Rap Battle! Ray Succre vs. Frankie Metro

Ray Succre vs Franklin Metropolis

Ray Succre

You called me out, Metro. Time for your comeuppance.

If you’re comin’ do it runnin’, ain’t nothin’ but another
Fool with a mouth I’ll smack shut like I’m your mother.
I’ll break your spine in, read your life, and toss you back on the shelf,
Just remember one thing, son: You brought this on yourself.

I’m the leper motherfucker with the doom-spray flow.
You’re just a walk-on. Oh, this is MY show.
So, what are we learnin’? How to make you pout.
Stick around punk, cuz I’m about to whip this out.

Your rhymes are flaccid, passive with no grip.
On page you’re standin’ slack-jawed. Bitch, I’m doin’ backflips.
Strippin’ your lines for the noun, verb, and predicate,
A delicate ettiquette; I meddle for the hell of it.
Clever? Whatever, I’ll sever your trip with my wit;
you can never endeavor to fight this mad shit I spit,
lines so hot you’re gonna need an oven mitt,
gaspin’ with an O-face: “Oh Ray… teach me some of it!”

§ 

Franklin Metropolis

ray, it’s like this.
like a leper with a lisp
if youre really wanting the reverb
i can put it to you with a fist

tha same one i pulled from yr momma’s house
and i aint talkin cribs
the brown cul de sac beneath her blouse
that’s where the monster once lived

now it’s walking on two feet
it’s got arms, hands and fervor
it may smell like a piece of shit
but what’d you expect, it’s ray succre

§

Ray Succre

Two feet? Man, I be walkin’ on three.
I’ll put you in a prison cell and coat the walls with pee.
I’ll club you like a seal, bust spokes from your meat-wheel,
and throw you a quarter so your ass can have a meal.

I’m a verbal aorta, you’re just sorta, you’re a capillary;
those novitiate ears can’t receive this vocabulary,
unless I crawl in your head and clean out the inside,
and straight coat my rhymes with a bucket of Astroglide.

I hit the ground runnin’. You hit the ground cryin’.
Put your helmet on, son, I don’t know why you’re still tryin’.
There’s drool on your chin and feces on your hands.
You think you’re gettin’ shafted, slick, but that was just the glans.

§

Ray Succre ‎[Folds arms across chest and stares with menace]

§ 

Franklin Metropolis

at least yr vernacular is bigger than yr dick
yr mom said so once, when she was swallowing my prick
a verbal aorta? more like a clogged artery
make childish limericks with jails cells and flaccid pee

pee-see you made me soil my words
ended up with ray juice on my hands instead of nouns and verbs
but when you sleep with dogs they say you come out like fleas & shit
and when you rap with mediocre verse, best to hold onto it. SUCCA

the only club you’ve seen
is the third foot yr tryin to carry round
it’s hard fitting a 7 ft clit
into a “menacing” prom gown

and succre rhymes with pucker
like you put yr lips to the limp dick you call rap
pick up a pencil trying to fuck
and end up with just a long winded CLAP!

Ray Succre

Danger, Metropolis! This anger I savor
is a never-ending feed of fresh rounds in the chamber.
My diction and friction imitate fate at a measured rate;
my genius is the needle that’ll make you deflate.

Let’s hope you’re the wiser and not just the wearier.
That’s what you get when you challenge your superior.
With rhyme, I’m the riser; you’re a monosyllabic miser.
Watch me go off super-heated with this lyrical geyser:

What’s stankin’, lady Franklin? I think somebody’s makin’
some green bacon- them shake n’ bake no-rhymes are just fakin’.
You’ve been castled and rooked, look, straight captured and booked.
The timer went off, honey; I think the turkey’s cooked.

You’ve been washed and rinsed. I’ll sort you after I unload.
I can smell your words from here; it’s like a toilet overflowed.
Watch me easily dodge all your menstruating rhymes;
I’ll chase you back into your cave like Metroid Prime.

