Billings Montana

I left you
In a gas station standing quietly
By the pump.
Winter wasn't
Far off and in Montana
That's something. But the
World wasn't waiting and
Neither was I. There are no
Explanations adequate to
The task, no reasons
Reasonable or
Eloquent enough. The
Human mind drips out
Its decisions like milk
On a tile floor.
You cock your head just
A second to really view
The odd pattern of spatter
Before setting about to
Clean up the mess.

- mark sawyer

Scene From an Imaginary Eastern

Heads back, throats open
voices rising shrill
as wind through the rocks,
patriotic love songs
howled like a moon full of green cheese,
the elders look down on all
they survey. Hunger demons dance
in the starlight appropriating
kindnesses not their due,
robbing the rest somehow
despite all
the best intentions. Back and
forth and back again it goes. And a voice
gruff, from inside or outside the hall
(no one was sure) yells
"how to get rid of such rats?"
And the club footed beauty
with warts on her eye lids
said simply,
"invite them to dance."

- mark sawyer

From a Dream I Had About Love I Think

We crawled on our bellies
through a concrete tunnel
for love that never quite came:
dilatants of love, philosophers of love,
cracked egg shell poignant indulgers
of love. Sweet, sticky, unencumbered,
love. Back seat love. Desperate cliché love.
Without a name love. You became a boy
and told me of your exploits. I
scolded you, gently,
as a man, warned of
the poignant, the ironic, the callous,
as if I were innocent.
You said, "We are all recycled."
The little splashes we make here
only wet the water around them -
unless they make a storm surge.
Love with reckless abandon.
Might as well.

- mark sawyer

Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge

Once you loved me and I you.
We ran fanciful
from here to there
for the going.
Then life came with its absent
repugnance, ordained ministers, and
conglomerate. Life came and we called it
our friend for we knew it must be
but it spit us out like fodder,
went on dropping patties and plagues
and all that winces while we watched,
with pain,
a balloon, green, rising
to stars unnamed.
Rising like blood roses
crushed by the wet rocks
of intellect and precision, money and
round wet stares.
And so we looked
back into each other
and said,
“wanna fuck?”

- mark sawyer

Armageddon or Just Cloudy

I am a liar, a pig, cut throat
animal madness locked up
in Protestant palsy & pride. Justifiable
homicide. I am a pimp
stuck silly in this interminable
bingo hall without the guts
to yell or leave, my card
empty or full. Who knows.

Brazen dusty coward of life
suited up without recourse, withdrawal.
The lines just echo past, on and on to some
out-there I can’t see squinting.

This mud sparkles like angle dust
and it’s a good thing too—
my wallow.
How is it perpetually muddy, crusty,
foolish as a lie in church, and the evil
which assails us all? Bring it on!

I eat it! run, vain bravado at my heels.
Bring on the dyad, the Christian, the wonder beast.
Let me look on them, feel the trembling, see the leaking
puddle below and above. God! These are my knees
ancient and crumbling. What shall I say? What
flesh shall I sacrifice that cannot
be burned away in an instant?

I am a slug writhing in the salt of reflection.
Cow cud obviously not chewed
enough to be digestible.
I am a cancerous lump in my own spleen,
eminently human.

“Get up! Get up!” I hear you call yet
my legs are limp, my spine dry as twigs.

“Get up! Get up!” From where and why?
This mud? It is my home.
This fire? It is my breath. Leave me
in peace. Dare to. As if peace were a thing
to be left. Leave me in self-indulgence.

Yes, this is what I covet, the gross
corporeal bliss of humanity. Let the drops
fall where they will—we will make mud,
find a way, be undaunted. We will squander,
loll, and love every minute we are not screaming.

Do not look at my eyes. Do not make me wiggle.
Do not fashion a buckle to hold me. Please,
don’t even run my bath.
I’ll call when the rain is over.

- mark sawyer