The King of Dead-Wood

This is how the joke begins:

your father lies dead on an operating table.

 

The nurses and the doctors have all run off

to f**k and finger and to come

 

leaving your father, papery and still,

with only his red guts for company.

 

They’ve been hung on hooks to dry,

ancient elders of an ancient order,

 

glistening with the sheen of infection,

humming with the hot stench of vomit.

 

This is how the punchline creeps in:

slowly alongside the king of dead-wood,

 

who licks his fists, peels back his hangnails,

little lemon rinds from quietly cruel pulps.

 

Your father is still dead when he’s branded

with the king’s dead-wood words:

 

You are not me, and I am not you,

and I am not afraid of you.

 

They spiral, overlap, and conspire to turn him

the darkest shade of midnight black.

 

This is how the joke ends:

our fathers lie dead on operating tables,

 

tattooed with the words they never spoke �"

not to their wives, not to their children,

 

not to their own kings of dead-wood,

who are naked and alone now too,

 

no one to hear them, no one to hear,

with only their guts for company.

Author's Note

How well does the poem affect you viscerally?
What kind of journey does the poem take you on?
What do you feel you are left with once the poem is over?