I’ve been in the south, and I’ve seen where you lurk;
when you walk the docks, crabbers think they’re still at work.
You’ll learn to stay down when you face this retribution:
This ain’t a rap battle; it’s a rap execution.

You write in first person but I write with the N-tense,
I can bust this shit while I sing a song of sixpence.
Welcome to my slaughterhouse; this joint is my downtown.
You want some advice, girl? Exit with your head down.

Franklin Metropolis weak

§ 

Franklin Metropolis so weak maybe itll take me a week to reply

 

This just in! Frankie Metro responds!!!

“i don’t wear tightie whities like you ray sucker…lol..so mine don’t climb..ask yr mother..waiit..lemme pull out my [expletive] ..okay now ask her”
–frankie metro

Ray Succre responds in rap battle!

“She agreed; the underwear was no longer white, and they were not tight, and in fact, there seemed to be a substantial amount of vacant space in the front while you were wearing them.”
–Ray Succre

Frankie Metro responds!!!

“HAHAHA! even space looks big to the cosmological eye, which has the same origin date as that thing between yr thighs. ancient, rigid and black; like an aids infested bubble..you fuck with FM and yr fuckd like you got AIDS trouble.”
–Frankie Metro

Ray Succre So… so I have a timeless, black penis infested with the AIDS virus because you had sex with me and infected me with it? Dude, that doesn’t make either one of us sound cool at all.

“Thank You…motherfucker.” M.O. Interviews Ray Succre

Steve:  Ok, we’re sitting down here at the Blue Moon restaurant, me n’ Ashly Salmon, w/ Ray Succre.  It’s Thursday, December 23rd, 2010.  And it’s about 3:45 pm in the afternoon.  Um, we’re in Cooze Bay, Oregon.  Ray, take the mic.

Ray:  How you doin’ Cincinnati?

(laughter)

Steve:  Ok, so you’ve been writing awhile, you’ve got some shit published…what’s yr ultimate goal as a writer?

Ray:  I think my ultimate goal, as regards to writing and publishing, is to get as many people as I can to actually read what I spent all that time writing and trying to get published.  Um, I managed to do the first step, which is to write a bunch of things.  And the second step  of the phase is now complete as well, because a lot of it got published.  The third step is to get someone to read it and that’s the one that’s kind of out of my hands, so I’m having a hard time getting that one done.  The fourth step would be to get paid and that’s gonna be even more difficult.

Steve:  Why don’t you tell us about yr recent projects?

Ray:  Well, first of all, I changed my name.  It is now Blackjack…my most recent project is a book I wrote with my son called Beyond the Great Gate…

(waiter interrupts)

Ray:  I could use some more coffee when you have the time.  Thank you…motherfucker (after waiter leaves).

(Laughter)

Ray:  No, I wrote a book called Beyond the Great Gate.  I did it for NaNoWriMo.  It’s not really my thing to do NaNoWriMo, but I decided to go ahead and give it a shot.  Uh, the idea was my son was gonna give me a bunch of details and a story line and then I was going to write it as an actual cohesive novel and then read it to him at night as a bedtime story for like a month and a half or two, which we did.  He loved it very very much.  He was cheering at the end, which made me feel really good.  I’ll remember that forever.  I have no plans on publishing it, but, uh, I did write it, so it’s my first and probably only venture into writing fantasy, which is real weird, uh, not my thing at all.  Uh, before that I wrote a book called Miel.  Before that I wrote a book called Thank You and Good Night, which I’m revising right now.  And those are my most recent projects.  That and sending out things to, ya know, various magazines and trying to, you know, kind of shoot a wad at Modus every now and then and destroying Frankie Metro.  Back to you Steve.

Steve:  Um, this question comes in from a fan of yours from Oregon and she wants to know…Ashly from Oregon wants to know why you use a pen name?

