Pierced Flesh


 
you believe you believe in a piece of pierced flesh pinned

to the carpenter’s own carpentry; you believe you believe in sin’s

redemption, & for all eternity; you believe you believe in Him.

where hide those females, lovers of life, that would live just, to wash his feet?

in your land, your state, your neighborhood, or on your streets,

woman treads heavily; the source of life loosed, then she bleeds;

there are no feet to wash; once day’s focus grows nightly dim,

the killer, thief, rapist, man in the identification line, “him,”

he takes her, throws her, hits her, kicks her, then chews on her seed

as easily as if she were fruit; what follows this, you hypocrites call “life;”

what does follow in her life, which is life, & which is already of us,

unlike unformed abstract forces eventually born of evil or good via the uterus,

is the gambling of her life in a game played out by the Law, Death, in Strife;

what follows being a victim in her life, is being the victim again;

a woman is raped raped raped; while male judges preside over trials,

she feels every ounce of her entire being resisting that – that – that thing

that philosophers lump alongside prophets when they speak of “man” & Being

loses all its Nobility, Beauty & Grace to Violence & Pain;

& the judges – Souter, rehnquist, scalia, et cetera, consider the gains

brought on by their beliefs in “life” & consider this abstract & smile.

& while the wrong that call themselves the right celebrate, a real, human, woman is

walking down an alley-way towards the only help that she can afford, or knows;

it could be she goes to see a hack who takes her back to a dirt-hole in provo,

where the man doesn’t care to wash his hands, being no judge, no pilate;

could be a room full of coat hangers in indy, cincy, baton rouge or dallas;

but with no money, doctor, or help, that violence in her belly is all that matters;

all that matters is that IT invaded her; that she did not want IT to happen; she hates IT.

*

IT is sin; & she is going to get rid of it.

*

She is going down that alley-way so she can die for the sins of another.

*

She dies.  Pierced flesh.  Believe in it.

If we were...

If we were Bonnie and Clyde,
Our lives could not have been wilder.
We never let things slide
And our arguments just got hurtful.

Oh, but how we loved
And oh, but how we lost.
We simply seemed to float above
Never actually seeing the cost.

We lived on the edge, I'd say.
Life on our terms was fast and hard.
The wind in our faces every single day.
But would end hand in hand looking up at the stars.

That day came when love just wasn't enough.
Our hearts grew cold and just gave out.
I guess we weren't  really so very tough.
As we lie here now, no energy to shout.

This Bonnie and Clyde
just didn't make it.
There were no machine guns from the side.
We just got tired and too eager to quit.
Our appeal to love was finally denied.

The task

I wrote a love song once.
I tried to send it to you.
I wrote down my feelings once.
I can't seem to talk to you.

So here I am drinking alone.
I try to laugh but tears come quickly.
This pain is my way to atone.
My soul simply wishes to be free.

Questions are no longer asked.
Because your face is all I can see.
The universe gives me a task,
I need to mend these memories in me.
Only then,
Can I find my peace.

Southern Gothic: A Romance after Sally Mann: Blackwater 2

Stunted, wasted trees at
conflagration’s end along

the ink blasted creek
only dead things float in.

What remains of a bled-
out sickle moon is being

swallowed by gasoline fire
clouds. It’s always midnight

where the blackwater runs.
 
Southern Gothic: A Romance after Sally Mann: Blackwater 4

The hard work of dying 
has already taken place here

in this used-to-be-landscape
artist’s sought refuge in

during night terrors where
the paint they used to create

images became the blood
of slaves pressed upon 

spoiled canvas.

 
Southern Gothic: A Romance after Sally Mann: Blackwater 18

Sideways rain raises
blisters on all that

it touches. Still black
water is inert as a dream

image terror is trying
to escape from.  Here,

even the tree’s shadows 
have shadows that radiate

a constant pain.


 
Southern Gothic: A Romance after Sally Mann:
	Blackwater with Lightning

Maybe the end times
had begun and only

the woman with a camera
noticed how the black

sky was split wide open
by crooked, spoiled veins,

electricity bolts;
heat licks the dry fallow

earth instead of rain.
 
