February 13

February 13


Tourniquet[1] nibble-toed me awake, left
me nine nearly whole ones
(though I hardly need
more than three on each foot to balance[2]).

Outside, broken trumpets. Outside,
crows[3] trample
leaves, kick tumblebugs[4]
into gutter-goals. I've eaten

a clock[5]. I've shot my wife[6],
my mother[7], my
son[8]. I am comedy[9].
I am on the cover
of a magazine (just behind the death-faced
models with staples through their eyes).
You say

there's no God, no hope, nothing
but powerbars and masturbation. I say
there's not even that. No book,
no hungry
felt-lined bowl, nothing

but toe-ache. I've got nine left.
I've painted them
like cherries. I only need three[10].

~~~
[1] My pet Jape.
[2] pinky, bigtoe, ring-toe.
[3] Or ridiculously obese blackbirds.
Or men dressed as
ridiculously obese blackbirds.
Or tumblebugs dressed as men,
dressed as ridiculously obese blackbirds
in order to subjugate their own kind.
[4] I'm fairly certain these were what
they appear, though they may have been
overly privileged men pretending to be
tumblebugs in order to suffer abuse
as a means of karmic compensation.
[5] laugh.
[6] Not yet.
[7] Not yet.
[8] laugh.
[9] laugh.
[10] On each foot. See Note 2.

CL Bledsoe

Posted over on Neon Magazine