Chris Zimmerly

Make a funny face cuz you want to
Why is she hiding in shadow
Make a funny face cuz you can
Leaping from silence
The powers refuse to tell the Truth
All the faces in the mirror’s memory stare like mullet
Their intention is to divide us
Even from 10,000 light-years away
Your broken-hearted smile
Is a railroad bed
Full of train horn
Blasting at the starlight crossing
Eyes are hung up, gnawing
On shadow and light
You are the Angel
Talking inside into Existing
Littoral zone singing Emily Dickinson’s edge of infinity
Then Death is right up in my face
Licking clay from my spirit
Until a ringing bell of light
Is all I am

Rilling a mourning bird morning
The Great Charlie Watts
No longer casts a shadow
Our telescopes trained
On his flight into the Light
Our feet got to move

Lately it seems
All is lost, all is found
All at the same time
If healing is necessary
Ask the Traiteur for help
No payment needed
Milton wishes to hold her closer
“She is light on water to me,” he says.

The old poet’s writing hand lay
Curled like dead songbird feet
On the August sidewalk
The boy pushes on the songbird’s chest
One last song snippet
Then quiet bagpipe
The tune forgotten, the blue period of late
Went blackout, new moon allegedly so low
A torn-up paper drawing of a cake
I’ll have a slice she said
Pursuing happiness as fast as we can
Each step approaching death
Pursuing happiness as fast as we can
One breath, one heartbeat from rising angel
Pursuing happiness as fast as we can
Tend your fire! You are the signal now
Pursuing happiness as fast as we can
One breath away, one heartbeat away
Another leaf in the street
A phone call unanswered
Oh, you are such an Angel
Here is your participation trophy

12/21/18 Poem by MH and Zim after being in Deep Ellum

I feel the blue nun, she’s on the edge of a ready to harvest field of bounty.
The sting and sizzle
Of sister’s swizzle
Ignites the inner eruption
Blink. The fields are ablaze, angels screaming
RUN. (You are the one we love, take my hand)
Run. The stumbling nun
Hands on ears
Eyes agog on approaching ever
In the middle of infinity, we exist now.
A roiling rampaging bull knocking down a shotgun shack
Butting us forward
To fall flat or bounce
Ripping open Heaven, be here now
With our snorkels, parachutes, and helmets
Deep dive, boys
Into it, into it now
Dig a little deeper, dig deeper now
Angel or Nothing

One red husk shell, the smooth barrel gagging

Newly dead Ernie throws his scrambled brains
Quick into the sky as hummingbird turns
Red the predominate color, the second in command
Is green, sick green looney bin locked rooms
Long hallways with echoes
The window’s grasping fluctuations
Touchy inside seconds of electroshock therapy
For a minute, only banshee shoulders for the lightning struck

One shell releasing
The last waterfall of thoughts
Swimming in shark jaw water
The warm motion of the falling pieces
Diving to the knees

Nostrils flatulent with snotty brain bubbles
Pupils staggered in terrorizing mirrors
As the soul looks at the body bag
“I love you.”
In the last molecule exchange
In the last biting fire

The sky is angry mouth where a plum used to be
Quick color the departure walls
O! Lord, I can’t believe the news
Everywhere shimmering sudden light

Hey! Do you want to go the Featherwood Hospital?
Anodyne stat!
Hey Doctor! Nothing touches the tired spot.

Clip the clouds from the fingers
Everywhere simmering sudden light.

Let’s check into the Featherwood Hospital.
A tin man, do I have a heart?
Oh no! check my pulse
Quick call a nurse
I’m getting worse!

Wood or feather?
Doctor! Doctor!
What do you prescribe?

She has a halo you can
Always almost see
Her kiss will not set
You free
It lingers like a hook
Now you wriggle on
The line
Tasted
You are rotten fruit
On the vine
Wasted
The problem
Wasn’t your
Bad advice
It was
That I took
It.

editors note: The dupe after the dare. (See – and hear – another mad splash on Zim’s page – check it out!) – mh clay