Asylum



In the madhouse
on beds of daggers
we slept like crickets
chirping to ourselves
while they tried their best
to make us cannibals.

The nuns were worse than
lawyers, praying like accordions,
tracking their sins into our soft
wax skulls, wheezing like roosters
when one of us cried, laying the greasy ribs
of Jesus on our plates.

They kept you behind
door number six. I'd go to you
with a stolen key, when the noon
smelled bright as carnations,
when the nights were
more purple than the jacarandas.

You spoke of your father
dead of snakebite,
a clockwork marvel with
his million-dollar suit of skin,
of your mother
with the viper between her lips.

I remember your kiss
astringent with reason
as bitter lemons, and the way
your hair blew back from
your dog-brown eyes like poisonous
smoke from the oleanders.

I thought these things
as beautiful as angels
whispering in the dahlias
when I was lost in the asylum,
when the doctors did all they could
to see that we ate each other
down to the bone.


April 2022

You are a repeat roller coaster.
On speed.
In a storm;
A hurricane, to be exact.

You are exactly what I want
And what I detest.

You twist and turn me,
Leaving snakebite scars around my heart

You disguise my devil decisions
And the halo you wear, so lovely,
Does it justify?

Hold on
Admissions...
The night and swelling sidewalks
Call to me.

Folding.
Submission.
Those blinking lights, a quickly
soothing need

Blue-white.
the walk signs,
I'm running past the end of
random chance

     Do winners ever quit when
               they're ahead?

Too many of these casino nights.
I never let them end, because I
     swear that Lucky Lil has eyes for me.

So I'll take my chances.
One more dance with these snakebite
     pints 'til I
can roll these X'd out lids
     over these swollen snake eyes.

Deuces.
I'm losing.
These sights and sounds made fuzzy,
buzzing slack.

Jackpot.
They have me.
I'm out of moves and fading
quick to black.

Odds are
I'm ending
the night wand'ring the sidewalks
with old dreams.

     Cuz losers never quit when
               they're ahead.

Too many of these casino nights
I never let them end because I
     swear that Lucky Lil has eyes for me.

But she's rolling shoulder,
rolling pupils and shooting
     weighted dice.
So roll my body out, over
     the curb, to midnight.

     Because I can never quit
               when I'm ahead.

She wears strength and darkness equally well,
Like a sunflower who stands through dust to see the light,
Growing up she was always half goddess and half hell,
Wrapped around her finger like under they’re under a spell,
Every man she’s encountered truly smitten by her sight,
She wears strength and darkness equally well,
Foreign and intricate, “Bonjour mademoiselle”
Men; tons of them but none, fit her quite right,
Growing up she was always half goddess and half hell,
Unique and earthy like an iridescent seashell
But also prudent with a deadly snakebite,
She wears strength and darkness equally well,
With a blazing fire in her soul as pure Noël,
That will keep you warm through the night,
She wears strength and darkness equally well,
Growing up she was always half goddess and half hell.
~d.v

The serpent has mingled with my blood

As she devours me,

I become her lover

Half lidded eyes

closed with numbness

My body tingles

from her touch

She has me paralyzed

She has left me speechless

Her poison

runs through my veins

I can feel her all over my body

She has become I

And I she

I can feel myself

becoming dead

yet alive

Becoming, Soil, water and sky

All things and none

My soon to be widow

lays across my bed

And Weeping Mary, weeps

As I leave her

for another lover

I am afraid to close my eyes

You can not see because of the light
It is way to bright
Let the darkness soothe your sight
Relaxe, stop your fight
Let the darkness end your blight
Welcome in the coming night
Make you forget the worlds snakebite
That left you feeling so contrite
In the darkness your fears you can smite
Let the darkness left you upright
Find your wings and take flight
Then you will be able to indite
And sing through the skys like a meteorite

The snake
N
E
V
E
R
  Bites
O
F
F
M
   O
     R
       E
T
H
En it
C
A n
Ch
Ew.

She sits, and she’s pale and cadaverous,

her black hair, short to her chin, the dye in her skin,

the corpselike designs deify her to me,

and she is marvelous.

-

A snakebite in her voluptuous blackened painted lips

eagers me to receive a curious kiss

upon my own who so long for,

the taste of her, like nothing before.

-

The gorgeous permanent stains of ink

upon her *****, thighs, arms, and calves,

exemplify her smooth pearl-white skin

her delicate tattooed knuckles and hands,

could now easily tear me in half.

-

As i try to look away

from that teasing, black lingerie,

she turns and looks with pale blue eyes,

the most wonderful I have ever seen,

so far into my soul she delves that I admit,

I am but a lowly, mortal being.