Southern Gothic: A Romance after Sally Mann:
	Swamp Bones

If the juncture where dream
becomes nightmare could be

captured as an image in
a photograph it would look

like this: massive ground root
structures like broken bones

emerging from a gripping fog
then frozen, severed from their

subordinate trunks in a fetal, 
pain of light.
 
Southern Gothic: A Romance After Sally Mann:
	Antietam (Starry Night)

An explosion of fireflies
is superimposed on paint-it-

black-night as present as a landscape 
Vincent would have painted if he arose

from the dead in this place, haunted
by the 30,000 lost souls who fought 

here and accomplished nothing.

GRACE FOUND in PRAYER  

 

Heaven a place where thy son reigns beside you. 

Jesus has given me life through his gentle presence. 

Grace has been with me since the initial sunrise. 

 

A choir of angels celebrates your Almighty name.  

Heaven awaits my precious soul with thy grace. 

Tears drop to the ground once again with joy.  

 

Prayers that have never forgotten you within me.   

A place within my soul within your gentleness.  

Love that has been reflected at the altar within me. 

 

 

 

 

Okay now, Pastafrieszer.  What do you want me to do?
Off Turbulino. 
What? 
Off Turbulino; who.

Okay. Go on. 
 Off. Turbulino, Off. Turbulino Turbulino Turbulino, Off. Turbulino; who? 
Okay.
Hiss off Turbulino who. 

Oke.
Off Turbulino wh’ ‘o. Off Turbulino w’ ‘ho. Off Turbulino, who? Who? Who Off? Turbulino? Or Off Turbulino? Or Off Turbulino, who? 
Oke oke.

Wassa! Giddyup, Turbulino! Giddyup Off! Giddyup giddyup wasa wasa Turbulino, who?
Ghasta. Mon ghasta. Mon Ghasta Turbulino’d Off ‘da big Turbulino, who? Tucumcarro-wowo. Tucumcaro-wowo who? Lastafisharians! Lastafisharians! Lasta-off Turbulino lasta off’n the fisharianisticals, too! 
For the right and the good of the mystical other world where we all end up anyway these must be—eliminated; elli-elle hey maw these must be eliminated by name haw haw hold it softer and slower please you are Off turbu—breaking up and—lino off sounding bogged down.
Owkai wooney betta; now?
Yes papillary. Esso. Pappillary. Go.
GhostFred Von Terbulino maw maw mai-sweet, and her Fred the Ghostess, arms-akimbo. Got that?

Yes go. 
Okay Rally-round the fla’ oke oke. Huh hunchydown splitt-toonea the youn’ Giddy-pap. Giddy-pap. ‘er got that? Norway gotterpap hunkily-bunqui. 
Snap?
No you are breaking way up. Way way up. 
Wrenchindafist way too tight heckindafistica. Who? Gahhh knucklyblusters. Gahhh. May I pluck please that marliebone? Off Turbulino, who? In fancydanced figuatures well written yet somehow Off Turbulino inadequate somehow Off Turbulino-too. Offensive. Off Turbulino. Very offensively off dat turbinitianned big fast Turbulino too! That off! That off! Was-shashstistickinnanne’d off pluck’ ghast of a shackilly hot Turbulino, too. Meeshashee-moo. Big cows! Big cows! Big cows go meeshashee-moonienne’s flash turbulinos, too. Big daddy swept out his pot. To feed big cows out from yelling meeshashee-moonienne’s flash turbulinos please plea’ ple’ no not me, too!

Oke oke oke. Oooo. ‘n elsewise? 
Fish-men! The fish-men! All the fish-men plus; the following:
Ghastlienne Snappudia nee Turbulino. Mangia-gashette the youngerawan’s teatglass. Avast ye landlubbers know zouppe fo’ u. Lasty tie ten rags round yer face in the interest of its big better-be-clean campaign ( you know the one failes before it starts) I am George I say it is hell being old and I am I am and I, tired before I start. 
Amen.
Tired before. I start.
Amenna-menne. 