Ray:  That’s a very astute question.  You see, Steve, and Ashly if yr listening…um, a long time ago I decided that I wanted to, y’know, write, and eventually the internet was invented and so I did that vain thing that most of us did when the internet first got invented, which was to look up our names to see if there was anything about us.  I don’t know what we thought would happen, like there’d be secret files or something, but in looking at my name I discovered that somebody, with my exact real name, Robin Morrison, uh, had a shit load of books out and I thought “that’s kind of strange and lame”, and I looked and he was a very famous photographer from New Zealand, um, was a great photographer, I’d love to take pictures like that.  There was also some other guy who was writing short stories and it wasn’t me and since all I wrote at that point were short stories and occasionally trying to write a novel, I just didn’t want to share the card catalog with someone in the future, so I decided to use a pen name.  Um, I’d always liked the name Ray and then, uh, one day while I was at the Blue Moon, I had a sugar packet from Canada, from Montreal, and on the back it said “sucre”, s.u.c.r.e., and, uh, I wrote that down after the word “Ray” and added another “C” just for the fuck of it, I don’t know.  I guess I thought I was being artsy.  And I’ve been using that name ever since.  And I’ve now officially signed that name exponentially more than my real name and when I look in the mirror I actually think my name is Ray Succre.  That’s how much I’ve used it.

Steve:  How do yr ideas come to you?

Ray:  I have an old, retired Good Year blimp in my backyard that I have tethered to one of those old, y’know, giant satellites that people had in the 80′s.  It’s no longer functional, but the blimp is, so I attach it to this little steel cable that I have, it’s a 40 pound test, and I let the winds take it up into the sky.  And when the blimp comes back down, eventually, y’know cuz it runs outta helium…helium’s expensive, I can’t really afford much of it…so it eventually drifts down towards the Post Office and I gotta real it back in.  And when I do I’ll find a piece of paper on it and attached will be some sort of idea.  I haven’t figured out who’d been putting these ideas on the blimp yet, um, y’know a part of me wants to go “it’s some sort of magical thing like God” or whatever, y’know, doing it, but I’m a realist, I know there’s somebody out there that’s been writing massively strange things on these papers.  But I like turning them into novels.  I actually have no ideas of my own.

Steve:  So, on that note, how does yr wife put up with yr dedication to writing?

Ray:  I am an excellent lover: renowned in 3 counties now.  I’m looking to add a 4th.  I also cook and there’s no one to watch our son, so I’m kind of crucial most of the time.  Um, I occasionally forget to do the dishes, but I make up for it by writing characters who do dishes.  So in a certain way, I kind of managed to round all the bases.

Steve:  I see…do you plan to live in a small town forever?

Ray:  Dear God no!  I’ve actually tried to leave Cooze Bay many many many times, but like a sordid kind of sociopathic exgirlfriend, I just can’t get its fingers from around my neck.  Uh, I’ve left a couple of times, and due to financial difficulties have had to come back.  I plan on moving as soon as I have my Community College creditting all done, so that I can transfer out of here, which should be within the year.  Um, I’ve been honor-rolling my way through cuz I’m cool like that.  Uh, I’m hoping to get to Iowa or somewhere else, but I am gonna transfer to University and it is my hope never to, uh, live in Cooze Bay again, unless maybe I retire here.  I like small towns, but it’s gotta be near something large where people read.

Steve:  And then Ashly’s got one written here that I can’t really read, so…

Ray:  No.

Steve:  Oh, ok.

Ray:  No, go ahead.

Steve:  This one right here…

Ray:  When did she get here?!

(laughter)

Ashly:  So, your son said the word “platypus” at a young age.  Were you a good talker then?

(chuckling)

Ray:  Yes, yes, I orate and I speak well.  And when my son asks me questions, I give him detailed and rather large explanations of things, to the point where he’s almost sick of it, but he does learn quite a bit, ah, y’know, we had a word of the day thing going for awhile where I’d be like “today’s word is ‘vivid’…” and I would teach him what “vivid” meant and then “today’s word is gonna be ‘plausible’…” and I taught him what “plausible” meant, which was an open doorway to teaching him what “implausible” meant and so, uh, my son’s got words, yeah.

