Booz Allen Hamilton Five eyes three less than an evolutionary predator three more than twitchy paranoia brim of a pork pie hat propped against the wall’s tight corset of concrete informants s evered shame bugs and eyes panopticon watch us rabbits jumping moon dropped dreams of sentient sex dolls and space tourism our neighbours and wives the rims of their smiles ruse and if anyone breaks from the peloton ramparts bundle the grave doomed to the Black Maria and cells inflict iron indivisible light Stalin vulgar a conscience trifled with his moustache turned earth on a shallow grave bodies dismembered anatomy hung in the air before it digs in the ground the vast concourse of human cruelty Lavrentiy Beria a Berlin Gauleiter too many machinations an industrial golgotha plenitudes of blood what if we made it fun? made it marvel at our reflections in the blurred cinema of bay windows ectopics of tiny lithiums cradled in our hands like praying mantis the mass carceral of our undone minds until we are so bereft of confidantes and relations so LA freeway lost between the platinum hoods of perfect strangers we drive our dead men off the deep end we babble to the star making machinery look at me wannabee Freddie Mercury primping and sedated by streaming snap, crackle and pop! while the electric grid rubs our sleepless temples raw to the first guavas of sunrise and all our burning secrets like why does his penis turn to a candle in your mouth exposed in less time than it takes to cup a hand to an ear and whisper no torture cells in Lubyanka no martial law no fire whips- fiber optics no hissed threats- autotune no show trials only twitch streams no begging for your life just small talk
A Punch in the Gut The heartbeat taunts the suicide boom boom boom not by your own hand so long said the mirror what a waste necked craned into the oven inside your brain how does one stop a beating heart? hanging swings the body like jazz drowning floods the lungs with amphibians breathe monoxide and you will inhale Mars cutting into veins eureka! but higher until steel touches the first palpitations a pimple to be extracted from the chest skin the leather strop no note the cut is calligraphy a cascade, red a colour that spirits charge into sacrificed held up high vultures tear at the heart thrown down the stairs falls into eyes with no iris falls beyond the brush strokes of an Arles sunflower falls onto a blade cast like an arrow from Cupid and the heart slits and the heart shucks and the heart stops at nothing each spatter of blood bearing fruit
Ephemerals Since June the sun was no longer morning or California but a pink nickel pulled from behind the ear of the devil it wanders from east to west past the drowsy sentries of fire towers and teeth and bone blanched and hollowed of witness in search of beetles to bake yuca and sweat to taste bustle into the black eye of a fry pan slow to braise the alarm the lungs a sandbed pennied with a diaspora of particles ash falls from the sky like autumn in Pompeii shall we sup consumed by hacking coughs and the pale foam of our phlegm Since July stopped coming when it’s called only cocked its head to smoke season a rogue son sheer willpower pulled itself over the girth of the land fueled by dry martinis and gas guzzlers cabins, cattle, the mid-riffs of the Cascades the small town reeve all plagued to the scattered rubbish of campsites the desert does not advance in slow corkscrews of sand but jumps through the walls joyrides updraft into callas of air that loosen the sky from its empire and brings it down closer to the people who zip line over the falutin mansions used as firebreaks the acrid smell of burning slash no different than traffic backed up forty kilometers from strip malls to the West Wing forty winks we slept on it owl eyes, too late the emptied shelves, the gun toting order drives the grill of a Humvee into a breadline mown red faces of rust belt open eyes sprout lichen nasal buds ephemerals grow along the ridges and valleys of death your wood sprites, your fallen cathedrals, your mercy the truth that roars like a fire Since November was a flood sneaking into the basement to finish it with the rotten wood of galleons we acclimatized measured the girl’s growth spurt by the water line and waited lunatic cheerful for December when the ice pack moaned and wolves stalked the herd through the low ceilings to the boiler we watched brought the popcorn wrapped in a tin foil hat waited, rounded up the odds of survival under umbrellas that foamed with anger at the endless handclaps of rain listen the thundering hooves of the sea aiming right for us
Fulvia Mutica Oh salivate such a tasty armoured personnel carrier your hair washed with a french braid of seaweed lips licked and tongue anaconda’d around your cockles lies languishing nude in plein air the sun medals gold floats like a Marian apparition the sea the colour of Muscadet dries skin to the grain of an old gaucho wicker basket on the shingle beach brimming with ganache cava, pudendums of split bivalves the full mouth slides meat from the half shell swallows, sings low beguiles lips to the colour of red poppies ammonia leaks from blackish jowls and the circadian sag under our eyes get thee behind me blight of Yersinia Pestis and fuck you Gazprom nose aflame in the necropolis of Irpin courtyards we want a vacation life of cosplay willing deal with the devil blood rushing to the pomegranate hues of our right angles and slants small olive skulls in our tipples natal to Eden grinding against the cocktail dress of night seven a.m. stands before the sun like a guilty child in the helix of sheets lies a dead contagion sling shot of taste and smell babycakes I want to respire on your eggs before breakfast two pangolins spreading
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Shane Molyneaux is a new poet (debut). Shane writes about a variety of issues including, politics, parenting, relationships and refugees. Shane has recently completed both the Weekend Poetry Series at Simon Fraser University and the Vancouver Manuscript Intensive (VMI) program.
