cut with my cunt
today i learn to cut with my cunt
to cut with my cunt cut with my cunt cut with my cunt
cut with my cunt cut with my cunt cut with my cunt cut with my cunt cut with
my cunt cut with my cunt cut with my cunt cut with my cunt today i learn to
cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to
cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to
cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to
cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to
cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to
cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cut with my cunt to cut with my
cunt to cut with my cunt to cut with my cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to
cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to
cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to
cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to
cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to
cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt
WE PLAY
a hot game
your tonguemy mouthunmangled
and folded over
teeth glow
men are driven mute
the dragon’s charlatan comes and goessuch prophecy
hedges are set ablaze the harvest burned-off
parts of hercules are flammablethe fires burn them away
cover your body toohere use these ashes i
who was a daughter am now a son
my own end—failure of permission
or is it ownership
heavy head
heavy arms heavy hands
the epic
lets death inshe screams
her mother mourns
or is worn out
to eat the sun every night & give birth
the screaming brat’s a sheep
shaking a bush
o where
o where o
where is the noonwe waited
we are youngwhat blood
is there
left.
AM I THE WORLD OR THE GURL
what can affect
the conflict
discourse
that discursive horse
if you break its legs
it won’t be able to run
it will just die there
slowly
in pain
what else i like
the sound of
that distress.
WE CARVE THE WORLD THE GURL
am i
to be
relieved of
this life
—or returned
i saw
a rabbit
caught in
its own
deathsoundbodywilt
a plea
really—o
please o
please oplease o
please o please o please o please stop
some untranslatable killmeplease
killmeplease
killmeplease
killmeplease
killmeplease
killmeplease
killmeplease
killmeplease
killmeplease
killmeplease
killmeplease
killmeplease
killmeplease
killmeplease
killmeplease
killmeplease
killmeplease
killmeplease
killmeplease
killmeplease
killmeplease
killmeplease
killmepl
ease
WE CARVE A PROPHECY
there is no need for you
approach meyou will dietake courage if you near
we all die
i ate her liver and became her
i ate her cunt and understood
o—o—othe difficult task of knowing—
we are all ambitious
we all hate one another
the road gives way
must the road give way
WE CARVE A PROPHECY
we are sleeping
we sit naked together
do not speak
do not smile politely
do not make eye contact
do not lookat ourselves
we devour
weachillesbarefoot
scourge of citieshard
lovedwe are not less cold
the nearby river is dirty
the moon does not reflect here
we cannot get our hands clean
can i still touch you
help meam i not your son
help megoddess of this sea my mother
would that i could love you better would i
silencesilentsilent
contemplationo loss!
even the sun refuses
to clothe our hands!
WE CARVE A PROPHECY THE WORLD OR THE GURL
i denounce that
i might not have learned my own tongue but mother
says it’s in the blood& i am willing
i will not share your bed though i may grow old
if you sleep while the sun is down you might dream (of me)
(you might die)
& am ipulled awayor let go
—some horses’ bitchhere
is a romance as old as time
& are you mourning toomy loss or yours
do you hold my body tenderor trophy
& babyif you could see my face
you’d write a poem(i would)
ask toowhy does love love life
& death
for the sake
of its own meaning
lackofgreennessi denounce that too
& i want you
to die firstthat’s the meanness of it
human life is so ordinary!
we know nothing we know nothing we know
nothing we know
nothing
& can know nothingi deny myself
what voices i borrow
what god was
like—what god is
daughter your foot is tragic! now come! & dance
with me!tell me what you want
all i want is to eat live eat live eat
& eat
& live
& all i want is for there to be no shame here
& here
& here
& here
WE CARVE A SPELL GURL
besides the serpents mother also sent venom from the hydrahallucination
blindnessragebloodlustall ground finely into a powder
mixed with fresh blood her blood to a boil
everything must come to a boil inside a great bronze kettle
settled into the earth covered with hot rocks ocean rocks
and coconut fronds tightly woven
and whatever else you might like for dinner
mother always careful what was for friend what was foe
so she stirs with a fresh wand from the hemlock tree
& she grinds it until it is
so so fine fine
massages it into our bodies makes us deadly makes us deadly you cannot touch
me i am
untouchabledeadly
& full
you’re such a fool.
WE CARVE A SPELL GURL
i never see light i learn the dark
there is ringingthe ringing is nothing
there is knockingthe knocking is nothing
i’m emblossomed still i see no thing
that dark i beat
so hard i splinter
burn myself away
the sun stood halfway
between the night driven off
and the night newly approaching
bodies shed
garments
o how they glisten
o how they glisten.