Steve:  So, uh, Frankie Metro has challenged you to a rap battle…how’s that going?

Ray:  Any chump steps to me gets thrown.  I worked him over.  I blacked his eyes.  I troubled him.  I bothered him.  That’s pretty much about it, ya know, that’s my dime.  I hit him so hard it feels him where his undies climb.

Steve:  Alright, we got a couple minutes left.  Uh, well I got one more question for ya, Ray.  Would you ever sell yr soul to Satan?

Ray:  I did that in the 6th grade.  I didn’t have any video games left.  I was all mad cuz I beat all my games and there was this game that came out that I thought would be really cool, called 3-D World Runner, for the NES.   And I was walking around on the playground one day and I quietly muttered to myself, “I would sell my soul for 3-D World Runner”, and when I got home that day, my dad had bought it and so, uh, I don’t know if that was just weird coincidence and he happened to pick the game that I wanted that I never told him about, or if  in fact I am now hell-bound, but, uh, that game sucked and I regret it…it’s a true story.

Steve:  Wow, that sucks…Satan punked you.

(laughter)

Ray:  Yeah, Satan punked me for a shitty game!

Steve:  So, um, you know, you’ve been a long time contributor to Modus Operandi…

Ray:  Seven times actually…

Steve:   Seven times apparently…again.  So, um, y’know, is there anything you’d like to add to this interview for our fine Modus readers?

Ray:  Steven Purkey is a brilliant man.  The things he does with his magazine…there is no comparing all the bounty that is Modus Operandi and its head captain, Steven Purkey.  There’s no way you can compare that to any other thing currently being processed in this bulk of a nation we call America.  I would venture to say that Steven Purkey is America…all the way in, as far as you can get, into Steven Purkey…that’s America!

Steve:  Ahh, well, Ray, thank you.

Ray:  Your welcome, Steven.

Steve:  Ashly, thank you.

(Ashly chuckles.)

Steve:  (at Ray)  We got 5 seconds, go!

Ray:  Fuck, I don’t know man, uh….

(End of Interview)

Cover Letter by Ray Succre

October 6, 2010

Steven “The Hung” Purkey, Editor

Modus Operandi

Address:  Wherever the Hell You are Now

Dear Steven:

I would like to submit the enclosed three poems for your publication, Cat Poems.  The poems are: Lullaby, A Science for the Good of Us All, and This Midst.

This is my seventh time submitting to your publication, sir.  I have chosen to send you the worst things I have ever written.  Yes.  I dare you to print them.  I do not feel you have the balls.  I do, however, feel that these poems are suitable for your consideration, in the sense that they are poems and you foolishly like such things.  Seriously, I wrote these half-asleep while eating corn chips and pulling a ‘lefty’ on myself with a paper towel.  They’re the literary equivalent of dandruff.

Well, I’m the friendly sort, Steve, so here’s something deep for you, no extra charge:  Modus is a poem.  You are a poem.  The night and the concrete and the skanky raccoon rooting for damsons in the stark a.m. is a poem.  Heroin is not a poem.  There, I said it.  You’re welcome.

These have not appeared in other publications and, as always, I will not submit them elsewhere while pending your response.  We’re cool.

The horrid truth is that I will keep sending you things until you stop printing me.  This is your fault, not mine.  You’ve encouraged me and must now consider your leg continually humped until you’re able to shake me loose.

Sincerely,

Ray Succre

Bio:  Ray Succre is a bio.

Struck Boys by Ray Succre

Struck Boys

The two struck boys

sit on a curb and have point-by-point

on how to knock the most teeth from a mouth.

