Scantily Clad Press, 2009
Musical etymology of Us as Scene Creamers: ca. 1930-2004 Donald, you look like you might be famous— Jarvis Cocker on a cold day cum Pulp hardcore I trace your lineage to us back in black bad brains Dischord pay to cum DC (no kill no beep-beep). He moves there like Crisco Disco like off the coast of Barcelona. Boots of Spanish leather. 1975: Tracks on the Blood. Rocksteady rudeboys lambretta riders of the storm drank Booker’s bourbon: tannic tobacco—they call it Spanish Slider neck-laced pearl Marquee Moon television Renaissance thin gin jazz june waste of shame kick the clock unplugged: you can’t tell time any thing.
Sonnet in which a War & Lovers’ Spat occurs Kick the clock unplugged: you can’t tell time any thing (you can’t run out of time it runs circles): DonaldHero woke—the vagina-thing and believed it. Just beveled it. Beveled belief cocksure semen is a shot string is just one more time. Promise: I won’t fuck around standing in the rain too singing me soft mutter harder chuckle turns cough hide you inside me talk me into you duct taped precocious every knife night fight woke sounds comrades taken to the gallows. This was like our love: knife fights every night. We know that life’s the distance between us. Donald, you look like you might be famous.
Our Extra Girl Lover (Miss Mae, Miss Michelle Mae) & The Gospel Yé Yé Donald, you look like you might be famous not for that fop 2nd year po-mo bullshit rapturous darkness my old friend heinous manuscript of free flirting with the flits (you say it’s just for kicks). But O, Donald, free & tied as sparrows only lovers, I’m also in demand—in Istanbul the boys call me American Delight. Let’s must stop fighting and make-up make out we’ll fuck but we’ll wear masks of eachother then flip a coin like always for takeout taco fantasy chose my scene creamer— these poor 1st years have no clue no ball-things: we’re just three lovers riding on the wing.
The night after I taught your class this Summer We’re just three lovers riding on the wing me you the girl all the boys know from school we picked her up drove to(get)her the sign said XXX but they were talkin‘bout root beer. She was 18 you guys—no faker—fucked once a fireman—she straddled me asked
will you teach my class next semester ducked questions asked you love me made me flaccid. O, bonnie Donny (yr both red & thick) I think Robert Burns would utter with scorn you are the heir to bawdy poesy tricks: your pubic hair looks the mane unicorn. O she still holds it now so I have yet to taste your lips on my cigarette.
Petals on a wet, black bough (Etymology of love, Halloween Style, ca. 2006) To taste your lipstick on my cigarette one more time. Halloween cross-dressed goth slut I can touch your soul just not your prick yet. That night the devil he came knocking—shut your door. At wrist & neck fast on the wing— and cage her. Every virgin holds a yes. We learned her body, broken little thing with blue curious hair. No—small blessing —it’s the cut cock crowed thrice: Donald Dunbar. The white. Dangerous kitchen: living room: move. Cheers, girls, you’re free from the blood push far duration. Well, love, isn’t that just like you? Sweet sweat-soaked ottoman. The salt. Your skin; bitterness keeps the salt of your skin again.
In my own movie about myself I’d play myself in a TV movie Bitterness keeps the salt of your skin again: A car to talk to, a play where we share a question answered, beloved love-sin:
I made love to the girl to first play this. I can tell you see this gets softer while we quest the quick climax. Your arms are closed but your legs are open. It gets lied about: I shake squeeze hard a polaroid. So when I light my cigarettes by match you are a rich, thickly loaded brushstroke: so when I put a plastic bag to catch your breath-halo and give the fuck-choke: you catch the fell force of love’s brevity. Don said: How can I make this happen to me?
Etymology of Falsehood: never in words, it is in things Don said: How can I make this happen to me? I laugh: between you and the thing itself —picture models of a reality.
If you cut it deep enough, does god see? O—comforter, where is your comforting? She fills the air with arrows. Comforter— wound of life—tickle my catastrophe. Born of the absence of light, makes me her reparable: a parable, retold. Every profound old spirit needs a mask Donald and I laugh: I’m tits on this bull. I will gash you—shroud your eyes in darkness. Behind I take you, whisper down your neck we are a series of meaningless movements.
Self-Portrait of Us as French New Wave We are a series of meaningless movements said got every f-stop known to man in this ‘lil picture. In comes my Don: mensa motherfucker Don standing in the rain said I’ll gouge out your eyes and skullfuck you. Asa nisi masa she said I pulled out she said O that little red wap shoo baby I got one word for you: plastics.
