BIBLE ALL OUT OF ORDER by Tony Hoagland

One thing’s for sure; in the future, the morgues

are going to be full of tattoos.

It’s going to be more colorful and easier to 

manage:

“Hey Jeff, move Dolphin-Shoulder-Girl to tray

seven.”

“And get Mr. Flames-on-My-Neck out for the

doc.”

In Italy the tabloids are talking about

  L’Ambulanza della Morte,

The Ambulance of Death;

a medic who was killing his passengers

to provide business for his brother’s funeral

parlor.

I think we can agree that the world is a Bible

with chapters shuffled all out of order.

I think we still can’t decide which we want

in the end: Justice or Mercy.

When my doctor asks what my symptoms are, I

tell her

self-pity and a desire to apologize.

She says my insurance policy covers self-pity,

but not, unfortunately, remorse.

Remember the movie in which Sidney Portier

plays a school teacher

who returns the love letter from one of his 

students,

returns it with all the grammatical errors

corrected in red, heartbreaking ink?

I'm sometimes afraid that’s what I’ve done with

life.

Yet here’s what I have to say to all you travelers

-

Moses doesn’t make it to the Promised Land.

Cain and Abel don’t get reunited in the end.

Belief is not a requirement to go on living.

It’s possible I have this all out of order.

We’ll end up at a funeral parlor run by

somebody’s brother,

Our bodies covered with scars and invisible ink.

While I’m lying there naked, flat on my back,

I hope I remember all that I went through-

the storms and the lovers and mountains;

Complaining at the top of my lungs;

salting my grief with my mirth

USE ME

Do I have USE ME tattooed on my forehead in invisible ink that's only visible to users and abusers?

Why do I have such horrendous luck with people?

Why do I allow greedy people to take advantage of me repeatedly? 

What is it about me that brings out the absolute worst in people?

Why does going above and beyond for my nearest and dearest get taken for granted to the point where I am expected to give beyond reason?

Why do I end up becoming friends with people who take and take and take every last drop they can use until I’m wrung out? 

What is it about these miserly, opportunistic fucks who take what they would NEVER give with more entitlement and impunity than most anyone who knows them would believe?

Why do I befriend so many master manipulators and actors who have managed to pull the wool over the eyes of most of the dumb motherfuckers they call friends? Or is it that I recognize their highs as well as how low they can go, but hope wholeheartedly they won’t go so low with me; only to find they go even lower bc they recognize  they can get away with doing things to me they would never dream of doing to anyone else bc they can take advantage of negative narratives about me and use me to justify doing the wrong thing?

Why do I befriend cowardly people who puss out and don't have the integrity or decency to have an honest and direct conversation when there's major to minor conflict, and/or use said conflict as an excuse to bow out of any semblance of reciprocity when I need a modicum level of support?

Why is it that people don't recognize that I need compassion and a helping hand from time to time? Or is it that they never gave a shit about me or considered me a friend at all? Is it really that they were only there to take everything I had to give?

Maybe all these failed relationships were a series of unfortunate trauma bonding incidents between interim members of the lonely hearts club, who keep circling thru a revolving door for refusing to learn lessons we should’ve figured out by now?

Maybe I need to find solace in failing better as I grow older. 

🪷Use me properly🪷

 “It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them.” 

      -Confucius 

 "You are the hummingbird that comes"

Craig Arnold

You are the hummingbird that comes
a pure vibration wings a blur
propeller-burring a million beats
to keep still the world's littlest pivot
spinning the heaven's hemisphere
as a wineglass with a wet finger
laid on the rim to make it ring

Feathers a rainbow how you reel 

hovering over blossom cheeks
tucked into the honeysuckle
to lap a single drop of nectar
onto your tongue messenger-goddess
kicking a gold-dust of pollen
out of your winged heel

The slow promise of your approach
makes my throat thick the joy gathers
deep in my spine as if it were a snake
making a smooth wave of muscle
toward the taste of water

Love Cook 

Ron Padgett 

Let me cook you some dinner.   

Sit down and take off your shoes   

and socks and in fact the rest   

of your clothes, have a daquiri,   

turn on some music and dance   

around the house, inside and out,   

it’s night and the neighbors   

are sleeping, those dolts, and   

the stars are shining bright,   

and I’ve got the burners lit   

for you, you hungry thing.

Test # 1: 김밥

 

I Come Home Wanting To Touch Everyone

Stephen Dunn

The dogs greet me, I descend

into their world of fur and tongues

and then my wife and I embrace

as if we’d just closed the door

in a motel, our two girls slip in

between us and we’re all saying

each other’s names and the dogs

Buster and Sundown are on their hind legs,

people-style, seeking more love.

I’ve come home wanting to touch

everyone, everything; usually I turn

the key and they’re all lost

in food or homework, even the dogs

are preoccupied with themselves,

I desire only to ease

back in, the mail, a drink,

but tonight the body-hungers have sent out

their long-range signals

or love itself has risen

from its squalor of neglect.

Everytime the kids turn their backs

I touch my wife’s breasts

and when she checks the dinner

the unfriendly cat on the dishwasher

wants to rub heads, starts to speak

with his little motor and violin–

everything, everyone is intelligible

in the language of touch,

and we sit down to dinner inarticulate

as blood, all difficulties postponed

because the weather is so good.