by Steve Finbow
the look out for her other, her
double, her shadow third
that walks beside her
knife blade of her hips,
firmness of her buttocks
cock hardens,
feel stitches tear & snap & Z lowers herself onto it, onto,
her sex dripping with dreams, her pupils as black as death, bullet holes
in fur of timber wolf her thighs grip, drawn up, legs of grasshopper
Z throws her head back,
chestnut hair caught in light turns coppermouth open
resist, fail, resist resist again
saymuffled, “should have killed you”
Z laughs stops laughs again
Z’s perfect breasts arched high,
Z’s nipples pointing to heaven
feel heels of snakeskin shoes dig into skin,
gouge holes as Z moves back & forth,
riding, demon cowgirl grit my teeth
saymuffled, “no” saymuffled, “no”
Z stops
says, “i have to go now”
bright lubricate pearl bubbles on tip of cockachingcockaching
Z throws on coat,
goes into bathroom, exits with
something hidden in towel
saymuffled, “will kill you” shoutmuffled, “bitch!”
whispermuffled, “i love you loved”
Z walks out of room
lift head
outside window, squats monstrous pterodactyl blink shake head
think, can’t be look around room outside each window,
a beast—hideous monkey, grotesque dog, grinning dragon
sheela na gig think think gargoyles
yank hand from ropes,
tear muscles & tendons
here? hear?
chittering jaws grinding together, lubed with thick saliva
gargoyles turn their heads, cackle & snarl petrify
an ancient forest unfound for years uncovered by nuclear blast, trees flattened, no birds, butterflies turned to dust turned to air…
splashes of dark red urine
think Z, think blackness, think…
Fighting or Fucking
…why didn’t I kill him then?
Smothered him with a towel.
The easiest way,
while he was unconscious.
I could have cut out his heart,
his eyes,
his longing.
Is it because I need him in my life
but do not want him there? Like a disease
that keeps you slim, a virus maintaining your youth,
a parasite sucking out all of the bad things,
the evil, the toxins and the poisons.
Heat-seeking. Heart-seeking.
Love is a many splintered thing.
Mirror shards reflecting the incremental changes between hate and love,
between desire and violence.
Hotel rooms capture this,
replay back the myriad human exchanges.
They’re not beasts on the windowsill, they are the lies and the untrue stories made flesh: “Of course I love you,”
“Yes, I will tell my wife,”
“My husband is having an affair,”
“Yes, I would do anything for you,”
“Would you kill a man?”
“I really want to kiss you,”
“That wouldn’t be a very good idea,”
“I have to go now.”
“I will not contact you again.”
See how easy it is?
When I met X, I felt he made me whole.
He was the tool that tightened my will to violence.
Yet, after the first, that feeling became undone
and I realized that any man could be that.
He’d shown me how but I knew I could do better.
The roadhouse was a meeting place of dead souls needing things to do.
And what do men do best?
Yes.
That’s right.
Violence.
Violence is not the flipside of love,
it is its dark other.
“What are those dogs doing, mummy?”
“Fighting. Now, stop looking.”
Teeth bared, hair
risen, haunches
flexed, lips
curled.
Love
is the fear of abandonment.
Love
is the wrong answer to the right question.
Love
surrenders itself to some
other.
Perched on the building opposite, tentacles
flailing, tail whipping the electric air.
I walk the carpet-padded corridors of the hotel.
Chambermaids look away as I pass them;
bellhops and porters stare in astonishment.
I have hidden my eyes behind large oval sunglasses,
their brown lenses reflecting the symmetrical landscape of the hotel.
Queen of all Insects.
My eyes have done enough harm for today.
The cuts will take a few weeks to heal.
When they do,
he will be able to read my true life on his body.
All the men made flesh. He will not
be able to move a limb, bat
an eyelid, cross his fingers without reading
their names.
Tattoos of jealousy will pursue him.
In the middle of the cut I carved
around his heart, I inscribed
a tic-tac-toe of names:
XXX
XXX
XXX
None of them are him.
X is what once was
and for those that cannot be named.
I open the door to the second room. Look
out of the window. See
the lapidary beasts crouching,
growling, fogging the windows
with their foul breath.
Imagine X straining to read my history.
Will he follow?
Should I let him?