Too many flick-slippers’ they gift me each Christmas-time.
No himagination, sus’pose.
Amen.
Tired before. I start. 
Please sew up my gash, doc. I’ll lay back’n me lickliner. Do it very very good, doc. And I’ll praise ‘u good’n plenty. Hop-Cockula! All praises all fish-men big cows’n dem dere turbulinos, too. The fish men the fish men men me’ m’n men men doodliewisician’s fast ghastly whipmen, too! Off. Turbulino. Off Turbulino. Off Turbulino Off. Turbulino! Turbulino Off. Turbulino Off Turbulino. Off Turbulino Off off Off ghasta-Turbulentionelleianed vast pocka-bock Off that there Turbulino, too! Spit hack patooey! Spit hack Off patooie’s big, vast, wallow of a Turbulino too! N-n-n-n-d’d? What gives with the prizes? Off Turbulino? What gives with the prizes what prizes these prizes and who’s off that big Turbulino o’ there, too? I don’t get why we have to do this. 

Turbulino. I don’t get why we have to do all this and b’ backsides off’n this here Turbulino, too. Oh yah sure you may praise your Gods manysizes you want, but we still got to get hatchen’ off all these here Turbulinos. Too! I’m afraid we may need additional bodies here. To do all this work this to do allk this workity wonkhonking, too. Muddy wallows fulla’ witches and one two evilly spirited spirit-men, too! Hot-t-t-t ho-o-o-t-t-t-t h-o-o-o-o-o-t-t-t-t ehah! Ehah! Ehaha!
Doc garble these down doc! 
Hot Petunia! 

<clear air>
Okay now that the air has cleared, thanks to the breeze gusted up round round baby round round, here’s. We must make right what this clan has turned wrong. Too long our roost’s been ruled by D. Act we must we must act hiccup-cause we don’t sue soi halfundanalle’s planet ‘ll be n’ hoe thrall of the Tumturbilnos hag gah do not take the healing wind from us please! Off Turbulino pawk do not take Off Turbulino Off pawwk take the healing Turbulino 

Off Turbulino pawwwk pertropterequertie healing wind off us please, Mr. Syndrome—Off noo known Turbulino cure off Off Turbulino no gone Mr; Syndrome drat Off o-f-f-f nop known cure Turbulino no known cure for Off cure for drat drat these bananas’r gone rotten yes the Pop did one time rule an entire VatiVan or two whoop-whoop this being certified torrentialezed by Turbulino by artificial Off Turbulino’ mass-aretficially prefabricated means Off Turbulino causing mass magnitation of all nearby spirits, atchoo! Heck, doof; off also may mean porefabricated t-t-t-t-t sweet sweet Turbulino Off this si the emit Turbulino Off the emit for lla good Turbulino Off Turbulino Off Turbulino lla good nem to emoc-umoc Off Turbulino tri-titularically come to the aid of their country hurculaneum-styled hoch! Time for a good old-fashioned hot drench-sweat. Off Turbulino what Turbilino? Thaddeus Turbulino of coarse he and his ten pencil-think’d henchmen. So battenda’ yon hatches.
God willing! 

What price the freeze? 
Uh, Off Turbulino Off Turbulino hackatptwatoeey splat ackoff course!  Marie-Strider Good-n-Plentiful stole ten names off a boxcar side in the Off Turbulino Off the torrential rains of the last Turbulino, Off a Turbulino, never to be repeated off, damned Turbulino! I am not Shakespeare no cut da fish-rod twice just coulda’ not meter it in, solildly, twice! 
Gasp! 
Off Turbulino.
Gasp!  
Off Turbulino Off. 
Gasp!

Turbulino run ‘round Turbulino Off Turbulino like a record bray-be must half peened brutally hard off his donkey numbered in the ear Off Turbulino numbered in its ear Off Turbulino Off yah numbered in its numbered in its hey ha numbered up filled that cup so painfilly Jerry-Loius’ expanded drug face in the middle of the AM face; yes and nothing ended coming of his big fat telethonisticanne-laboring daily-day’s big fat bash, too! H’ cut his strips so very fine, so many years. But, hot-pick; Turbulino, who imagines when something’s Off, been Turbulino for Off years, and Turbulino years until everyone’s confronted with it then yank! Yank! Tank yank ‘t down Off that there great big grossly alien looking somehow big Turbulino too! So; so! So; …. so, behind this whole big plot to purge us we when they reach a depth of ten factory-spans we stopped them there. 
No. No. Too vague. 
Why?

