upfromsumdirt
“what’re you gonna do, without your ass?” – sun ra, nuclear war
for mortals and fairies alike, the blood
is a powerful machine, the dirt of
it coats the celestial flooring like
the nebulous dust bunnies under the beds
of gods, is the darkest matter drifting
between planets and moons; blood ash, naked
to the eye, is the language of suns. Fair
Gabbro holds her prisoner by the scruff,
he, kneeling down in tan, torn dockers, his
head over cliff, the sea crashing below,
stark waves seeking dominance, dominion
over the living world like a vast, wet
shadow seeking new skin to claim. to slake
it, the only way, is with sacrifice….
Gabbro, sundressed in yellow, machete
in hand and the sky a surgical blue
a mourning hue humming far above her.
“who am i to hold disgust in my core,
clogging entrails with centuries of shed
skin not even mine, the world’s debauch’ry
ruminating like a cud or cancer
within my soul. but i will not indulge
intemperances (beyond my doing!)
taunting me as my own personalized
theme-song / my organs infested with the
cloying voice of my captors; reception
of such solicits unkindness within.
i once asked we coalesce an amends,
but you sucked your teeth at me in default
and this is the recourse you gave. having
lapped us for years before allowed the run,
our ankles clabbered by law as you laughed
citing in anger / calling our lapse in
pace a clotting drag to democracy;
your profit-mongering / your greediness
dressed as paternalism for our lack
in progress; your abhorrent wealth absolved
of historical context, your gold coins
wet from survivor’s alabaster guilt
but the crocodile
tears that sate a thirst is still,
yes, a malfeasance.
i was not born here before you to be
the guillotine; dear opponent this is
a politic, you placed yourself here, down
at my knee when you came in the night for
my kin, my elders, our flowering youth.
heartless but not thoughtless; a choice. and in
my own anger i respect it, but there
can be no waver to an already
wobbled world. this isn’t revenge, think it
a correction in the curve, the pit buffed
from the surface of a glazed cylinder.
and the crow sitting rapt atop your heart
shall heft you anon to a brass council,
toward judgmental accord damning you.
but i don’t hate you; i love me. the end.
the bootstrap not of your congruences;
this flirt with fate, her unskirted resolve:
this cleated slipper of glass; this broken
bottle with porting, majestic insole.
upfromsumdirt is a writer & visual artist residing in Kentucky and is the author of two poetry collections, Deifying A Total Darkness (2020) and To Emit Teal (2020).
