Keith Donnell

STRAYS of gulag grandeur

frost-bitten          siren-torn         

undeterred     imponderable     forges lit

boiling veins black stretching forth endless strays [brace for]        strays

of a midwinter night’s brisk

claymore immaculate

                   blood coagulate heaven     triangulate

breaking shells broken crystalline scales antlers down Devil’s Punch Bowl

                                 pogroms of a dream. herculaneum, pogrom

                                                                  thou talk’st of nothing

                                                                  thou talk'st of nothing                    & you’re not there

so brace w/ prejudice

thru shrine water     metals detected

illusions rendered     hoe cake fed &     lineage forlorn

night hours listening mapping stars mastering eyelids precious whispers witnessing

bail bondsman abound     ICE collision

lithium penicillin botox    skin hair cheeks noses   

let freedom sneeze                                                              our beloved motherland’s kleenex

w/ all the romance of a cordite maze    

river runner     moon licker     siren kisser     holy water spitter

bail deniers emeritus streaking beneath a murky rice water sky

means your prayers vs. their piranhas

vs. fate’s razor

if you gonna try

SAINT FUNKENSTEIN

FAVORS THE ENTOMBED

AMEN?

Amen!                                                                                                                             Amen.

3 garage wall dark groove mania

king clinton no mind no mission control mania      pretty words pot-stirred                                                                          

                                                                               nothin’ but a smothered bird

misery-adorned    ridicule-stitched

                                        Hot Pocket apocrypha    sequins drip

my mind my pulse my mist     thy smoketh i toketh     forgive us father

                                                                  your devoted

                                                                  holy

                                                                  unbroken

dead

volition

destiny

records     to burn bag tendons     to boneyard devil’s    blues

so lurid the hydra rosary reaching     heart slurring lexicons

studies of nighttime vistas cripstalkers basket atrocities swooners in moonlight

celestial trigger fingers     elemental warnings     brain tides     gong show

mind’s where hammers collide     introspective plato bulb blowout

fate of strays     siren to civilians     in we go    

to incinerate the cadaver’s intel

basic mangrove gulag plantation opulence 

we’ve long tasted stone fruit from the cold open hands of slavers   

cro magnon crowns      orbital bones      blazing white fat

their 15 min loading zone salvation

our ancestral rage

lead pipes bleeding entrails trailing

i’m the zealot blazing bleeding rising now

from history’s trash bin      aortas arteries     smoking letters to the catatonians

black & milds     bath salts     day drunk     noonlight vomatas

popiate pius’ open handed smooth uncalloused ruby red prada gravitas

long hot dogs spent civilizing WE HEATHENS WE BRUTES

i’ve long toasted the body & the blood

i’ve tasted death in my plentitude of rooms 

i’ve eaten the fruit & passed the stones & in each room died alone

i’m the vulture now     reborn for the border     soaring                                                  

shitting down in the powdered wigs of slave catchers        waiting                               

praising & waiting & shitting &                                                                soarin’, baby, soarin’

a pure wire ran thru us thru daybreak

thru tombstones children made of tears & crows vibration

venerated the dead village so as to whisk this the wild caliber of our rage

crystal stairs marble tongues ropes like entrails backbone

bombs rocking closets rebounding whimpers the speed of these missiles

the pain of sound psalm we saw it all the light

thru prayers expounded death fetched the midwife

what quizzical bones the penitentiary corridor risen pimp down hemorrhaging

i saw because nothing should because i ran bigger kneeling

barcoded bones the sweet mark’s sunrise

markets of leisure resurrection down wind

upsold the paupers w/ dreams of grain coin webs seeds dance