Gregory Kimbrell


CHJUCATU


Master, I still dream

               of snow like food in
               the dying month. You

are under the sand.

               Your dogs planted a
               drop of snow in

my eyes so the color

               faded. Now that this

frost has me you are

               the only death I
               want. Can you eat me?

I am the reason

               you are beautiful.

                               ~

You scream in the cold

               that I, a demon
               of low ideas,

trap people. People

               have shadows sleeping
               in them, I tell you,

and in the cosmos

               of dreams my red eyes
               see dogs dead in dark

offices. Your life,

               blue-eyed one, is mine.

                               ~

You will not receive

               death from me like cream
               melted in darkness.

My mind is a fat

               winter cloud with the
               patience to empty

itself. There is no

               door, manslayer, between
               you and me. Those who

live transform themselves,

               and I am ready

to see you break out

               of your snowy skin
               and bloom.

                               ~

               The flower

of cubic pyrite

               lying dead inside
               you wants life. I hope

you like fantasies

               because this golden
               pyramid is full.

Sickness is a toy

               here. You will not sleep.



Hollow Dog’s Eyes

[Through] the puncture [in the curtain,] I look [down] on the [rooftop] garden, [where] Lito sprays a solution of gadolinium and water to [remove] frost [from] the berries [he calls his] children. The smell of catfish cooking [makes my nose run. This is no bad [dream] standing [watch at the barred] door. [I must] swallow [my] error[:] The bullet did damage, [but while] I have not [yet been] arrested, Kyurisu lives. There are [as] many forms of despair [as there are microscopic] pink insects in the moisture [that clings to] the neon light[.] And which is the correct line for walking [through] the fog to [my] original life[?] A curse [travels] on the ground and up [the wall] to smile [at me] in the cold glass.

In Metal Harbor

[Faith’s] hidden fruit is hard and white, but cooked with the skin on, for two nights, only in [silver] moonlight, it [becomes] a copy of the [heart], invisible to the devil Iukari. He [thinks] that he [holds] the [real thing], raw materials for [his] death system, but the dog cannot reduce a name to a pair of gray-green [mummified] pig’s [testicles.] Stars the color of [electronic] script [flash over] the Seto Road as the [persimmons] freeze. [When] I wake, I [feel weak.] These tellurium oyster dreams are [no] good for the brain. [While] I [know] I am not permanent[,] I do not want [ever] to be a landscape recovered by [the army of] the religious[.] Spring is the door[.] Winter is the key. Everything [else] ends up [stuck] in the teeth[.]

The Armor Remembers


I must not mix the feed / for the horse Doakara / with Tshinosabu’s meal

But I believe Sima lied when he said / he had not cracked the egg

//

The city which awaits evening / dreams like a dog / with the head of a cat held in its paws

//

Men of low quality gather / by the fields / where their buyers leave payment / in the black kettle

They lift their hands / with fish meat caked beneath the cracked nails

//
//

When the heavens open / Tshinosabu wakes / in the heap of new corn / and fills the mouth of his goat head

His clean male torso tightens / around my error

//

Those who speak on behalf of the elders / will not be spared the contest / as the red clouds bleed

The eye is a perfect circle

//
//
//

Tshinosabu lays against me / two soft warm balls / that must be emptied

The dryness of the egg / must be restored

//

I fasten the leather harness / used by breeders / and empty myself

The death of the wrath has come / over animal hair

//
//

Tshinosabu speaks

I transfer into you / who are my private container / the vomesshu / my seed of resolve

Have a little sleep / a wedding / with me

No one will lie to you again

//

Dreams are shattered by experience / I refine you in my fire / before the city of Tsheyii / where the presence of the great satellite / on the hook of night / summons us home

This continues to be / the land of the faithful



Bathhouse/Paint by Number


Face to face with a devil,
be present
and watch for hot spots.

Be seen
as willing to risk
money, semen, infection.

Talk about tomorrow
as though it were a side street
to leave unexplored.

                               ~

Beheading a devil
does not make a hero.

In days named for dogs,
drinking the cum
of someone you met at the bistro
may not be as bad
as the consequences of not doing it.

Lying on blue tiles
like a couple of dead birds,
the instrument and its player
feign indifference, satiety,
anything.

Mountains are divided
by well worn roads.

                               ~

The attraction of the wrong
is like that of a prophet.

Evil cannot talk about its origins,
only its game.

Technology is not needed
to see the heart beneath the wolf skin.

Remove it, then drink,
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha...

Hectare.
Hectare.
Hectare.

Get the picture?




Gregory Kimbrell is the author of The Primitive Observatory (Southern Illinois University Press, 2016), winner of the 2014 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in IDK Magazine, Impossible Archetype, The Operating System, Phantom Drift, Quail Bell Magazine, Rabbit Catastrophe Review, and elsewhere. More of his writing, including his sci-fi/horror magnetic poems and erasures, can be found at gregorykimbrell.com.
 
 
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