Factory-spans. That could be from a few meters to several thousand yards centimentrical metering meters-thick, so—be more specific, then.
Okay, Say ten feet.
Okay, there you go, here we are they can’t allowed t’ go no lower.

Off Turbulino okay there you Off Turbulino Off Turbulino there you fo’ there you are they Off cannot Turbulino be Off allowed to go an inch lower ah their battlescars behold them behold them in their battlescars first Eric Turbulino their battlescars their then, myself first Eric Off Turbulino Off Turbulino then myself Off Turbulino hint hint Off Turbulino wink wink Off Turbulino nudge nudge Off Turbulino get it hey Off hey Turbulino get Off it Turbulino hey Off hey get it go you get it wink wink nudge nudge hey ya hot copsa’ dickey, n’ fat too!
S'what ‘f it?
So this completes the narrative of the last statements. 
Gory.
Hooooooooo.

So dem thymes’ a-wastin here’s the backside’s the list shot shoo Melanie fast-turbulino off their very rocker of the defendant allegedly flying his pastor into the bricks of the and small might turbo-mind down the jang-jinglin’ deep of the place hah! Hah! ‘ff okay knives out peterpans’ wall for his homes for funerals the chains of which less’s more for the drillin’ get fast for once ouch this Turbulino Off to that side then that Turbulino Off to the other then swat; he had owned singlehanded until up to over the top of very recently his deteriorated Turbulino Off undering the deep tableplace under style, mmmmoooooo-cow, the prank d’ ‘lectrical fencegrab wow that feels Turbulino Off Turbulino funny wow wow this feels really really funny what high Off Turbulino 

Off voltage state of mind yes of course can be seen clearly by the pottering stride of thought all gone and all wrong; all gone baloney high Turbulino voltage come on under through I can hold it Off Turbulino Off Turbulino Off Turbulino look the hell at me I am holding it hurry Off con-hurry well zip zip, I’ll be damned, Willy, looks like I gone did drop dead for my country being bad enough by itself, and all wrong by the same logic, also; but all gone and all wrong together pose the insurmountable peak atop the already mountainous body of evidence hiss and boo Turbulino Off Turbulino Off boo and hiss okay, so there, St. Peter. That’s the full drip out my high death for my country Turbulino faucet’s open Off drip Turbulino drip drip Off drip drip drip Turbulino drip drip drip drip off rounded up written down and presented to you for your pleasure here today.
To wit;
Yes to wit;
We sign our names and, hey, uh, wawa.
Yes.
So. Know what to do now? Know what’s our pleasure?
No. Not at all.
Okay now, Pastafrieszer. Repeat everything to me, but; a bit slower this time, please.
But—
Just do it.

Rock Stars Play Ukraine, Visit Mass Grave in Bucha


"if there is a dark now we shouldn't doubt,
and there is a light, don't let it go out"

--U2



The wounds of history opening again over their heads.
Where is love, true, beautiful, reliable, where is love?
Just a purple cast of light.

They open with "Vertigo," sick metaphor for a shaken country,
but they hope to bring ease, some joy, that could spread, rise
up the stairs to the grim, shattered land above.

Later they visit a mass grave by a church in Bucha.  Our tainted
past now our present, Falkenau the impossible, still possible,
still possible, how long, how long? still possible.

War is unthinkable, right above us, just around a sudden corner.
How long?  How long?  Still, there must be light, even if only one
small bulb, like still hangs in Picasso's Guernica, even if purple light

in an underground.  They won't let it go out, those old rock stars.