-

This Goddess of death, this Massacre Angel

what some call not a treasure,

she is in all my nightmarish dreams,

and I always owe her the pleasure.

-

I am a slave to her eyes,

that so easily peer through me,

it is not that I tread not, or wear disguise,

but the answer always eludes me.

-

Though she is my unholy holiness that

grants me dark in wretched light,

one day I shall pass and our spirits

will lay together for an eternity of

a macabre romantic night.

by Jedidiah Fleming

The World is my Kryptonite.
It was delivered by a Canaanite.
It is so very black and white.
Black as black midnight.
White as white starlight.
Hotter than a fist-fight.
Colder than a frostbite.
It tries to lure you to the fight.
Being naturally impolite.
Always swelling with pride and might.
Soaring like a meteorite.
Exploding like dynamite.

O, but it is a parasite!
Warping every human right.
Dealing every man-made fright.
Feeding like a scabie mite.
Destroying like a forest blight.

Yet it craves a ray of Light.

From it, I remain from sight.
It is worse than any stage fright.
A never-ending snakebite.
Seeing without sight.
Hearing without height.
Choking out the sunlight.

The world is my Kryptonite.
But parts of it may turn to Light.
So its pain I will carry on.

Hey Johnny where are you now?
You left, and never came back, just like you said you would.
And now i have heard that you died, my Darling.

You were always my Darling, and i was always your 'little bit of fluff'
And if what they say is true, i know you'd be ****** as all hell if you ended up in heaven, because hell was always more your style.

But i do hope, if you are in heaven, that it's a heaven made just for you.
I reckon they would have a jukebox that only played Kansas and the Eagles, beautiful women and had Stella and black on  tap.
Oh and a GPZ1100, with no speed limit..
And you know what i mean by that.. you little ****.
You'd be in heaven.. oh the irony

You were the first person i told that i like girls too.
I told you i love their softness, there beauty, their curves, their taste,
the way they taste like me, feel like me, are soft like me and that i had *** while watching a video on MTV with girls singing in the swimming pool.
You said you needed a minute to think about things...
for a very long time.. in the bathroom... on your own..

Your tattoos were beautiful, covering you from head to toe.
My favorite one was the pirate that your friend Pervy Pete did
while he was baked, it was meant to be Long John Silver, but it looked like your Nan.

You gave me my first snakebite and took me to my first gig.
Wembley... Metallica.. ****** out of my head..
Best night ever..
probably.

I taught you how to crochet and you let me paint your toenails..
only the once. And you taught me how to whistle with my fingers.
In the end you told me to shut the **** up, because any minute now a whole **** heard of sheep dogs are going to come running over the hill, and **** us both.

I held your spanners, sat on a crate and had fork oil, all over my summer dress. You said it was a good look on me and i told you that you were beautiful. You smelt of sweat and juniper oil and i could have *** from that smell alone.

Your eyes were the same brown as mine, you used to put your face so close to mine so i could see myself in your eyes. I only wish you could have seen yourself through mine.

If we had ever been together, i would have wanted to have saved you.
And i would have too.
But you didn't want to be saved.
I would have spent my whole life trying. You said you would have hated yourself, to have been the one to have killed me like that.

In my heart we will always be. I knew you loved me because, while i slept in your arms on the way back from the Bulldog Fest, you whispered it to me.

Good bye and sweet dreams my tattooed greasy biker.. my Darling.

I'm grateful you never found out about the life i had without you.
You would have killed him.

I.
when she saw the hazy picture on the screen,
dark grays, some blacks, a little white,
she didn't understand until the soft, chubby brown finger
pointed at a speck, a freckle.

how can I?

the soft worn leather seat whimpered
when the expanse of body gripping fabric
clung to the body they housed, and
the nurse reached for the girl's small sweaty hand.
they closed their eyes and prayed.

the adjacent room was a museum of curiously tiny things.
she slowly considered each item in her sojourn,
finally selecting delicate knit slippers, for little feet.
in this tired brick building reality seemed less real.

II.
back home, her mother threw a chair
when Mavel pointed at her stomach and smiled shyly.
when she presented the shoes with trembling hands,
hoping this small measure would appease the anger,
always worst at first--maternal snakebite,
mother glowered and showed her ****** fangs.

