Detroit, 1969

Detroit, 1969

Papa taught me
if anything happened
close my eyes count to ten
say a little prayer
but my knees lock and burn

one.
hallowed be
thy name   thy kingdom
come  thy will…

the shadow of Nyx is all around swirling around
voices are reaching  breathy and coarse
reaching for air that
won’t hold them.

It’s the same odd shapes
triads ripping flesh skeletal
systems flabby red meat hanging
off the bend of bone    dark
shadows  backs broken moving
at a limp   white ghosts stretching
for ankles leaving
purple marks   swollen ankles
spiked boots digging
into eye sockets  the whites
oozing out deep holes. Two. I see
into their minds  the spikes
meeting the cranium leaking
brainy matter
feels like chicken
fat fiddled between fingers.

Three.
Their brothers wore
white robes sharp pointed hoods on
white robed horses,
trailing oily blood by hoove
broke fingers like snap
black fingers bony fingers
snapping in different places
crunching like twigs
They stomped
through blood river streets,
shattering thin pigment on windows
flimsy pane  igniting
hate the raging fire.

The voices, the voices
Fire worsens to
flames, consuming blood red screams
lungs aching becoming scraps at the bottom
of bloated bellies
scratched, scarred, doused
in gasoline  set
to flames.

Papa, papa
his hot flesh
his boils. sticky wet flesh stuck
to the memory of fabrics
denim becoming new
skin. He’s melting
between my eyes he’s melting
like chocolate to furnace.
he’s sinking slowly
a puddle around my knees
gooey like a blob of gum.
knees are stuck,
stuck in this

Four
Make me a bird so I can fly
far far away. I’m left 
half-hidden under the hickory table
grasping onto each twiddled leg
sliced jugulars
their voices ride like the ocean
before it's strangled.

Five.

It’s all the same.

six.

the sound of crooked metal,
crushed beer bottle flung
and red red flames smack cheeks,
blistering them
a metallic belt to wrap
chalk lined cities and black
faces, whipping the bare
back, boils and gaping sores
seeping yellow pus smells
of spoiled flesh
silver slides down the black machine
whose muscles rotate
and degrade. Eyeless
mouthless, soulless
reach for my soul. Pinching
collar bone detaching
joints from sewed in ligaments
seven.

can’t trust
the darkness not the light
that encroaches
on these nightly haunts
eight. In the dark,
my hands come back together,
locking in their grip.

Nine.
though I walk through the
valley of the
shadow
of death…
feet un-felt under
shaky knees

As these words slip from chapped lips,
chaffing as those gears
grind and churn
papa’s voice grows stronger,
and the shadows pass by.

deliver us.

yellow fire devours the red red
night.

Ten.