!

But we are the flies, oh yes
We are the flies in the palms of the lords
Semiotic sweet and plump of pocket
Can't-be-bothered busy with shit on our lips

We have a billion hands yet
We build naught but bars
We have a billion eyes yet

We can not see:

The Repo Man cometh
And the dreaded Tax Man
And the pale horse rider
And they all jibber the same nonsense:

"You owe us"

Hiding Your Eyes From Your Eyelids

raiment \RAY-ment\, noun:
Clothing in general; garments.

[Origin: 1350–1400; ME rayment, aph. var. of arrayment. See ARRAY, -MENT ]

Fingers splayed like fish bones against the sun,
Catching in the throat,

Cutting the image bloody from your sorry sockets.
A raiment of bones and feathers

Rattling in the breath of their own beastly abandon.
Buried and rotten frames

Animating the worm-tunnel dance in the dirt
Bound betwixt

Their frigid vectors. Alone in the silent soil, feasting
On Newton's first apple,

A worm is a wyrm is a warning shot; a hasty scrawl on the inside
Of a door you can't pop.