Five Hymns

S.

IN HUMIDITY

in humidity   /   lonesome ones mauled each other senseless sucked off fingernails chewed on bones watched on the wall patterns screaming strange into head   /   i hear i thought i heard i hear i thought i heard i hear i thought someone calling   /   put hands on head chewed the rope to get to other side   /   ripening flowers in the blurb of fat   /   hauling of logs out of bodies of other bodies in the fires that lit hyena loud needled its way into the needles lick was too much to be taken in the field full of weeds   /   ankles snapped and kept on snapping kept on snapping kept snapping kept on snapping and snapped   /   knots grew woods and woods grew leaves burnt blues on the branches smoke smelled rich with camp and old dogs   /   torture-skin logs hauled out one by one heavy as stone the logs were hauled out buckled the vertebrae buckled   /   logs hauled out sweat mixed with sap   /   in the heavy milk of panic eyes kept growing   /   animals nibble the left overs left over   /   pupils frozen   /   take in scene of own death

THE BLEEDING TREE

blooded out of the bleeding tree the birds sang with blistered warbles
full of the salt   /   full of the salting earth of the glistening womb
hot and fecund in the dripping gardens
the sun of the operating room burnt the limbs to ash
they dried amorphous and confused in the tongue of the room
the lilacs that floated out   /   rivulets dancing down the creek bed
water like old flesh blue and paper thin
undoing flesh the stream gurgled a name
the stream gurgled a name   /   in the lightening sky it scrawled itself
in the deepening folds the largest part tore through
undoing flesh the horizon stretched out
the heaven lands shredded the leaves of me
i choked   /   there is no coming back from choking

THE FIELDS

the fever in me doesnt leave
they called out the names of the dead
while the bells rang full into my ears
i sang for them as the grass blades poked
through the teeming dirt
i fell down into the fields
i fell down into the fields
i fell down into the fields
all the petals   /   went shining brightly
down the litter of my throat

THE SMOKING ALDER

deer hanged itself in the smoking alder
felt the heat   /   i felt the heat billowing off the skinned bark
felt the heat in the back of my throat
along the spine of my dying   /   along the spine of my wilted teeth
if there is such a thing as bravery i hope to be brave
the womb is no place for the fires to burn
it is no place for the ripping seasons
it is no place for the branches to stab jagged into air
it swallowed it swallowed twice more
dark as a crow eye
dark as a feather dipped in tar
darkness swallowed darkness and the light fell through
i gave myself three lashes
three lashes   /   three lashes where the light fell through
where the light fell through the veins all coiled venomous
tight and balled inside the skin
veins coiled around the muscles
blood gelled corn syrup   /   dew the morning
reflected in black milk spitting
spitting out the rays of night that swim in the murkiness

I HAVE HARMED

i have harmed
in the iron hot delirium of high i put out rat pellets for the local cats
there will be pain and pain more in the shanking of bodies through space
fuck   /   i want fuck   /   i don’t fuck
i tug myself slobber   /   fear the day it is waiting awful outside the room
i have burrowed further into the heart of man
wracked with stuffed movement
in the gurney of strapped time i have burrowed further into the heart of man
i flee from the soft spot between my legs
castrated by the ghost of faith i flee from the soft spot between my legs
i flee from the soft spot between my legs
there will be pain and pain more that lays cold the throb of living blood
i flee from the soft spot between my legs   /   cried into my empty cup
that is all all that is all

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S. is a writer who lives in the mid-atlantic.