The two boys are fuck-all-don’t-care

and sit there with a pitcher, gulping,

watering the waiting just to induce

the young plant itself in timely taut-rags

and half-mast pants—

just look at me  i’m this one silver dick

listen how i murk my head in concrete.

nobody’s got me  i got me.

fakist, look:  I walk this shiny wheel rim.

act out:  I spike my blood with petrol.

They work the arms sketched in tats and say

all the all, churned into a fullness where piss

blooms and churns heads, where skirmishes

stab out, jutted from the abrasive bud,

a hog’s snout and civilised prelude,

bleeding onto hostile bees.

2 Poems by Ray Succre

Come Hither, Come Yon

And so he pulls his lower warnings loose and dangles,

ugly, springboard hung and klutzy kneed—

the bends and readjustments,

her foolishly painted nails too long—

he pivots at the stack,

deep into the bleached ring, mimic wheel,

and makes the gap by which her mumbly yelps will exist.

He is a dull stick tied to a rubberized meteor,

and she survives it, bits of tread scuffed from her

across the old road of sheets, as he changes arrangement,

gets to flapping her legs like a condor’s wings—

He says ‘cock’ one dozen times, as if reminding her,

until she says it back amidst the shape of a yawn,

his slaughtered co-actor, for twelve minutes of congress,

filmed for those who might watch,

her eyes slim with a horrid pretend

of infutility.

Adult Stuff; Every Use for It

Its dead cold old and needn’t be remembered much,

but you still think of her like shithouse flies in the vapor,

swarming and warming, buzzing the rim,

amok and tightly groined, wiping your forehead

and breathing and shunning the long-ago thighs and ass

from your mind like a bigot to his dissimilars—

They recur.  They haunt.  Sorry, we’re here,

and you once lapped with us and now we have you, old man.

So each morning you jackal-face the newspaper, and preside

over your cereal like a warty cock fucking its own busted zipper,

heart closed off like a sidewalk for municipal weeding with poison.

You wave your hand; that was all kid stuff; no use for it.

May as well have never happened; you’re the good sort now.

 

Sorry, old friend.  We’re staying.  Your head is warm and the rent is cheap.

Late and sleepless, the flesh only reruns in your brainpan,

unstoppable flashes of view and heat, half fiction,

what you could have had, what you did and did not,

like a god talking riddles over wine,

who you’d eat like a cake to be there again.

Later.  For now you stave it off.  Keep clear.

You’ve had a mild day of work and Lost will be on at eight.

Ground Chuck by Ray Succre

Ground Chuck

A modern ancient?

No, an old servant, blood on trays,

yes, shallowed by these rising grates

is a scream so low its echo can’t be heard

but for ugly ripples against the skin.

His corpse is whittled in from bug and beast,

and its wife carries on in Los Angeles,

and bottomless puberty poets recline

to turn the page and come, slicked back

into a narrative time when Chuck’s

day-pass and flat could enclose on the cunt.

The Cliffs by Ray Succre

The Cliffs

You’d arrive dimmed in petrol fumes, you’d walk

specific, paces through damp floor, undistinguished

from forest, flick a lighter to go forward.

At the end, you’d find cliffsides to crash-rocks

wherever you’d fall.

More were coming. One of you would have told

all of you.

There were many cliffs but a single place.

There were numbers but still one person.

Hell’s coal-headed friends went there to fall in love.

More tequila and beer was spilled off its edges

than consumed.

You’d lean back in the wet and coast over the clearing,

vague, looping eagles ludely unsheathing their

genitals at night, while the meatier nearby brush

hid tangles of talks in trash and cans,

chatter that even vaulted into tangling legs.

The deafening tribe of sea lions slobbed atop rocks

below, bloated, fat-perched waiting some

next season’s briney excursing,

with women, perches, fish,

pockets of life near which to salivate

and greatly howled atop when overtaken.

They ribbed the nights in guttural flops, like us.

