Hunters, Hunting

Line up the boys you knew,

Those disappointment dispensers you let in,

Claws out for blood and semen.

Paint the wall with a gun and some organic matter.

Fill your space with regret,

And don't ever look back.

*

Neighbors wake in sweat.

Calcium words forming inside them:

Who are we anyway?

*

No one knows anyone.

Everyone is a photo and a witty line

Until they become your boyfriend.

Then they're all outsides,

No insides.

Shiny white teeth and a postcard smile,

Delivered to 711 to meet you in the dark night air.

*

And you've come so far,

Teeth dripping red, eyes shining dark as the moon.

Live on for his sake, and the next, and the next.

This is for all the boys who never knew god.

A body swinging from the barn loft.

Another one in the attic, not breathing.

Who Knows Where We Go From Here

Haven't I seen you somewhere before?

Hanging from a tree or something?

Your face is familiar,

So let's run away.

*

There's something on fire in the distance.

Something wishing it were dead and wanting to die.

But here we are, you and I, and our eyes

Tell stories

That our ancestors wish they had thought of.

Our fingers are electric together,

Pushing through static rib cages,

Forcing life into forgotten hearts.

And we live,

Making emotions out of tanning beds

And chain restaurants.

We walk the night roads with quiet fire,

Both of us alive

With sparks and gasoline.

All Of Us Are Artists

Our fathers farmed land

That yielded like flesh,

The sun in the sky

Dying of heat stroke.

But who are we?

White noises coming from our mouths

Colliding across the dust and distance:

I don't remember.

I wasn't there.

They did it all without me.

So we leave that shit behind,

The stink of cows and chores circling

In the cyclones of Ohio.

But who are we, really?

Broken souls on the bus.

Because here,

The left lane is for people we don't like.

We came to this place to write and paint.

That's what people do now, isn't it?

Say it loudly so it vibrates,

Echoes ending in a whisper in a public restroom,

Far below the city:

Wipe your ass with art.

There's more where this came from.

Falling out like vomit.

Collecting like insects.

We all remember the moment

When our lifelines became a single point.

A beginning and and end.

How To Die And Get Away With It

I've been watching the days and years slip past me

Like scenery.

Pretty faces, unknowable in the white of headlights,

Flying past like buildings on the side of a freeway.

The kind I'll never see the inside of

Because I'll never be back here.

And in the backseat is a stranger.

His undreaming eyes are cold and canceled

In the headlights flying past,

As dead and black as an insect's eyes.

He has a name I'll never know.

A name that's silent when pronounced correctly.

*

Who am I?

My voice is loud echoing back at me,

Hands bracing against the car.

Who am I?

And then I'm throwing up,

All blood and intestines in the passing light

Of cars.

And the back door opens.

Come closer.

Show me your insides, he says.

Known Good Elements

I remember you

From worlds beginning,

When the earth was round and full

And oceans boiled.

*

I remember your hands

Creating life

Sculpting time.

We were here from day one.

*

You left my side

A bitter transient

Remaining frozen,

Separate in meaning.

*

I wanted nothing

More than to know your name,

So close to my own.

(c) 2011 Roman Theodore Brandt