Body


The heart, the heart.

The eye is a glass butterfly,


sugar dust, a thin membrane,

blue and iridescent as an oil slick

and the smell of rain.


Each warm bath, a delicate

liquefaction and a bilious abdomen.


Looks like she’s been in the berry patch

again, a fruity cyanosis. Gravity has a way

of settling things. The temperature of flesh


falls one degree with each hour

until it matches dusk, no more


the bloody radiator. Pigment turns

the skin the color of banana pudding

then a chlorophyllic cast as if someone


rubbed her with leaves until they bled

green into her. There was a time


when the seeping caverns would be dug

by lover’s hands and arid-made with myrrh,

brackish sands and sewn shut with a curved


needle and the thinnest thread.




Ode


Alex penis is magic.

Alex penis is an asteroid,

a black heirloom tomato.

Alex penis is skeletons holding hands.

Alex penis invites poems.

Here is an ode to Alex penis.


Alex penis will tell you things.

Alex penis dreams, experiences emotion.

Alex penis takes a siesta in the afternoon.

Alex penis wanders the desert, has a dark night of the soul.

Alex penis has been told Alex penis is complex,


is shallow,

is a narcissist,

is a darling,

tastes like lemon cake.


Alex penis has not yet been busted for criminal behavior.

Alex penis is a fortune-telling fish.

Here is an ode to Alex penis.




Goodnight


She arrived with her cruels and hags

a flying trunk    gold ingots

Her hair   so long    The pressure

in the room   terrific   Eardrum’s

vigil   Shells and tools   precise

wages   Young men’s teeth   Silver  

in the groundwater   arsenic

under the tongue   almonds  


Audience with the king   insomniac  

He can’t stop   praying    dull

ambulation   peripheral   haloes

in pearl   cobalt     Help Me

and she does    pulls out   his hair

He wanted to see her   work   magic

but quick   the awful potion

sparkling curtain   Her carpentry


She dreams   he pursues   she smites

perpetual loss of silver   dawn opens  

black   under long birds   grass

Copernicus keeps a pack of dogs

Pipe organ    air    Quiet now 

© Ira Joel Haber
ON10_Ira_Joel_Haber.htmlshapeimage_3_link_0
 

Mary Parrish is the former co-editor of Prinsesstårta Magazine, now defunct. She was quite nearly anthologized in a volume of lesbian erotic poetry when the editor, who transitioned from a lesbian woman to a heterosexual man, abandoned the project. She lives on the Northern California coast.

Copyright © 2016, Otis Nebula Press. All rights reserved.

0TIS NEBULA PRESSHome.html