Fished from bottles and cans above the world,

you’d still perch beneath each meteor streak,

perforating the usual: You’d have been

terminated at the anyjob, or jack-knifed through

an awful grade, you’d played date and fallen on

babble, or you’d been dutifully jackassed

by rumor. Listen, you’d have a dying week,

you’d go to the cliffs,

you’d see that

someone always spreads their legs where

your face goes down torn from the cosmos.

New Poems by Ray Succre

Flummox, Codswallop, and Offal

A flat pane of coriander is set

and then gored trout is coined by a famous author.

The fish, uppity and a twit, was caught, by extension,

with lots of money, defined as follows:

Comments, questions, or submissions.

Is it nonsense or senseless?

Neither, it is achingly true.

Atop the level of cilantro leaves,

a sandwich, specifically two armies

penetrating an exclamatory foreign marmalade,

is set and translated into vibrant text,

of which the queen’s english is most notable.

Those who read it face the author,

holding their comments, holding the fish innards,

and using many synonyms for ‘shaddup’ all at once.

I about broke away for elevenses,

crying my ass back on,

but new federal curriculum ushered the trout-hook

for my belly, and defined me as follows:

Slit open with lots of rich boy money.

The meal is eaten long after I cease to flit.

#2 of 4 poems, 18 lines

View From Pharaoh’s Suicide

burnt loops of spun plastic,

gigolo shoes parted on an old hispanic,

flat plane coated in trace handsweat,

germophobic pangs near the

unfastened wallet on

next-door’s understudy|||||||baking on

a woman|||||||her weight spiting a black

chair|||||||the bluster fat|||||||the

foundation|||||||the rouge|||||||dripped

morning, this warm spastic

anthology

in flickers, a toddler walking like

slimy tripe flopping down stairs.

Open the window and peer in:

Hills Brothers Red Coffee Brand spill

sopped from the linoleum

in a sexy manner.

#3 of 4 poems, 29 lines

Her Conversation in Mist

Tip-stepped toes in shoes semi-new,

she goggles her way through a male-cloud.

Look so many look but body action rule no touching–

Once, matchtip expansion was flame, expulsion of air,

drag, but inhale him in wine-fades, smoky tights

on legs the color of fulfilled coloring books, listen:

So there was a night, he’d know the one,

pig-licking the planet in miraculous talk,

hawking various philosophy, Tupperware,

models on television, models of car, model citizens,

model mottled crab-walking drunkies, you see,

but of course sipped and supped the dog from pup

had to bark where once he wagged,

to snipe with snout and pelt himself golden.

Of course, he is long evaporated, and now

she lights a match, drags, exhales, walks

through a male-cloud,

holding anymore her breath back and doubts high.

Now there is less deep speech, wind-fades,

less smoke to the tights, no legs, no hawking, spit,

little color to the books, little head in the cloud, listen:

Just natural, provident caress-assessment, listen:

Prattle snacks, word bits, sniffle-headed whimsy.

#4 of 4 poems, 13 lines

A Music

Dipterons falter in the stench from a bucket-light,

repelled or full dropped dead,

the yellow burn a flare of citronella insectifuge,

while across the street, the air is torn

into blister by a sudden, blue, electric snap.

A girl sends a ball kicked low at a twilight mailbox,

a concert of strikes against old men’s ears,

while two deft cooks argue in kitchen-light

on a thorny, violent overuse of cayenne.

The leaden night is suited in shudders, a chattering gala,

as primates tangle in the shade of its threads.

Modus Tats

The one on my right wrist (CAPACITY) was an annniversary present from my wife, 2005. ‘COMPRESSION’ is from Olympia, ’97. The line on the palm is from ’95, and was inked by that guy Dave Shipp. It was just a line of ink stained on my hand from having written a short story earlier that day, you know, how you toy with a pen in between paragraphs, that sort of thing. My hand was all messy and stained, so when he offered to do some work on me, I just told him to ink one of the lines that was already on my palm, make it permanent. So, he did. No motor, just stabs.