The place I am going
is a place I have never been.
A place where history ended long long ago. A place
where the human body became nothing more than a product—
more accurately, a bi-product of existence.
But
not
really.
Broken down,
it became fuel,
became nothing—
the matter of nothing.
Stuffed pillows. Necklaces.
Ashtrays. A conversation piece—
if that’s the kind of conversation you want.
But not even that.
It is the simulation of that.
The copy. So authentic.
So inauthentic.
But, then, isn’t everything?
Everyone?
Sentimental I’m not.
X once told me I was his life. And I replied,
“And I am your death also,” I saw
the rise in his left eyebrow, the tightening
of his forehead, the skip
of his inverted cross as his Adam’s apple jumped.
Truth is
what you make of it.
Truth is
Plasticine, malleable, pliable, slave
to kneading thumbs and probing fingers.
Reality likewise.
Do you believe? Are you
a believer? Did they all exist?
Daddy? Raoul? The politician? The stalker?
X?
Maybe we made them all up.
Lured you here. You followed
through the open hotel room door. I showed
you the beasts misting the glass with their meaty exhalations.
Did you hear the door close behind you?
The soft clunk of the lock?
Is that sweat I can see on your upper lip?
Fe
el the prickly heat of your armpits.
Your crotch yeasty and itching.
Sphincter loosening and tightening.
Maybe X is on my side.
For whom do you feel sorry?
Put it another way.
Who do you feel sorry for?
You’ve come this far.
I’m sure you want to know how it will end.
After all, like X,
all you want is closure.
A finale.
The denouement.
You would argue that road trips have a beginning
and an end and all the rest is middle,
narrative filler.
The roadhouses, the crash pads,
the bars, the hotel rooms,
are all locations of action,
where it happens.
Sex and violence used as a release. The bookmark
slipped in like a post-coital cigarette
or glass of sweet sweet cider. The two voices
like the angel and the devil perched on your shoulders,
whispering, cajoling, soothing.
How would you like it to end?
Ssh!
Fantastically?
Realistically?
In a splatterpunk shower of gore? A leafy glade
with blooming roses? A deus ex
machina? A god from the machine. St Michael
piloting in a helicopter? St Gabriel
riding a micro-light? A ninja Lucifer
dropping silently out of the night sky? Kali
swooping down under a black silk parachute?
Would you want us:
A—to get together, ride off into the sunset,
hand in hand, cheeks aglow with the dawn’s blush?
B—separate forever, walk off in different directions, straining not to look back?
C—X kills Z?
D—Z kills X?
E—none of the above?
I press my ear to the wall, listen.
I can hear the tearing
of surgical thread, like the rending
of insect wings from the thorax.
I should have stitched his eyelids together,
his mouth, his anus, his urethra.
Imagine those fluids backed up, the festering wounds.
I hear X worrying the binds with his teeth, the dead
animal taste of leather, the steel
buckle chipping his teeth.
Should I go in and finish him now?
You tell me.
Get it over with.
Get it done.
Gone.
Go.
Come with me.
Look. Babylon.
The living always outpace the dead.
But that will not always be so.
I think, from the very minute I was born,
the second my head pushed out into the world, bloodied and bawling,
I have sought the end of days.
Don’t struggle. Look.
Through the smudge of your cheek on the window—
there, on the horizon.
See it?
That’s where we are going.
I call down to reception.
Pay for both rooms by credit card.
Check out.
Leave the hotel via the service elevator.
6…
5…
4…
3…
2…
1…
Ask the spavined valet to bring the car.
Be calm and you can ride up front.
Clean the windscreen.
Splashes of dark red urine.
I look up and watch the beasts leave,
peeling
away from the windowsill into the air,
the stone-colored
clouds accepting their ingress.
A figure appears,
hands pressed against the glass leaving
bloody banners trailing down the window, nails
screeching, forehead banging against glass.