WE CARVE A SPELL GURL
naked nymphs beat their breasts & fill the clearing with shrill & startled cries
WE CARVE A SPELL GURL
she interrupted eruptswants the one thing to which there never isenough
she does not know that thingwhatever death is she is nervous about it
there is a road
darkened on all sides by funeral yew treesboneless bodiless shades stray
here
sluggish styx waitsthat everybody river exhales
cuntfucking one wasteland into another wasteland
souls newly come are at a loss to find & yet
& yet
&
WE CARVE A SPELL GURL
she exposing he
rself for what she is
both paternal & perv
erse captures the maiden
’s baffled father
cuts him
WE CARVE USO SISTER TO SISTER
to sisteranother spell sister
i don’t
want martyrdom
my heart
beats too
mean yeti imagine
the swordsman fell
in love
let’s settle this
without the need
to grieve brothers’
bodyor watch
old men fall to old men knees
i make no apologies
smooth rocks heat while we wait we
hack the small limbs off
bigger kindlingseparate the leaves
coconut taro bananabraid the fish into it
i tuck a piece of your hair behind your ear
you’ve cut itthis imagination
isn’t mine anymorehow to imagine out of it
we talk over each other raze each other
that’s our way how to
find our way again please
pass the palusamiplease sit crossed legged and talk to us
please leave your shoes at the doormother says
if we work hard we can eat sooner
she stitches with ink the chimera’s
image onto my left tit
when it’s too much she says cut yourself wild again
let the ocean back out
is it worseto return empty
or not at all
in the poems we all die just another way poetry reflects life another way a woman is made i mean marginalized i mean we lose intimacy i mean i want each loyalty tested can you tell me why hope is always blind is it the world she sits on or some floating inflatable toy i mean if ifi let all the air out will i die from that airor drown by plastic aesthetic i mean is this all there is to know about connection did you really just ignore my textmother always said if you break it it will come true i break a gurl’s body is it true
i select
a torch
steeping in
blood not
yet my
ownput on
my robe
of dripping gore
and a belt
of live snakes& so appareled i set out
from home& so appealing i set out from home
WE CARVE
the flesh
of her poetface
gurlworld
some other maladyi pull
down
make it my maskmine.
now i drive my cart
plow my plow
i recognize my vertigoredness deeply alien
the faithless eye between us
ungathered meadows tendering dawn
fill a ditch
with blooddrive ghosts away
that smell
nationality
something in each of us waits
to see the other survive
severedshe says this casually
what face
lets itself be looked at.what face
can help it.
i give away
my mother. mother!wound!
will it be enoughbring my horn
my valkyries!
vengeanceavenged
o to kill
the killers!
WE CARVE
this skull helen’s.
this skull marguerite’s.
this skull matilda’s.
this skull marianne’s.
this skull beatrice’s.
this skull gertrude’s.
this skull audre’s.
this skull mary’s.
this skull virginia’s.
this skull vera’s.
this skull nora’s.
this skull diane’s.
this skull elizabeth’s.
this skull gloria’s.
this skull alice’s.
this skull cathy’s.
this skull kathy’s.
this skull robin’s.
this skull jane’s.
this skull leia’s.
where’s your skull.
show me yours.
WE CARVE CONSTANTLY
does my cunt
make you
feel good
WE CARVE THE LEARNING OUT
carefully
you trained me
to care about thisikeepyouyoukeepme
we are each kept—
WE CARVE WITH LOVE SOME SACRIFICE
i open the body of your newest dog with my own teeth.
i hope you loved iti hope you loved it and weep now for that loss.
WE CARVE LOUDLY
tell me truthfully
is my only choice—lover! cunt! exile!
WE CARVE THE WORLD GURL
must this be love / must i love
WE CARVE GURL
or some other birdit’s always a bird isn’t it
fuck a birda poem
pigeoneaten out by ratsaved you
an eyewhat
an inheritancefrom sacred earth
to trash-day-mondaythe words
too many
wounds inherited
i guess
i’ll just
run off& fall in love
with a centaur
anything can be sacredi guess
nothing is
WE CARVE THE SPELL GURL AS MANY TIMES AS NEEDED
o horrible tenderness! battle sweat! it’s noon!
crinkled wings sour everyman’s facepatroclus
underlinesyou are not alone
lonelywithout criticism
lovethings are whispered
let me pace
without fearthe common path
of death.
true spring plants chains!profoundest
sense! city shame!
almost palatable daffodils!
blackblack horses!
new achilles
wears the horns of a ram
for luckher family letters here
for luckbecome a god yourself
say this prayer guard me against
guard against me she says
this world is falling in love
i have robbed myself
what god opposes me
i do not know.
WE CARVE FROM WHAT’S LEFT OF THIS WORD GURL
she o unfair she o stop your weeping that ugly face
with her hand she stretches forth to mine
a sickle
unloves my failure
this fright that kept me up at night
stay away with me.
i press my body over her wildness
as close to the bone as though she were my own skin
we wrestle
color overcomes usthat foul cry might have gotten louder
out of handyet hadn’t
pull a chariot aspiring to rule
the heavens
& always sudden the door
new eternity irises
before memy heart knowsi pray
i may never dienor surrender
nor modesty taint me
i love youi have
the disguise of love
though mother may never recognize me again
so i sew a black dress
throw it over myself
throw it over the dawn throw it over the dawn throw it over the dawn.
I APPEAR SEEKING REVENGE FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF THOSE CHILDREN
but this exquisite—
re: this exquisite wetness.
what now—
re: when i have tried and failed i shall have failed.
high summer is over i return to the sleeping place will you return with me—
re: the wound.
am i allowed to win—
re: the same death the live rabbit formed in rupture are wildthings.
all the doors of truth are open now to battle—
re: hold my hand do not let go we will take each other run away with the other.
Splinters Are Children of Wood Page 2