I got one word for you: blow me 4 00 times neoreal Newman humble sometimes nothing can be a real cool hand. So, Breathless, great; Weekend, unwatchable. Just a closer walk to thee. Let it be— today’s history: me & you & me.
At The Cup when Rachel Springer and Christine Bell were drunk and Danny took home Bo Today’s history me & you & me is the hymn of the new millennium with our multiple personality disorder, wish us to Godard with them those next word in poetry bitches (I call dibs on Sawako. No—Joel called that horny Wisconsin fellow (I died when she shushed you, love)). Seriously, she’s so avant-garde likes vispo pulled into smooth skin from Brown her favorite word fuck but she laughs she holds still sucked slowly through American Apparels cleared my duct —you fucked in Cathy Wing’s aviary? We end in bitemarks, quotes (not that airy).
The Serious Interlude with Gospel Yé Yé (How we make sex/due apart) We end in bitemarks quotes not that airy like Despair is the sickness unto death. —Donald Dunbar (Annie Aviary) A park a bird a raven (says twat twat) but isn’t that so romantic like a limp dick cradled in the warming hands of a sister. Paternity you know impish little blunders turned into soft soft doves. Like my lovely lover loves culling my dick through her sleep (mymy she looks so young) like my lover’s hand is a bird dying to perch. Don, bruises arn’t bitemarks: miss you. I’ll love you as long as I can write po: the finality you probably know.
Plastic Petals for a Plastic Being (a one-page poke) The finality you probably know when D wears pink panties laminated says sly Jo the pomo desperado she said take me instead masturbated to the girl I take take take from behind (narrative for Garcia: the condom behind the painting-wall no, I don’t mind I said) when she asked on the couch her plumb little bits tasted like power no powder. I said I chewed her pussy like a piece of Bubbleyum. Petal of her flower none left for you to take instead, Sweets.
Being itself: climax laminated —Sir Noel’s dying epistolary.
Donald as Lumberjack Poet that I don’t Like Sir Noel’s dying epistolary
I’m not new: I’ve read your crap since the Weird Deer days. O drinking rum & mead honey wine’s enough... you get me? No Bears no beard shave that stitch’n bitch pomo stash don’t dare to be Bear no I won’t meet for drinks postAWP at The Dugout at The Eagle at Ty’s on Christopher I won’t play host to brawn I’m sing-y in the emo way the tight jeans on credit way I know what monkstraps are Tom Ford bespoke when MOMA’s free days are and how to shave places such that in shoop shoop you don’t notice don’t know. Goodnight, my darling—until tomorrow.
Labial trimming: $4000; Clitoral unhooding $6700; Sex on the Sonora Couch: Priceless. Goodnight, my darlings—until tomorrow I said to absolutely sweet Marie mine she said mine said the Sonora house couch. DON O GOOD GODDAMN COME SLAY WITH ME you text back YOU WERE SO SAD YOU WERE SO BLUE! NO NEED TO TALK I KNOW ALL YOU KNOW YOU FEEL SO LONELY IN YOUR HEART OH OH I’LL BE BY YOUR SIDE TONIGHT HO OH HO so cheap scent nose on collarbone her boots dig and pubic bone dig (if we were two gals beached in Erin you old Bloom would shoop shoop behind the rocks) I think I hear you first it’s in my head you said the same thing, then you hear again my bitter voice ring.
Semiotic Structure of the Blue & Brown Books Then you hear my bitter voice ring anytime anyone gets on their knees to pray well it makes my telephone sing
I’m all out of money, no sluts to skeeze. Jejune Jesuit, budding bard: Turkish bath hothouse the rippling water glides in ripples over your bell knocker dick I flick flick flick: its raise praise magnified to god. Don, I want you deep in the robes or as old Olds says the cocks in our mouths, ah, the cocks in our mouths disrobe your clothes: no more love just a hole to come home to. Wittgenstein’s duck-rabbit: when you say—sing —you love me, it’s both the thing and not the thing.
No One wants to Help You forever Kick the clock unplugged: you can’t tell time anything. Donald, you look like you might be famous. We’re just three lovers riding on the wing (to taste your lips on my cigarette) bitterness keeps the salt of your skin again. Don said: how can I make this happen to me? We are a series of meaningless movements today’s history me & you & me. We end in bitemarks quotes not that airy the finality you probably know Sir Noel’s dying epistolary: goodnight, my darlings—until tomorrow. Then you hear again my bitter voice ring Love. It is both the thing and not the thing.
Joseph Mains lives in the Sonoran Desert, where he teaches writing and literature at Pima College. Recent and forthcoming poems appear in Anti-,
Tammy, Poor Claudia, Ash/Maple Review, and as a broadside published by the University of Arizona Poetry Center.