When I see motorcycles on the freeway, I always think
they look like cars that are being punished for something.
It seems like the authorities have taken away all their
pretty clothes and left them naked,
wandering the highways,
nothing left but their iron-rod ribcages and rubber-soled feet.
But they didn't merely strip them;
they've streamlined them, made them faster,
allowed them to go places and do things
taboo to those still bound to a chassis.
The exhaust has hardened and polished their skin,
the sun has turned their backs to leather,
and by roaming the highway naked,
it's made them beautiful and incredibly proud.
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I feel most comfortable on days like this
I feel hugged by the grey sky, comforted by the dismal, dreary, darkness
that is nothing less than thrilling
Set against a grey backdrop, everything becomes more vibrant
Clouds so thick it would take eons to break through,
feeding on stale sunlight, breathing out cold wind
White light rending a piece of the steel-grey sky from itself to reveal another streak of
white behind it, like a snapshot of lightning hung just beyond the treetops
Even the wind is running the o
I wonder if my lamp ever sleeps. Maybe I've turned him into an insomniac as well. What if he sits while I'm up late at night just waiting for me to let him go to sleep? I guess there's also a chance that he sits and screams for me to turn him back on when I attempt to fall asleep, wailing in some high frequency song for me to come back. Maybe he's still pulsing with ideas, some electric surge waiting to illuminate my page with something only a light bulb knows. Maybe I'll leave him on tonight.
I want to feel the rush that comes with blowing every vein
The kind of blast that ends in geysers
The kind that spills debris into the rivers and the tributaries that make my body seem so
bruised and hollow
To tip those rivers that have spilled more blood than they carry
All I ask is for one unstoppable eruption that will fill my lungs with ash and turn my heart
to glistening black obsidian
Then seal me up and drown me in smoke
I want to feel my heart from its center
I want to breed flames that will never see nor ever need a breath of oxygen to live
I want to be inside of what blew apart the universe
When it comes to working parts, he's your man.
Need a little grease to get it going? He'll be there.
Got a touch for hearts and strings and things as well,
but his own pumping red fist is kept in a bone cage
locked tight with shy eyelids.
He keeps a little gravel in his throat,
holds a little devil in his pocket,
and thumps him if he ever gets too loud.
His clothes reek of kerosene and mud,
hands are caked in diesel fuel and blood,
and on his lip is a spot of camphor
clinging to the nicotine.
He burns oil rags in the wastepaper basket.
Three hundred years or so they've been going,
his own scrap paper vigil for the dead,
so s
The sun tripped and fell late this evening.
He skinned his knee and his cheeks puffed red,
and as he slid back home to the black porch horizon,
he sloughed off the blue of the day like orange turpentine,
leaving the sky red and raw until it healed into a healthy black night.
Now we're staring up at a glowing crescent-shaped scar
that will eventually fade when the sun returns
to wrap the sky in gauze.
Until then, we'll let the moon lie
here on our blanket with us,
staring for just a little while longer.
We've already watched the fireflies for hours,
plugging and unplugging themselves from the night.
Our eyes dance from star
She doesn't know why I grind my teeth.
Perching canine on canine,
tonguing the tips.
They're never as sharp as I remember them.
As I think.
As I recall.
Expecting to taste the iron,
The residue,
That ole electric tang of an aging wound.
(or wounds)
Bared skin,
upturned chins presenting throats,
supplication in submission.
Offering an end to the brawl.
Words have failed (as they are wont to do),
All that remains is the symbol,
the gesture,
the failing,
The acquiescence.
And that ole electric iron flavor.
This conversation
is over.
By candlelight I am bronzed and golden.
Shadows cast me firm and strong,
sculpted from the finest hollow log.
I am perfect in the dark.
I'm a midnight Apollo,
a weightless Antaeus,
and a crippled Adonis.
I walk beneath an umbrella on rainless days,
sniffing sunlight for shadows,
waiting for the flick of a switch.
I'm groping for a handle, for a
rounded rock face of flesh to hoist myself onto.
I slide along her alabaster thighs
and rest my head in the crevice between her neck and chin.
Her face turns to mine, eyes closed,
and I know she sees.
I kiss her cheek and wonder
if she's psychic or just intuitive.
I've scratched my fingernails
down centuries of skin;
If I peel them back, could I see
all the people I've taken with me?
If I touch her, could she see them?
I want to know what my hands are saying,
what my legs and chest and back offer up
every time she touches them.
Are they crying out for absolution?
Do my hips pray at the
Our Prophet of the Hooka-Shell Necklace by fourmyle, literature
Literature
Our Prophet of the Hooka-Shell Necklace
You'll see when the dawn splinters into sun-bleached bone
You'll see I'm not just your average
Everyday
Harbinger.
I was the first on the block to rant in hooka-shells.
That whole "cocaine-chic-in-a-burlap-sack" thing?
That was me.
I was the first to try the new stuff.
The good stuff.
You'll come to trust me.
And when you do,
you'll see that
I'm a liar.