Best,

Ray

4 Poems by Ray Succre

Hanging in Yarn from the Ceiling

flatfooted stumble my one leg

was shorter, man scoliosis so i’d fall when a-guzzle

“it’s a rager” no, chicken coop firework show

head falling off where was my coat “this is chest hair.”

that horking killer was a liar and me “do it for yourself.”

who? upside-left on the ferris octagon then dripped wolves

lit into my couch and ate the stuffing like roaches

when small infiltrate a boom box, grow too large

to escape on eating wires i was a human remote what?

human who? then starved inside death metal and Art Bell

wait, was androgenous a flavor? a-sexual had a smell

that was artificial concentrate did i word-process

with a clandestine interface while frog-slats croaked

for mates in the vernal shrubs? their legs were boiled

and eaten downtown.

the vehicle the way then you can tale me

who’s on who in what room it sounds like

crocodile roller derby wait, spurious digested by clothing

the sporty loam upshat players

who whittled their cocks into car-keys.

the spurious lea of the house unwound

and ate from their clothing like ticks.

did someone extinguish the barbecue wait, that was a guy

and the eat charred black as his pupils.

where was everyone? where? clandestine bottles. wait,

who? downside-right in the underbedding flipped the finger

but supped where the dewclaws last scraped dear god

what day was it? wire in wolf or roach.

Ray Succre

#2 of 4 poems, 26 lines

Rippling Adiposity

Fat boy, what have you been eating?

Do you have it in you now?

Droughting warmth tempering the large head,

bags and boxes empty on couch,

groans of stomach sucked by gasping intestine.

Rounded porkbelly, smooth and knolled,

winded breath at an answer of the phone,

sweating all the pores to a sting.

Do you have it in you now?

Fat boy, I know what.

Fat boy, I’ll say what:

Meats, red and white, dark meat, eggs,

cow and pig and lamb, treats of candied things,

a sugary girth of chocolates and taffies,

glazings and puffs of mallow, tufts of meringue,

all the field and more with breads and grains,

then the display case coughs up éclairs

and blintzes, cakes, croissants, and elephant ears,

and juiced from grazers, all dairy with shakes

and milk and cheese, butter and cream.

Fat boy, you know what you’ve been eating.

Fat boy, you have it in you now.

#3 of 4 poems, 29 lines

Fingers Like a Panic Switch

Your fingers touch my back like fleas.

My shaft is bleeding wheat in the shade.

I step across this misery like a wet foal,

and kink my tongue to a glad tone.

It’s the vanish I fret most— engines patted off

as flour dust, speeding into tranquil wreckage.

So as the eyes of insects pull my stupidity

into your face, through narrows

of blood and mirrors, I brittle, hanging.

The world hangs.

I pig my face into a cabinet of talk talk talk,

running my lips across frigid stones.

I’m a vocal sort, subjective flits to the tune

of stinking surf against time-burned cliffs.

Fuck, it’s your fingers— how many are needed

to pull skin free? Touch and more touch.

Jagged rocks roll up my neck.

I step and keep stepping.

My head aches, pulled up as by curtain cord.

The world peels back its lid to the black,

and it hangs, yet I still have bearing,

I can see, blood and mirrors,

and explore down the well of this world.

I lower myself in the bucket.

My damp underwear is a basket of dingy light.

#4 of 4 poems, 12 lines

My Creature in Flip-Flops

White horse in clops past pitfall traps;

the cleats of his calluses are forever.

His steps made of ampersands and clipped

on dear drums, I note my fat husband’s

thorough trips in the course of thunderclaps.

Beery and dozy, bearing the brown ale-tan,

my thigh-smacked, bulbous bear is not

yet beyond whimsical use, and so I lift

the prize of Eel Village and whinny down,

lengthwise, dropping to clown size.

Neigh. Snort.