Jeffrey Park

True/False/Not mentioned
in the text, the rabbit died, never
felt a thing, could still walk
a straight line and read the bottom row
A C D P B T
fit your vehicle midway between the uprights
with no more
than three adjustments
make your marks dark and complete
no more than three adjustments
and erase your marks completely
which side is darker, decide, don’t waffle,
don’t blow too high
a2 + b2 = _2
make sure an adequate sample has
been collected by the device
bite down hard
press the button when you
see a flashing light, you failed
to follow the directions
well done, round two, take a number, take
its square root and add seven
how many people got on the bus
how many got off
testing, testing, 1 2 3 4 5
5 4 3 2 1
pencils down, pencils
down in front, there is no right answer
testing, testing, this is a test
this is only a test,
this the only test, the lonely test,
this was a test.

Your love
is hard-edged,
electrically charged,
a roiling mass
of chemical interactions,
carrying with it
the promise
of a swollen tongue
and hard-cramping muscles.
I watch helplessly
as my limbs
thrash around,
foam on my lips,
spine crackling
like pork rinds
in a fire.

A vague diagnosis
with a thousand and one
possible causes.

I soothe myself
by saying it’s just
the voices in my head
urging me to do
heinous
unthinkable things,

but doing so
at a ridiculously high
frequency.

Could be voices
that were intended for
Sparky’s head
and ended up in mine
by mistake.

Which might be a
good thing
come to think of it.

This is the thing, the core,
the white-hot molten heavy metal
at the center of it all.

This is the moment of truth
or consequences
and you really don’t want to know
about the consequences.

No friendly shadows here,
no cover and no u-turns allowed.

This is the beating bloody heart
of the matter, with all its
irregularities and arrhythmias.

This is the times
and they are a-doing something,
I’m just not sure what.

This is the place where
everything happens
that can’t be postponed or avoided,

the place where we lock eyes,
hands, legs, pelvises,

hold tight to each other
like a pair of mongrel dogs fighting
over a great big juicy bone.

Sure, it may be a few days past
its gnaw-by date
but it’s still mighty tasty.

editors note: Yes! It and all and only until the next is it. – mh clay

You have to imagine a color darker
than black, swirls without movement,
reflections of alien landscapes
beyond human conception,

and all in glorious stereo – two sultry eyes,
two things like eyes, perfectly round,
unadorned by lash, lid or pupil,
taking in who knows what,

two tantalizing ripe cherries
waving at the ends of twin tendrils,
juicy and inviting and seriously toxic.

You could, if you chose, further imagine
yourself drowning in those eyes,
assuming your body were dense enough
to break their viscous surface.

Those eyes, those mysterious orbs,
I fell in love with those breathtaking eyes –
but in the end I married her
for her many-suckered tentacles.

The torrid sizzle
of their meeting
could have easily resulted
in a lifetime
of congealed regret,

but fortunately
for the olive oil,
in today’s online economy
revirgination is only
a mouse click away.

Explorer
some might call him
or seeker,
peeping tom,
rattler at locks,
one who charges full tilt
to the end
of the earth,
leaps
and stretches
and slices his finger
on one of
Saturn’s razor-thin rings,
and allows his
own eccentric orbit
to carry him
out
and down
and into the mist.

Solitary
uninterested in love
politics
world events
the thousand-year camel
stands
delicately balanced
on his own elongated shadow
and spits
into the fiery sunset
just for the ephemeral thrill
of seeing the droplets
sputter
and dance.

Dedicated, single-minded
he saves all the bones from every thing he eats,

cleans them, dries them, fits them together
into intricate new patterns that he says
live within the bones themselves –

chicken bones, steak bones, fish bones,
bones from rabbits, snakes, pigeons, possums,
God only knows what –

all wired together, they teeter on every
flat surface in his den, simultaneous
conversation starters and stoppers.

He’d prefer to be vegetarian for the sake of
his health, but you have to suffer for your art
and sometimes for your craft.