III.
the lights drew her, like fireflies twinkling moment to moment,
the icicle bulbs flashing as the wind blew strands wildly
on dark night trees, rooted firmly in familiar soil.

cotton candy clouds surrounded her small thin lips;
the lingering bits crystallized on a pale pointed chin.
as she discarded the unwanted cardboard stem,
its use immediately forgotten in a pile of related *******,
she saw him.

she saw him. and she ran. frayed tongues flapping on her sneakers.
breathless, heart pumping, he came into focus.

by the house of mirrors. reaching for her hand--
not my hand. her hand?

her fingers slipped from her mouth and found their home,
on her warm belly,
suddenly quiet.

blood trailing down her thighs,
a droplet stroking a pure white shoe:
welcomed refuse.

Part the flag wrapping around the mast

where sailors ship into waters

as jesus was the worker

the one who built their boat

to stay onward

north of the edge of the world

to explain to the empty arms that fear

and flying were forever the same

if you really found it false

or just never believed that one thing

so true

could be seen and shared

but only to those who do not need to remind each other

that they too were not alone

with where they began will never be

back running between their fingers

the sand where they waved their lovers last goodbye.

How easily the exploding heart forgets

to tell those eyes you carry

to keep looking

no

the back will never turn

as it isn’t proud

only strong to hide

that is what’s behind it.

Leather those faces boys

tan the hide pinched to the bone

and no knife will be amongst your hot blood

but that sand will make you smooth again

just cover your eyes

I’ll tell you when you can look

that trust you have better pay off

for that last sight to make you blind

and rather to wander in all that is black

my two kept eyes lead your way

and you will call me home

and you will call me king.

What we all expected was your colors

but found none.

Lust brought on of loves final echo

the deadly siren be it drowning at sea

taming that it is beneath

the hollow ground burst of dead feet

loose from the kick that fell short

by the snakebite ripening

the purple fangs to the blood drip wound.

Now you see real monsters

to the stare the sun blinds

the quiet who look on forever burning

to see bright through the eyes

not closed

to the sinking star far in the ocean

that your bones now wander alone.

Birds sharpening their talons

of way up high as the weak beware

they cry on three feet

with a dead child from the start

where they should’ve just stayed behind

in the magnificent grandeur that the blind race toward

and live old with missing friends.

How has the sun risen

for so many days without missing one?

I say thank you for being on time

your work has gotten better.

it's no lie when I said that I felt eternity
but I always did nothing but repeatedly make you sad.

please let me sleep with your name resounding in my head
the passing days
the weeks and months
they drew us apart
your name hurts my mouth when I speak it out loud
the name which i can not call out
it burns my lips when I whisper

we were  looking for the the others faults when
we should have looked at each other

my limbs are trembling to the sound of storm
hitting the glass of my window
the sound of it kills the silence
the tranquility I seek
the repose I need

I don't want you to fade
even though the last memories of you
envenom my insides
like a snakebite

my body is rotting away, returning me to earth
she embraces me like a mother

I want to hear, even a sigh
a small hearbeat that isn't and won't be there
that little rythm

my nightmares are unchanging
the drowning days
their weight piles up on me
a burden.

the spider lily is in bloom
the moon will fall
this second winter is standing still
spring will not come again

it's cold but I won't lock the door.
Maybe you'll come.
Maybe spring will be with you.

You can not see because of the light
It is way to bright
Let the darkness soothe your sight
Relaxe, stop your fight
Let the darkness end your blight
Welcome in the coming night
Make you forget the worlds snakebite
That left you feeling so contrite
In the darkness your fears you can smite
Let the darkness lift you upright
Find your wings and take flight
Then you will be able to indite
And sing through the skys like a meteorite

A solar sunflower danced on her dashboard
and the lei on the rearview hit me like a snakebite.
Scented trees beneath my feet smelled like a flower shop
fire. Her seatbelt was knotted like her shoelaces
and her lemon lips kept me coming back.
Between us on the highway were CD cases and enough
loose change for a sweet tea. We turned off the radio
and listened to the roar of the wind through her cracked
windows. Her dress' hem flattened on her thighs
like the moon. Four hours to a truck stop with curios
and 75 cent ****** machines in the bathrooms.
Her doors creaked on their hinges as we danced
our way to the concrete.

I feel fine, and yeah,
I do that
thing, where I have caffeine
whether in this or in that, playing or staying stationary
the aesthetics, the relaxed argon oil
the moisturizer
cherry coke
cherry coke
yeah, today is just fine
made a reservation for tomorrow
and I'll go, and I'll go
boy I'm ready for something to eat, sweets
sweets
and *** comes so easy, on days like these
Today, the day, and
when my voice is gone
I will recite with a deep low hum
barely audible
and it will be fine
because I will have that
snakebite
venom
boot on top of the hollow stage
makes quite a noise
BOOM
so yeah, today is going okay
and now the poem is over