Philosophy stretches back into pre-literate mist
You can watch it do this when you close your eyes and you are not yet asleep
This is just a ladder of time, a helix of faulty ancient dichotomies
G to C
Touch the step called “light and dark” and watch it resolve into weary gray
A to T
Touch this fragile rung, “man and woman,” and watch it crumble into dust
Nothing there for you to stand on, child, so don’t worry about it
Make a new ladder, a new rung, and **** them all
The grasping hands of the wordless past, the gibbering tongues
The blank faces that barely knew what living even meant
You know what it means.
Now do it.

The body’s unrelenting in its pain
Because God said it has to be this way
Light will shine and it will be this way
Some pain is unrelenting and must chase
Chase round a sleepless room from lay to lay
Light shines and you will know the chase of pain
You wake with it upon each newborn day
From couch to dining chair to bed you chase
And unrelenting it must be this way
Your spine all like a matchstick in its splay
A burnt out head and brittle down the length
Light color bone and splintered down the length
How can this driftwood bear the weight of pain
It has to. It just has to be that way.

Washing berries for a pie that I cook for someone else,
If they were for me alone I’d eat them straight and raw from the carton,
And if pesticides killed me, then I suppose I was a pest.
That’s no revelation;
I’ve tasted it on the skins of countless gala apples.
And what about other poisons, laced into blackberries and broccoli?
I can’t count them or know their names but I can hope
That one day they’ll gurgle in my gut like
The last note of a song,
And that’ll be the last I hear of it.

in times past
there was a rifle called mine
and daddy, always boasting-
she’s deadly with that 22
she’s deadly

i was deadly

four feet tall
i swung it out in front of me
cane of a blind man
as wild and changeable
as the spinning needle in my compass
watch where you point that thing
take care

take care

and all i said for want of wit
to memory now i can’t recall
only empty chairs, like gapped teeth
mark the occasions of parting glasses broken

pots boiled
whistling in dry pain on the red hot stove
destroyed objects, leaped before looking
and an empty oven on 400 for two days
she’s deadly
she’s deadly
take care

Let us see a slasher
I’ll show you one I like:
A girl who faced some biomedical horror
Some Thing From Another World
That lived in her and ate her alive
Made her need showers every other day
And hairspray and soap and razors from the drugstore
There was hair on her legs and teeth in her mouth and feelings in her dreams and
Oh, she was so very upset
She cut it out
Cut it out
Cut it out out out
Whatever it was that made her stink
That stuck the flesh to her bones
And made her feel happy and sad
She slashed and burned and became
Less, or more, than human
A toothy facade on long hollow stilt legs
Never smelled of anything at all and
Never slept no more, much less
Dreamed dreams
I’m so happy for her, I
Wanna be just like her, she’s
The Girl That Makes It to the End

Now close your eyes
Now close them
Now remember this:
The part of you that first rolled over
That learned to walk and refused to crawl
That grew from mewling and learned to speak
Pull that hand, that drowning hand
That drowning girl
Pull her up from the water
Now open her eyes
Now open them
Now live like this

The screech-owl in the wasted tree,
Who blights the branch and smites the leaves,
She wails that she was once like you and me!
Hey Lamia, hey love of mine,
Whose banshee moaning boils the night,
I won’t listen, for I know that Lilith lies!

Oh, naked beasts, oh variegated lives!
Whose ribs You cracked,
Whose love You lacked,
For whom You cast two wives!
Oh, hungry man, that bites his keeper’s hand!
You mixed his tears,
Instilled his fears,
And taught him “Lilith lies.”

I fled before you were brought forth
And spread, you race of sons of ******!
Oh children, you are mine, and I am yours!
Un-furred, un-feathered, and dull-toothed,
How the Almighty forsook you!
So sick and weak, you all can barely move!

Oh, teeth and bones, Oh heaven-wide applause!
Come Oneiroi,
Support ‘tcha boi,
The ape without no claws!
Oh, sticks and stones, oh desperation’s knives!
Come Seraphim,
Sing us a hymn,
Remind us Lilith lies!

“She lies, she lies,” you cry “she lies,”
But I have wings, and claws, and eyes
That pierce the dark, and to all schemes I’m wise!
Yes, I obtained these claws of gold
That keep me safe and fed and whole!
You can’t condemn what hasn’t got a soul!

Oh, life from mud, oh mare who bucked the stud!
Who sits on beds,
Perched at the heads
To drink the dreaming’s blood!
Oh, owl’s eyes, oh man’s dread realized!
Come talk at length,
And show your strength,
And show us how you lie!