A Consonant World

in this cloister of words a metaphor
an infinite regresses until the whole
is a matter of conjecture, the missing vowel
in a consonant world, drawn from tears of mercy
and inexpiable pain

in this cloister
of words, a metaphor
an infinite regress, a conjecture
the missing vowel in a consonant world, drawn
from tears of mercy, and
inexpiable pain

the
sea offers
up cod’s tongues, onyx shells, a
basket of
salt

kiss
the stones
of my eyes, she said
kiss the hive
of my
lips

bantengs’ wailing
swathing nights’ gallows
from heavens’ trough

Idiot bombs sets fire to the whoreizon, mortarjackets tailored to severe head from collar, hand from wrist, anklet from juicebone. These addle-minded men playing jacks and balls with children’s lives, sitting in pikespit and oval, scheming ways to kill the same person twice. And the children sit in the drake of night, wondering when a yellowjacket will find purchase in the hole of the roof.

mr
Smith
has
an
autistic
son
and a
metal
plate
in
his
head
an
invisible
war
with
voices
and
the television

Howth Head penance
graveclothes coiled in Guinness
a stone bowled into the rope of the sea

The cramping has started in the legs, high up in the thighs and along the ridge-muscle. They told me about this but I suppose I wasn’t listening, not yet at least. They said it would get worse, the pain and ache and palsy and rickets, but I didn’t listen, didn’t want to hear what they had to say. There is very little I can do to assuage the pain such as it is, so I must put up with it, learn to live with the pain and ache and palsy. My toes, they’re okay so far, so I suppose I am blessed. When they start to go I’m doomed. I need my toes to balance myself with, as keels or rudders; without them I’ll be lost, keeling over, and that I will never do. Before that happens I will be done with my toes all together, have them removed, incised from my feet and thrown willy-nilly into the trash heap where my other body parts are, the ones that have worn out and are of no use to me anymore.