a write&dine with the devil.

                    one.



            seahorses whinny under the coral
            canvas i write old words on;

            broken windows and murky depths
            with hands of moss and algae drag
            me under a bed full of ticking clocks
            and laughing monsters.

            my god, someone save me

            where did you put those old-time circus
            tricks that you throw on the dinner table?



                    two.



            if there was ever a time for you
            to sew your mouth shut, it’d be now.

            the old aquarium you keep your skeletons
            in is about the burst open; and you don’t
            have the time to clean the water up.

            you gonna drown, hunny,
            you gonna drown.



                    three.



            that new heater isn’t going to
            heat me up now- it’ll freeze me
            &keep me as some soft pet to sleep on
            cashmere with a diamond collar.

            a diamond collar? i’ll sell it to you
            for a penny. you can sell it for a million.

            cashmere won’t cost you much,
            just give me what you’ve got and i’ll run
            away and mock you

            while i sell your soul to some
            dirty old man in a tuxedo with a cigar
            in his draping mouth.

            i can persuade him.



                    four.



            i locked myself in this cellar
            or else the ink won’t work on dead
            paper.

            i scribbled dead sentences before an old devil
            grabbed me by my legs and dragged me off
            into that dark closet

            where everyone’s afraid to look.

            we sat and ate dinner under a chandelier while
            a demon played away on a broken violin.

            while the possessed danced around us in old
            clothing made of gold and silver and the souls
            of young writers.



                    das ende.



            so i decided to stay for the
            night and let them sew me into

            a warped visual of the world.
            i felt the old corset she wore and the petticoats under
            her.

            i felt the ink and graphite
            press into my feet as i grabbed another sheet of
            paper.

            a lucid dream; but something more:
            for i etched on the wall a sort of odd disgusting
            thing of industrial waste and zeppelins.

            come and see, and what i saw was
            the words jumping from old paper to another.

            what i saw was my hands breaking from obese
            paragraphs

            and i loved every second of it.