| Jae Ming Jue |
Eighteen with 10 to 12 A single eye yellow like puss from an infected wound. It dripped a stare down upon me from the cradle of the night sky. Cold stillness thick with cackling laughter of dead leaves reaching out for me. And I stare at the East River stank like dark nothing, piercing your bones: of absent fathers of screaming mothers lost stray dogs on a string. the nothing you never had and never wanted anyway. I have seen much. I have done much. A double bass thumps a dead man beat Somewhere out on the Avenues Maybe instead by the booksellers Camus of the street Peddlers of dead trees A spanish guitar wound too tight picks out a sharp scream Fuck the cops. Fuck this place! Let my angry words burn into your memory all the hate, all the bile, all the regret. Eighteen with 10 to 12. You’ll be a real man on the other side. 10 to 12. I’ll not see heaven. I’ll not see 10 to 12 either. previously published at Pemmican October 2007 |
| Copyright 2007 Red Pulp Underground |
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Red Pulp Underground
Old Man Johnny His history was carved into his amber face. Smiling, tired eyes. Blood of communion was bottled in his back pocket. His friend, His partner, A companion. A tolerant smile greeted me. I quickly diverted my eyes, embarrassed for staring. He stood bent over his own shadow as if a weight bore down on his shoulders. A bale of cotton breaking his back. He quietly turned, taking short jagged steps, like bare feet on broken glass Everyone is aware of him but did not stare unlike me. He stops, gestures goodbye, not at me, not at anyone. His gloom lingers like generations old mold. October 2007 |
The Interview “Do you have friends?” “I call many, friend but none, friend.” I interviewed a fellow this morning quiet and unassuming. He had a boyish face, a skinny body, small hands. His eyes were a dark brown like faded black pearl. They looked at me, one after the other but both never together. It was disconcerting. I think he knew judging by how quickly he diverted his gaze. He would never look at me at length thereafter. It could be interpreted as shy, perhaps weak but certainly embarrassment. He was busy writing in a dark journal edged in bible gold. Poems and stray words, an occasional doodle “This book is my friend.” An answer following an earlier statement. “This journal listens raptly. It makes no judgments. It only throws my words back at me.” “What of human contact?” I say. “What of it. I can desire it—forever but truth be told, I am a boar or bore if you will. What woman desires that for company? I have nothing to say but insane mumblings of a boar or bore if you will.” “You write.” I comment. “We all write.” The lanky man had a point. Do we not all write. Some with sweaty brow Some with bloody fingers Some with tears of pain Not many with substance. “Stories! Troubled youth. Sexual escapades. Faraway places.” I exclaimed in haste. “No stories carefree youth I masturbate frequently I travel to my studio apartment often. I know that cell intimately It is my sticky hermitage. There, I retreat into myself The darkness I create inside offers me uneasy solace I know lonely solitude, it is my choice penance.” October 2007 |
Travelogue darkening the deep green, carpeting the land. Before me, souls of dead children knurled on a tree rooted into a rocky incline. A black dog scratched at it’s skin, chewing, growling, whimpering. It casts a dead glare, one eye, eternal thru me like a piano wire pulled against flesh. The voices, a mad chorus, spinning my vision a child with no eyes, hands reaching, blood staining me, and I, I in a dark hole dead stare beneath. The sun, bleeding down coldness as echoes of your silent anger reverberate in my black mind, I cannot ignore the time we spent, the distance between us. The ivory keys of piano notes mingling with the song of lost boys, of girls quieted by stolen virtue, you know you remember, you try to caress understanding into my skin, lean into me your history. My skinny arms could not hold, the enormity of You. Your long black hair curtained around my face, my eyes faded shut as you blew warm breath on my face, hot kisses of want, of need but my hands, clumsy in their clutching and coarse words tumbling out, silenced a falsetto, high and clear thousands, sons, daughters, revealed by the mist pealing back while a black dog drew blood from a half gnawed trunk leaves falling as I cried, wailed to the empty not one gentle hand, I wish you to wipe the tears and say your name on my lips. silence only silence. Previously Published in Poetry Magazine November 2007 |
Anxious Sweat I stare into the beginning as your single eye yawns. Our collective love mats your angry lips. I am drawn up by hands that know every nook of me. Your jenny skin awash in your exhaustion. My face finds innocent childhood caressed against your breasts. Lips around hard nubs that tickle my cheek as I bite at them— chew my hunger. You tense, digging into my back once again. Pulled up to the nape of your neck intoxicated by my spent love still massaged into your flesh. Hungry lips bite at my ear as wet words shape my hearing. A mass of limbs and shapes dance along the adobe wall lit with pedestrian candles we scavenged from a dinner party. Your eyes glowed brightly from mischief as you beckoned me here to this place to this sweaty anxiety inferno. You grasp tightly what no longer belongs to me. Mine, you say. forever more mine. No evidence on my body needed to prove your yours captive. anxiety sweat rolls off steamy. November 2007 |