Relentless
1
If it happens to everyone...
My freakish double, the killer, isn’t around right now— malignancy’s shadow
The host’s old, the protoplasm frail, the treatment: none
Liars in pinstripe suits and cufflinks Our bliss short, so short I paid my bills, made my will
Jealousy was their aphrodisiac (Whatever can heal will break) and prepared to die
2
Death and travelers have the same saint...
The door opens easily, just turn the knob Last hours of life:
delirious and whimpers beneath an oxygen tent ... She hands the parents
a large brown bag of miscellaneous odds and ends of belongings, just behind that door
But the black bile was nowhere: not in the orange size tumors, not in the foul deep ulcers, nowhere
3 Nuggets of pleasure for all, for all...
An angry red margin begins to spiral out from the wound and the skin begins to rot
from inside Something had broken and annealed within her
Eyes bright with tears shed and unshed The old prune-faced witch from sagacity to senility
He lacks the gift of silence... Formless, timeless, pervasive (imitative, corrupt and perverse)
4
What I can’t explain – or show, or describe...
A family trip gone bad, real bad There’s a fire in the kitchen, The wolf is in the yard
Broken mailboxes, broken locks... Great effects produced effortlessly, marvelously, strangely,
inexhaustible, intangible, invisible... He played it canny in all the glistening courts, admired, his subtle expertise, his diplomatic grace
Acts are the bottom of language: Their faces had a poisonous orange tinge— all that belief, groundless
5
Relentless...
On his instruction, they bury him in a plain wooden coffin with a soft mulch designed to speed decomposition
The windows are covered with hard wire mesh to prevent suicides, their poisonous orange faces Relic hunters found:
a few pieces of corroded metalwork and the tassels from a ceremonial hat Great stalwart men, back from the war:
gaunt, lean, hungry, weary, sad; later won’t speak of it—later... They’ll never try to tell you
-December 27, 2010-