Halloween snow flurries, and you’d
suppose correctly that everyone wore
white–cockatiels, ghosts, albino
crocodiles, a card sharp in an ivory
tuxedo. No monk, I fed chicken gizzards
to these tied-up little bastards. I felt
like they should have fish hooks. You
call that hogwash, but I’ve read
the Scriptures. They’re not a crystal
ball, but I have a Jesus crush. I did
a handstand when I read Paul
and a trampoline flip after Revelation.
Then it occurred: yearn for epiphanies
and they’ll untangle your rusty heart.
A telemarketer selling flags shared that.
Since then, I have a design: I don’t
screw housewives anymore,
when I exercise I listen to Chopin’s
nocturnes, and I’ve brylcreemed my
handlebar. Not a scuff on the cherry
floor, my grub’s granola, crookneck
squash, and flounder, and I own
three silver utensils. Yes,
I obsess, but you can’t classify
the Irishman I am. Call me
damaged, but don’t try to sway me.
I won’t surrender, and if you signal
with flares, giggles, or coughs,
no question, I’ll grab my last
clip and empty it into these
little fuckers. They’re witnesses.
You began this fountain of blood.
*
David Spicer has had poems in Mad Swirl, Reed Magazine, Slim Volume, The Laughing Dog, In Between Hangovers, The American Poetry Review, Easy Street, Ploughshares, Bad Acid Laboratories, Inc., Yellow Mama, Dead Snakes, and in A Galaxy of Starfish: An Anthology of Modern Surrealism (Salo Press, 2016). He has been nominated for a Pushcart, a Best of the Net, is the author of one full-length collection of poems and four chapbooks, and is the former editor of Raccoon, Outlaw, and Ion Books. He lives in Memphis, Tennessee.
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