Tarpaulin Sky News & Notes: Massman

Gordon Massman, The Essential Numbers 1991-2008

ISBN: 9780977901999
Poetry. 6"x8", 184 pages, perfectbound
June 2009
$14 includes shipping in the US
http://www.tarpaulinsky.com/Press/catalog.html

from The Essential Numbers

1624

First we plunge knife into dog, she fell to knees, toppled, lay
like any meal in gravy, spotted tongue, then baby Lulu, thirt-
een months, pillow over face, pressure, turkey before baking,
extracted pussy by back legs from cabinet, beheaded him,
whole head glued to chair like shish kabob, marinated head-
less body in loggy toilet bowl, you sliced my clothes like
gutting fish, whack whack cling, strips, I lopped your bras
for mastectomy, slashed French panties like jelly crea-
tures, we eyed each other, “love,” you said, “love,” I assented,
“screw you,” you said, “agreed,” I chimed, “I despise your
mother,” “yours drank herself dead,” “None will adore
you like me,” she warned, “Echo,” I responded, one by one
we pulled the feathers off Dante our Parrot, poor Dante
caged and fruited like a bauble, several primary feathers
plucked killed him like a shot weight, claws clutching a
finger, “monster,” she screamed, “Frankenstein,” I fired,
“piece of shit,” shot out the canon my mouth, bereft
of pets and babies her wishbone glittered like a lit ship-
sail, meathooks, striations, bruise red bloomed in my
mind, psychopath, maniac, she studied me like a cannibal,
and down we tumbled in a flurry of slurp, boner, juice,
and squish, slacks and shirts collapsing like parachutes.

1562

Dear God, I wish to register my unhappiness about a few things: mor-
tality is a crock of shit, I could pop you in the mouth for that; gen-
ocide sucks, you deserve a penitentiary gang raping; what about cer-
ebral palsy? hanged by the neck, my good man, hanged by the neck;
I’m a little discontent about mashed teenager canon-fodder wars,
you know, blown off limbs and heads , amputated appendages,
post traumatic stress syndrome, freckled unwrinkled babies mud-
trudging, one could fucking kick you in the gonads or plier them
off like taffy and feed ‘em to chickens, here chick chick, you cel-
estial amateur, scratchy violinist botching Bach; the little matter
of pederasty, the constitutionally sour buggering preadolescents,
or fucking itself between consenters whipping themselves lee-
ward-to-stern chasing that momentary dopamine-filled squiggle
infusing emptiness shame hunger megalomania and finally spir-
itual death, smashed in the kisser, banished, bibles burned simul-
taneously like flushing at once a skyscraper of toilets, bloody
nutcase; what about space travel, you serve up famine, they
booster to moon in million dollar foil suits to tramp around,
demigods to television applause, famine’s worth decapitation,
(I assume neck not in ass a blade can find); oh boy peanut
brickle Lucky Charms Mars AIDS Coke, finger-poke out
your eye, sanctuary fornicator, superstition wrapped in faith
wrapped in fear, Mr. Potato Head; I’ll praise you this; blood-
covered morsels ceaselessly bursting, new beautiful victims.

1379

Huey, Dewey, and Louie bring home three whores for dinner.
Huey gets spanked and blown, Dewey’s a blind patient at the
doctor’s, Louie does it dog style on the sheepskin throw, three
women contain duck come like mechanically filled mustard
jars. How they worship zooming tits, purchased lips, the soft
slot machine of the naked woman. A stogie turns Huey green
poor mallard, night’s growing sour, the promise of vomit,
frankly diarrhea’s looming in guts of three like bruisy storms,
but hell we’re men aren’t we? gimme a Pabst, and red be-
tween the orange webs sucks off his purple cock, and even-
ing drags, dies, the females split, the males blacked out, ash
trays, tumbler rings, mixer packets, missed chunks, Donald
and Daisy anticipating an after the movie tumble pissed at
the profligate nephews, sailor suits and menstrual blood. Don-
ald to Daisy: God dammit! Daisy to Donald: fuck! Donald
to Daisy: Look at this shit. Daisy to Donald: Idiots. Dish-
washer filled, blender upright, the boys covered in blankets
where they lay, Daisy fucked Donald hell for leather till
both sets of genitals failed with satiation, Donald stunned
with love, penis a limp sore biceps, Daisy drunk with semen,
inside out like a flaccid flower, hiving for conception, both
fired and blown apart, hinged at the knees. Oh Donald, Oh
Daisy, Oh Huey, Dewey, and Louie, swaddled, lifted, and
held by God, suckled on heaven’s nipple, do not sob the flesh-
y mess of eggs and lust, sperm and hurt, the slimy floor of
booze, musk, and promises; sleep, safekeep, angels angels angels.

