Awful fat
nagging dollop
of caustic
ear wax and a
crystal meth addict
named Mindy of Kansas
City Kansas went at it
w/ firm new toothpick
in lieu of Q Tip,
on that strip of kiddie park
by the gushing fountains
on First Street— at exact
instant that
diminished minor
earthquake hit,
made poor Mindy pop
her savaged cochlea
like a ripe red zit,
all that shaky
quaky junkie equilibrium going off
with it when strung out lassie landed
on the undulating bluegrass, something so
nasty - ass like ancient tree sap poured
from the gnarled
knot hole 'twixt ear
lobe & clavicle, while
fifteen hundred miles away,
a husky producer's voice in Katie
Couric's miracle ear said:
"Lousy four point two on the Richter
& nobody dead so far as we can tell..."
Six seconds to Air when superstar Katie
sucked those chipmunk cheeks and nodded
her head so imperceptibly
the Dow Jones fell
eight tenths of a point by proxy, Ms.
Couric's brightly reassuring anchor voice
rang out
like a trail cook's tubular
triangle bell at dusk
for 25 million of us
trusting souls who
listened, by God we
fucking well all
listened up
then.
Hoover wore
rum-colored pinafores,
kept studded dog-collars, fresh mint
silver dollars & Czech pedophile dossiers
in 3 ring binders for a Cold
War rainy day, but
Dodgy Blokes
of Dyson, they
just flat suck
the bleeding heart
right out
that's
right suck the fucking
heart is HOW dodgy
Dyson mother
fuckers do it
straight up I
really,
really
hate how they just SUCK
the fucking heart right
I mean...
the HEART
right?
oh how
they suck it... they do!— with such
gusto they suck the stuttering heart
right out, with so much fucking gusto
& cockney ghetto falsetto they suck....
oh, oh, oh, 0h
me oh
my don't
quite know
why those
Dodgy
Blokes of Dyson
gotta go &
suck it so righteous
w/ Jacko pop & Seacrest smirk
rendering misty pink pulp in a
blender so very
heartless is
how it go down
now that they
sucked it all
out w/ much corporate
gusto they sucked out
the absolute
heart, my
GOD I can’t even
tell U how they
sucked they
sucked even
harder than wheezy Hoover
w/ bevy of lurid boy whores
branded ultra-handy for war
pig pericardium—bratwurst
sizzle, A-1 & bloody V-8
to pour and pour &
why not, have
another
thing by the way
do U remember Closet
Tommy Kilgore in tenth
grade & the terrible,
terrible mess he made getting
carried away w/ shriek of Shop Vac
all up on his pulsating purple
nut sack?—well
that's what a bloody
Dyson clavicle-cavity
resemble when they're
done—a smoking
ragged Road Runner RPG tunnel U can
run a fucking foot-long ACME pocket
rocket or even IED thru when they
suck that star-spangled
boo-yah frothy red rooster tail
of dying dog star
through alimentary wormhole arc
of July Four sparks—the precious
heart drawn, quartered, torn and
blown apart by these dapper
Dyson dudes in jaundiced
boutonnieres and bowler
caps I’m
telling you!—down to the very
pap-smeared marrow well & good
enough for glistening simplex-type
tou - tou - tour - rettes fake
climax snake skin simper & bent
sheet metal tattoo echo
cardiogram of a
sloppy bass line,
uh - oh,
OH
Jesus
did I
tell U?—
how dodgy
blokes done
it up right,
this time
it's true they
totally
SUCKED
my punk's
heart
OUT, okay?...
& U best
watch out
cuz someday
Dyson gonna
come 'round &
wanna suck
yours too.
So what
if I could see things
even for a moment clearly
as the swaddled Sufi in
Himalaya mist,
fresh from his
turtle-eyed trance?
Would it make a difference
if I told you every breath we take
is just an elaborate hustle
run by the ribcage
on the heart to keep it
humping away in there
like a gangly rube in the geek tent
with Gomer Pyle guffaw?—his
crotch-clamped ham hocks
wrung out way past raw?
"Oh glub glub-lub—golly
gah," Gomer goes, "glub-
glub—lub
dub…lub glub-dub…golly."
For an encore
I can hide your
aneurysm under
one of three
capillary shells—
while the seconds
start to crawl,
one tick every
other hour
until you can't hear them
any more.
Dennis Mahagin is a writer and musician from the state of Washington. His first book of poems is forthcoming in the Fall of '07, from Three Roads Press, a new imprint of Suspect Thoughts Press.