X opens his mouth…
The Sublime Persistence of Stupidity
…scream Z’s name
would it ever end with Z? stop following, dreaming?
no maybe kill Z
forehead presses against plate-glass window of hope
foot in door labeled desire
elbowing thru cruelties,
desertions, neglect
moving thru multiform substance of world with eyes fixed firmly on never-to-be
Z dangles in front of me,
some beautiful fly,
thrash out of morass of denial,
leap in air to catch taste of Z’s diaphanous wings,
only to flop sadly on muddy bank,
gasping for air,
for love
look for color of Z’s eyes in cyanic expanse of sky,
grey dawn,
murmur of silver moon reflected in glass of curaçao
Z rides night
in Z’s wake,
leaves bloody remains of discarded suitors & lovers
shrunken hearts,
torn pages of hated poetry,
empty shells of alphabets
& they watch Z go—those pathetic souls—watch Z’s long legs, Z’s perfect ass smooth & strong arch of spine sway & ripple of Z’s chestnut hair
& Z carries with it love’s limbless torso
go to it, soothe it with empathy, say,
“yes, yes, yes,”
watch as light slowly seeps out of it
hold its noses,
close its mouths,
dispatch it
&, as its breath dies on hand, say,
“end this”
Z watches from a distance knows Z has power
Z notes deaths & loves
in a journal that rests
by bedside at night
Z opens it at random, singing lines from it
away home near distant
stare into mirror
knock on door
open swiss army knife
somewhere
scissors
file
toothpick
saw
flat-head screwdriver
tweezers
stare at face
a… b… c… d…
on forehead
were there really so many?
so many men?
from so many places?
abdul bogdan cesc daniel
hand shakes knock on door
pull surgical twine stitched into skin
puckering above right eyebrow
tug tease blood blackened heavy letters
ab… tug… …dul!
sweat waters blood drips into eye knock on door
switch to scissors
snip snip tug tug
bog… …dan
tipping head forward see whirlpool pattern of shaved head
sweat glistening on scalp
more names there,
bodies left out on savannah,
bloating in sun
striplight above,
reflection of long tube in mirror
rattle of door handle Cesc comes easily
twine falling on marble surface amputated limbs of insects
dan… …iel
blood clots in eyebrows smear blood
over forehead obscuring names
take towel, wet, rub brow, rub hard, rub sore… faintly…
abdul bogdan cesc daniel
take scrubbing brush scrub scrub
rattle of door handle voices
on left cheek…
andre bongani czeslaw daisuke
snip & tug tug & snip snip & tug
rattle of door handle voices
“mr X! mr X!”
turn on shower step under hot water needles
snip-snip scrub-scrub
twine swimming around toes, newly shaved pubic hair
washing them away
> names
names
names
erik & flavio
guiseppe & haruki
ibrahim & joachim
keith & luis
watch them swirl & drop
into pipes,
gutter,
sewers,
sea
Z’s history
figures on other side of steamed doors
mikail & noah
oscar & petr
qasim & ranjit
shunyan & tariq
blood turns water pink, roseates steam
turn off jets, see final ones spiraling down hole—
ulvrik & vassailly
william & ynyr
zuriel
shower door opens three men in suits three large men in suits hotel dicks
one holds out towel
step out they step back quick little dance steps away from splashing water watery blood
“get dressed & leave,” one of them says
they huddle together
thru blurred water & blood in eyes—cerberus
gaping mouth of hell that is mirror life
as one, they look down at cock,
candy striped with scars—
swollen & weeping incision of Z’s name upon it
Z’s full name
never knew
men bustle me out of roomtake a few pitiful swings
some half-hearted kicks push down on bed
throw clothes jeanssocks… no underpants
torn shirt necklace
“the room has been paid for
we’ve been asked to escort you out of the hotel & make sure you leave the city”
say, “babylon,” to no one in particular
“get on with it,” one of them says
do fingers tremble try to fasten clasp of necklace
say, “Where did Z go?”
“nowhere you want to follow,” one answers
hear, “nowhere You want to follow?”
say, “you don’t know what it’s like”
look at each other back at me
one steps out of group severed head
don’t see
backlift of fist but feel
knuckles on bridge of nose
pain explodes thru head, bursts
small fires of incisions,
names
names
names
slip into blackness once more
once
more
thru open doors, beast enters room, gingerly
steps over discarded sheets of paper, overturned
chairs, broken mirrors, walks
up to prone figure naked on threadbare carpet, sniffs,
licks dried blood from man’s face, shakes,
armor rippling, draws back, bares lips, turns
tail, bolts back thru city, over buildings, disappears