1316

Against my will, I rip down zipper, shove porno before face, grow
tumescent, and rape myself. Rapist fist-squeezes, tears undercircum-
cision tissue, violences orgasm into toilet, and bangs away like a
striking hawk leaving me on carpet weeping. Crisis response team,
rape squad, description (shot sharded glances in mirror), unrpedic-
table, unexpected, brutal, Caucasian, fled into the night of self, vast,
anonymous like a whiptail; rage, not sex; revenge against distant
abusers; howl in heart; injustice gnawing cerebral wires; I’ve not
confessed—shame—he’s hit before, cracked open hard core and
beat incessantly ripping out my stuffing and fled like a murderer
into my soul, slaked on subjugation and spermatozoa. I can take
victimization by his hunger no more, the horror, the shock, the
degradation amidst a beautiful world, his closet appearance ir-
repressibly, he’s always within dead bold perimeters, his shoe-
toes replicating mine and the gutturals wrenched out his throat
iterate details he could not know; Karen’s tampax, Sheila’s lub-
rication, the exquisite blood orange and yellow pipefish, the
unexpurgated yank through caverns of emptiness, cravings of
Joyce, weird tectonic schisms in the earthplates of stability; my
superinformed assailant confusing me with identification; smash-
ing my dick between fist with jackhammer-aching arm, he hal-
lucinatorily grunted, “fucker, you are me,” then incomprehen-
sibly vaporized the instant my come blew me off its string; pride
terrorizes—I’ve slaved, I confess, for years, homosexually, pain-
fully, grievingly, plumbing swallowing my esteem; the tidal sucks
off a devastation-home. No more: hazel; six feet; gray wreath-
tonsure; straight teeth; cupcake mole, left shoulder; moustache;
olive; one-ninety; deceptively soft spoken; black bush; left lobe
crease; fiftyish; big fingers. Grab handful of flesh, wrap fist, rip
him through sewer grate to light, to justice, imposter, fake soc-
ialite, slime-liar, hit/run impresario, abominator of stainlessness
and gorgeous stacks, chickadee household blackguard bastard.

1262

Dear God: thank you for the physical beauty in the world, etc.
and get fucked. Brutality festers under veneer. Abercrombie
and Fitch and the other even-cornered orderly little boxes at-
op the cauldron of rage. I’ve read your absurd prevarications,
burning bush, parting sea, water to wine, the whole bloody
idiotic litany. What do you take me for? My son’s in jail, my
parents hate each other, and love is the biggest crock of shit
in our world. Take it up the ass mr. big. I shove it in and
squirt my ever-regenerating fascist through your anus. You
“work in mysterious ways.” Sure. Gotcha. Like multiple
sclerosis, cerebral hemorrhage, schizophrenia, ovarian can-
cer, gang rape, endless battlefield slaughter, hunger and
starvation, crack cocaine, mandatory economic survival,
family annihilation, serial killer, christmas eve, the whole
bloody genocidal mechanistic panoply of madness, dema-
goguery, power-lust, and blood papered over with The
David, Notre Dame, Starry Night, The Cello Suites, The
Divine Comedy, A Night at the Opera. You don’t fool me
with your poured concrete. The devil created you. Oops!
a brief eulogy-interlude for my latest decimated friend—bone
cancer—chemotherapy, steroids, morphine, marrow trans-
plant—closed his lids on two blonde daughters, 9 and 13—
hole in air, let me chant: HeyHeyHeyHey, HeyHeyHey,
Hey, Hayi-o-ku-oo, tum tum. Thank you mr. zero for an-
other picnic in the park. And he believed! But we know
the irrefutable; invisible wasp with hypodermic stinger whir-
ring through walls, money, steel, petition to jab it in the
neck. “Come down, Come down, why dost thou hide thy
face?” one frustrated poet begged. I will reveal. The mere
hideous outline of you visible would decimate all animal
hope or happiness. You think my personal circumstances
blind and embittering? Don’t make me laugh. I observe
with microscopic scientific objectivity the botanical, zo-
ological, and geological, and state with emotionless inan-
imacy the incontrovertible: I could wedge a baseball bat
up your lower orifice, swing, and Hercules-hurl you to
plague another planet-island of cripples and cruciality with
your miracle-laden-liturgy and it would take a lifetime of
restitution to clean the crap off the end of Louisville wood.

About Gordon Massman

Gordon Massman divides his time between Medford, MA, and the island of Frenchboro, ME. Poems from The Essential Numbers have appeared in The Numbers (Pavement Saw Press) as well as in Exquisite Corpse, The Harvard Review, The New York Quarterly, Pleiades, Tarpaulin Sky, and elsewhere.

Tarpaulin Sky News & Notes

23 August 2009

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12 June 2009

Now Available from TSky Press: Gordon Massman's _ The Essential Numbers 1991-2008 _