My father says he has no son
who would run from a fight,
no bastard here without,
at least, my iron heart in him.
He doesn't know me. Born
with no wrist bone, my punches
are as useless as chunks
of meat ramming hard
against the charcuterie's knife.
In my stubbornness,
I have hurt the bright red world
inside of me, more than I
have hurt the world. My fingers,
folded as a fist, are only good
around microphones
in programs where I tell the story
of my loss over and over
to a bleeding audience.
Stand back and answer this,
faithful folks: Who here
has made a whorehouse
of their pain? Who here has made
the pomegranate jealous
at how much red he can make?
I know what I'm capable of. Once,
I sang and a bird died with the joy
that its grief will never know mine.
In a motivational speech at a school
for people likely to graduate
into failures, I told the story of
my life, and they sat crying, in wait
for the good ending. But there
is none. I ruin hearts for a living.
I take the heartstrings of kings
who have known nothing other
than joy, and fold it warped
around my hand.   In return,
they thank me for my service
which is nothing worthy of thanks.
When my father said he had no
son who would run from a fight,
he didn't specify which fight.
I have been at loggerheads
with the world, long before I lived.
There is no love that can save me,
save the love of country and bone.
Like a patient dog, I lie in wait
for the fattest love I can get, the world
moving around me its teeth and tail.
Sorry to be vulgar, but this world
with live coal for eyes,
half the time I have no idea
if it wants to fuck me or fuck me up.

You have to be consistent
with your madness, the failed
alchemist wrote, to make mirth
or meaning from it. I follow
this creed of transformation, though
what I have yet made from mine
is only a love worsted yellow
with time.

*******

I held my country
by her two ruddy cheeks
and planted a rose on her lips.

Unrequited, the rose fell
to blisters.

*******

O Charon,
deliver to what died in me
this missive I wrote in bile—elegy
for my jaundiced heart. I keep running
after the dream of a good life,
even as my feet burns, even
as the pain wells up bottled in me.

There, on the horizon, my joy, and there,
too, the words of my father:

It is not enough that you want a thing;
you have to ache for it. Your feet
are only your feet until you're dead.
And then, it's the world's. But your life,
that stays with you.

My life and I, caught in this bobblehead body,
run etcetera towards joy.

It's been a long time since God,
or gumption. We have stayed
complacent in our twisted desires. No stranger
to the postures of heaven,    like everyone,
I too have kept my prettiest face to the light.
I mean, don't you love me? Book burning black
from its lettered core, I have held aloft
a shiny front. I find no need for quintessence
or praise. I hold no desire for divine machinations.
I am a citizen of every country of the body; coward
to the question of myself.  Again and again, God
touches the rotten fruit of my body and nothing blooms.
Isn't it sad? For the longest time, I dreamt
in cursive—of angels and wings and light.
I shot forward into time wearing nothing
but my father's exquisite gowns.
And then suddenly, the risk grew too large,
the block letter of my body arrived, and stood
against itself. In the center of a garden, a tree
weary with fruits—but not forbidden;
just forgotten. The ship of a body docks
in bad tide at the port of heaven
and finds its anchor cannot hold.
What, O Lord, have we made of our
mooring; of that blessed tether of the head
that now won't drop in worship?