WOKE…

~ (JD Brayton)

…the spork chiseling on a stranger

Seltzer terrier terrified of tenure gasping unilaterally and

Allies of post-volcanic kings past kinship

shipping

Two heartloads of writhing tumescent grey-toned cousins

Escaping the metastasizing gaudiness of Mother’s orgasmic shriek:

ARE.                                   They.                         Twins. ? .

Some freak circuses may never be photographed

A fierce internecine battle for a tub of wilted brown celery sticks

Whoring for a Mary, Bloody, otherwise ensconced

In pearl gimlet.

Later, as a waiter

I found myself sitting beside tepid cannibal coffee

Engaging in philosophic torture with a truck driver from

Lizard’s Thicket, Insomnianna.

His teeth, (he informed me, proudly)

Are entirely new –bought and un-paid for

bathed now in a peppy, twisted neon beer burp apparently

re-imagined by illumination

FREE PARKING FREE Barking: FREE DARTS:

(incidentally —> (you’re bleeding).

So? Sweet potatoes?(sour) Do they squirm?

I found and entered some cactus

Thankfully, there was nowhere to sit

Lectures are best served—>? STANDING ? <—

Mulling tense and tensely mulling

Mumbling down the hellish hall of a vestibule,

immune to it all

looking from the first available window

From which to spit.

Pause —> I REMEMBERED  <—

My 4^th grade Snenglish teacher Mizz Smith sitting, culling

Straining muck coffee through her mortgaged dentures

Pointing at the squatting red flag on her desk

Poised fangs baring

Whenever I tried to speak beyond her aching head

past creatures mummified with extreme prejudice

sweaty heat and salty rain

crenelated inside a 10-year old’s

gutter snipe pockets –bristling for natural identification

thoughts feasting and crushed beneath

Discalced uncalloused digits

cheap peanut-brother crackers. Nude Testament.

Squint.

The Day expands with each constant blink

(Blink <—

—> Blink)

B (lin)K <—

FOCAL YE: ‘the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked,

WHO CAN KNOW IT?’

So the Crème Janes’ Bible shouts from the aquarium city

Babylon, Sylvester, Poughkeepsie, Tehran

Be  Satisfied and Certain

Secrets Will Kill You

Why?

Because What You Need To Live

Will Kill You In The End.