Beast Cain
Beast Cain pulled earth
backwards with his hands
As he galloped away from the
brother he’d slain, the mark
Active as a centipede on the
brow, the horizon
The neck of
a doe between his teeth.
–you will rap yr. code
on a hundred latched windows
yr. wrist gone marble
the sky an iron bowl
balanced on yr. forehead–
God
When he rose to his full
height he could browse tree tops
For
coconuts and macaws. His spine cracked so loud
the basement of Lascaux shook. He
learned to be ironic
About heaven & kept plans
for submarines & tanks in a secret notebook.
–dear Mother
& Father,
I’m alone in a land
Of
opposable thumbs.
Forgive my past
impertinences.
Winter will soon be
here...
Beast Cain cantered to the Land of Nod & crowned himself
King of the
Potsherds. The deckle edge of the
six wings of God’s grief
Stung his
eyes dry. He rolled the wheel he built on a Sunday
And thumbed
his nose when the clouds oozed resentment.
–dear Mother,
I eat the stones fallen
from the sky–not
just because I hunger, but because I advocate
the New. If I
could give birth
I would do so to
understand you better.
But for now I merely stare
in the mirror–
Beast Cain grown old grew
punished like the moon.
He laid upon the grave of the
first Hunter & hymned
All he could recall of
innocence. Deep in the clay
Giant bones shifted in
concern. Cain
Wore a leather crown &
twitched to silence
On a blade
of his own fashioning. Weeds in pity clotted his humble flesh.
Only Hanoch
tried to love his Dad & Irad, Mehuyael,
Methusael
& Lamech
wore the fierce insignia of shame
& sang Cain’s praises on
abandoned slab heaps.
(Whose are those burning hand
prints on the wall?)
–dear Mother
& Father,
I’m irrevocably dead.
Yrs.,
Cain
Humbling
How long do you do a poor
man’s job? For as long
as your muscles move.
Maybe Dolly and Porter are on
the truck radio to help
the glands along.
Or George Jones whining
Southern
pain. The sweat drops from your forehead
drools down the jelly belly & the sweet & bitter
memories begin to flash like starlings
whipping beneath the eaves of a barn with splintered sides.
& the horse of words
breaks wind & begins to shit.
You’ve earned nothing as
yet. The shoes lie
in the box among tailings & bent nails. Dogs
run to gnaw foul bits of hoof like Chinese chewing gum.
Man, I got to take a blow,
you say
elastic pulse thickening the neck.
You draw from a jug of ice
water
& when you get back to it
with nippers, hammer & rasp
setting the shoe, tapping the nails in place,
dear God, the hoof is a sun in your hands
blinding you with its brilliance.
John X
The boy develops a twitch in
his eye.
He can’t sit still. When
his liver thins his blood of thorazine
his left, underdeveloped breast
becomes a woman’s face, his right,
with the three radial hairs, a man’s,
& they clap their brows
together
& scream through his
crooked
brown & yellow teeth.
He must be tied to his bed
with seven leather belts,
but even this cannot
ease his convulsions
& he pounds the pillow
rhythmically with his head
so the bed thumps in place.
Then I must talk to him while
he struggles,
cheer the tears from his cheeks
as the needle seeks the hidden vein to restore
the ball of dirty ice in his brain.
He breathes. He sweats.
The animal grin
slowly returns. The
guards
unloosen the seven belts & let him sleep.