Wooden Carpets

It burns the dust, dusts the edges

Of my rotten rot, rips up ulcersize

Handfuls of insecticide, hankering,

Moth-bit, marble, like statues, hands

Happy as horticulture, crying hands

And whining spines to boot.

It’s in the starlight infrequently,

In the bleach-sized scent and

Event horizon of wooden carpets.

In the muck and the mud,

In marriage and marigold,

Meandering and eating, tossing

Curses like salad bones in the grammar,

Like picketed patchworks, pockmarked

And bleeding in and through

The bounds of the skull.

It’s in the bounds of the sky,

In the lining of my coats,

The door handles of my most

Matchstick and manly emotions

And motives and misprints.

My spirits and kickings, with cackles

In the cots, in the cords

Of my psyche, my Minerva, my paycheck,

My cache and my Medusa,

My medium and reward.

In the plastic of my oceans

And the teeth of my jaws,

In hilarity, in helldrops, in coffees

And calls.

My voice is like a parasite,

A final goodbye. Good riddance,

For when I rid me of my final red sky

Then as sly and as rabid,

Will this paper plane be,

That I will slip it and slash it

Down the stopped throat

Of a cancerous gravel,

And I’ll mock it and dress it

Down with so childlike a glee

That my fee

Could not touch upon a gavel

Or a gable,

A cable or a nape.