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»Dmitri wears my skin on days he wants to smell death«

by Neo Musangi, January 24, 2017

1.

this matatu is a coffin!

somewhere in Uhuru, she burns incense to musk the smell of underage sex

and everyone along Keekorok is walking into mirrors in search of freedom.

what's the english word for someone who has slept in a broken bed with a stranger,

or, is it awkward to fall off after the second thrust?

these streets I've walked on; there is one,

that I must've walked on for the last time, today. O Jorge!


2.

memories of movements are no longer limitless, but that was four mistakes ago!

the first one loved olives because they were cold. like his heart;

at misery o'clock came an apparition of myself dipping its pinky into peanut butter

to draw the head of the third: the stain.

(remind my body to forget to remember this bit), if he asks me:

what fluids, with the properties of mercury, do if they can't flow.


3.

mutaratara mall is grotesque, a penis that refuses to erect.

my neighbor obsesses about making cables out of cobwebs

so I made him a sweater from corn silks and tassel; lied it was the same thing

& now he has gone mad about inflorescences and maize genetics.

(is it still a hacksaw if the saw-bits have fallen out?)


4.

who cares that your heart is red, or rose, or cherry, or crimson, if you drink blood

at altars scarred by vampires?

"Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing".

Dmitri wears my skin on days he wants to smell death

in graveyards deserted by their own spirits &

no longer remembers why symphony number five is in D major.


5.

we ask our bodies to tell each other of the places they've been to in other bodies

and if I forget, remind me to ask him for a matchbox;

I've watched his beard follow the wind

its henna like a flame in the direction of the wind.

so, if he catches fire, shall we know he was bloated,

&

that he only ate corn because it's intersex?

Written: September 2015
Tags: Death Doubt Dreams Experimental Fear Future Memories Surreal

The © Copyright to this poem is owned by the author.
Published by writerslounge.net on January 24, 2017 under courtesy of the author.


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