Duty


We all remember the castle work of mud-brick buildings,
their twisting byways a witch work of flowering bombs,
always leading to that backcloth of endless desert,
where sand and smoke of explosions clung to us
day and night

How we were shocked by the first death, not the next,
and the next, and the next, pruning us every
day and night

The guy ropes that held up the idea of our war snapped
quickly, but none of us left home to save a world.
Many died, some broke to shadows.  The truth is
war is just an endurance every day and night


Match


I remember the day the Afghans won
at Darulaman Camp, a dusty way station for us

into and out of the mountains around Kabul,

that day's unexpected legerdemain of feet,

jockeying of bodies.  We rolled in from an overnight

in Paghman to see those Afghans who ladled

food out in the dining hall, worked in the kitchen,

kicking a soccer ball between shifts in the brown

dirt-field center of the camp's jogging track.  And

as we climbed from the Humvees some young Afghan

danced the ball on his toes and called something

over to us in a sharp, cheerful voice.  One of those we'd

never heard from or spoken to, only one of the camp's

assigned minders, some American who'd mastered

enough words of Pashto, a hired translator

always in tow, had, but Sergeant Hines, brash

and, always, brimful of stupid courage, instantly

took his words as a challenge, some childhood dare.



Stripping off body armor, ammo pouches, 9-mil

with holster, he called on his friends, who were game,

to also strip to the brown t-shirt under every combat

uniform and follow him onto the field given grandeur

by a vista of snow-capped mountains.  Motioning

for the ball, he matched the Afghan's toe dances, passed

it back, Sergeant Hines who cared little for academics but

played two years of enthusiastic soccer for Georgia Southern.

Sergeant Hines, who suddenly was playing informally

for Army, was star again as we leaned against the Humvees,

but his friends couldn't match the swift passes, quick steals

of the Afghans and after an hour passed and the scores

punched through the orange road cone goals were

one to three against us, the dust of camaraderie,

admiration of skill that blurs the lines between teams,

had risen over the field and spread over us too.  And

finally, Hines admitted defeat, with much shoulder

slapping and laughter from both sides.



And later in the pass-through food line, through

the glass sneeze guards separating Afghan servers

and Americans, there were, for the first time, smiles

from both sides.




Transcending Zero


Mummy's lapis and gold coffin

over fossilized death



Magician's behind the ear trick

of the coin



Aquarium-trapped seahorse's

poise



Out of defeat,

empathy



Przewlski horses returning

to Chernobyl



A hanging man

dreams

A US Army combat veteran, Steven Croft lives happily on a barrier island off the coast of Georgia on a property lush with vegetation and home to various species of birds and animals. His poems have appeared in Liquid Imagination, The Five-Two, Ariel Chart, Eunoia Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, Synchronized Chaos, and other places, and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.

Gone if come quick

Gone if come quick 
death-bound not leased 
life itself shocked 
in repeating

energy forms 
present in our
sinuous room 
trite flesh repaints
too pretended

‘neath up-ends of
convulsants groomed
each night by way
of visitors

their breath not yet
but his here re-
membered to loom
and hang over

wait releasing
its gain of chance
not to happen,
left intending

some next visit
a round to please
with help a bed
soft undressing.



Hard-bound out-takes

Hard-bound out-takes
cherish the score
six cards their worth
can knock to shame

of what gets us
pity at the last
and grieve, forgive
if take, put-back.

But side-steps verve,
hold what hands flood
to up-shot nods
of truce down one

when got back wired
if secret pleads
the case that’s tried
of cards their yield.



Here are some sad ones got nerve

Here are some sad ones got nerve
and with no rules get smart of,
steel a love yet-born-made-fun
to sprawl upon new ground a-
bove the heart’s intent, surface
of dreams their truths tidbits what
un-dead reams if rolled out-live
mem’ries each pleat back their moves
showing in bright dread what we
feed of, maggots on broke scenes
incumbent mind pangs, taking 
for sore truths unreasoned and
yet hard-proved while we dance-out
our naked bests empires hold.

Andrew Cyril Macdonald considers the role of inter-subjectivity in poetic encounter. He celebrates the confrontations between self and Other and the challenges that occur in moments of injustice. He is founding editor of Version (9) Magazine, a poetry journal that implicates all things theoretic. You can find his words in such places as Blaze VOX, Experiential-Experimental-Literature, Fevers of the Mind, Lothlorien, Nauseated Drive, Otoliths, Synchronized Chaos, Strukturriss, Unlikely Stories and more. When not writing he is busy caring for seven rescued cats and teaching a next generation of poets.