Andy's Interlude

drink your moonshine, moonbaby

everything shines brighter here

from the stars in the sky to the flame in your throat

spit it on the floor

let it trickle to the tips of my toes 

tonight’s too cold for coyness

warm up my feet like a piss stain

Idiot verse

 

in all honesty there will never be the right time

I’m an idiot now you’re an idiot later

today we’re far too close

tomorrow two plane tickets and

one kicked out flatmate away

 

I don’t embellish anything anymore

wind blows

leaves rot

little heart yearns

all raisined up inside me

crunched squished paper-winged

sickly bat hung upside down

steaming throbbing state of the art

sundried tomato of a heart.

The black cat

 

some things can hardly ever go away,

my never-had-been.

I miss this

I miss that

and picture my lungs opening up like a moth, swallow you whole

 

here you are, I dream you up

muscle memory in black velvet gloves and

here it is again

the shiny black feeling

 

the black cat

the black cat

curiouser and

curiouser

Golden retriever

 

talking to you feels like washing my face

in the shower

now I remember -

this is what happens when you love someone

 

come over

I’ll make you tuna melts

then we can hike across the central plains

and drive at night and laugh and

stop the car only to make out every once

in a while

 

I’ll point at cows and say ‘look, cows!’

I’ll point at the roadkill and say ‘oh no’

and time will stop still, a sperm whale sleeping.

I think of us doing trivial things like this

quite often

like a fool

 

strange.

your being so far away could almost be funny

if it weren’t so debilitating

I lie on the bed, imagine you on top of me

and feel stupidly human,

utterly happy.

Prayer

 

the world will burn today

to walk away as I set it all on fire

to say something like I knew it all along

when, in fact, I did -

is no use now.

 

the world will flood tonight

to run away as the dam collapses

to think something like I knew it all along

yet, in fact, did nothing -

is no use now.

 

what good is a hurt woman to the world?

she is a burning house

a flooded village

she splits trees open with her eyes.

 

I go to sleep, tell nobody good night

I go to sleep and hope no god hears

what I pray for.

cherry

 

so when you speak I picture you

tying cherry knots

and the tips of my fingers get restless

 

to speak with such sweetness - how?

my mouth has become so heavy

just thinking about you.

Taxidermy

 

this heart’s a dying animal

today it’s breathing heavy foaming at the mouth

tomorrow children poke at it with sticks

and aim at it with pebbles

not out of cruelty but out of curiosity.

 

this heart keeps dying not out of cruelty

but out of curiosity

the body such a tender thing while the life inside it ever stronger.

 

animals die and end up on the side of the road

they’re only waiting to go

some place better.