Ecce Oudeis

& the sun rose on Nobody’s

chosen coastline,

fertile fields full of

daffodils all ahalo, their glow

the last gleam we see

before his rocket’s glare reddens

& flares. This has been Nobody’s

adventure in miniature:

fled the rigors & found his tribe 

only to feel the pull toward 

pride or is this just the story

of another boring life?

Goodbye,

Laethwyn, back to Ivy Town, 

Nobody must go, the body
enormous & failing,

the paint peeling--a cat under the porch
yellow-eyed & losing its fur:

Nobody's come home
to die.  

Open arms in a gesture 
of invisible cherry-stemmed bomb:

do the Batusi one last time
to a chorus of mumbles.

Foot upon the ceremonial hoe,
this banana peel is my body,

the bad cholesterol my blood. 
The corpus laid out

upon the hood of a 2007 
Subaru--where he knew he'd end

eventually.  The scaly, four-fingered
hands swivel glue sticks,

affix the photos, those couple 
reviews, all the movie receipts, 

all the invoices, all the summonses 
& resumés, gingerly

closing the hand-bound tome, emblazoned
by brown crayon:

NOBODY REMEMBERED.

Eep Opp Ork Ah-Ah Means I Love You

Even Nobody needs somebody
sometime, down on bloody knees,
stumbling through the wreckage
with an Over the Hill mug full
of his own tears & spit, wreckage
falling from the sky in smoldering
shards like lawn darts swarming
the eyes of future cancer doctors
in 1975.              Diffident, quivering,
they bubble up from their pods,
his primary readership, without form
or fear, enveloping him
in a great glutinous smock, deflecting
bombs & rays, assuming the form
of a great cocktail umbrella
to shield him from the angry meteors
& poison flechettes lobbed by the good
townspeople, nuzzling his chaffed
sides & cooing in their rude approximation
of speech: we're here now, you  
can relax, everything's going to be
just as it's always been but remastered for
Surround Sound, your 3-D glasses 
free with each ticket.              Long gone
are the other Sons of Toth: Zandor, Zok,
Tundro, all succumbed to the shadow
swarm, a dark mob ruling through
parchment & quill. No Sky Ghost
is coming in his phantom cruiser
to whisk you: only Gloop & Gleep's
secretions sweet as goat-mead
from the cauldron of gods. The mob
calls upon the author to sign dotted lines
despite their lack of closed
captioning, but the soothing blather
of a protoplasmic talk show host
has already taken hold. Nobody's
going anywhere. Nobody's home.

Void Where Prohibited

Thank you very much,

Mr. Finger Pointer,

I see your high

score & know you’re

only going up. Friend,

you might think,

but I know better:

I’ve seen the saucers.

Code switcher in your

swishy robes, you press

a button & we must stand

on our heads or be

vaporized.

Nobody knows

because he peered over

the junkyard wall:

it’s the final countdown,

our big finale when

the atomic clock hits zero &

doomsday scenarios

yield blood & dust & no
actors in furry vests

driving good old Fords
into battle. Take it easy.

This will only hurt 
for a second, which equals

43 years on your world,
your world is ours 

now because we have collected
all of the requisite 

bottle caps & the fine print
says we are eligible 

despite our lack of basic
human empathy.

We have some blankets
full of disease that we were told

are used to purchase real 
estate on this planet.

Upon the Forsaken World

When you've got Nobody,
you've got a friend
in the devil, a broom
to stand on.  Hat points
at stormclouds, the fury
of the upper air.
Whip-smart & alit:
three witches walk into a bar
& burn the fucker down.
What say you good people?
The pious sink like stones,
those cherubic pinions clipped
& inked for wry screeds.
You can't take it with you,
but you can bury it deep
in the same scrub grass
where your precious Faith
went missing. Old
Goodman Nobody,
there is no light bearing
down upon you, no odds
that aren't long, a merciless
fate unless certain herbs
grow up through the fertile dead,
& even then, their poultice
chills more than it
can soothe, cold comfort
none other than the vapors,
every victims' name
another bit of kindling,
a stack of good neighbors
& the claims they've yet
to submit.

Hollow Earth is Other People

The good vibes are killing me.

Seriously.

Isn’t it enough to wake before dawn, grind beans, grind teeth, go where you’re supposed to be, be there, be square, squander what acorns fall before you?

The doors to perception are falling on my head: who can fly when Nobody’s fortress blocks the sky?

Through these crystalline ramparts, patches of blue might be swimming pools, charming dream-catchers & tantric masters whose root chakras flex until the plexus bursts forth a ship that shifts into the bleed between verses, a unified field’s sweet silence.

Nobody's new home between the molecules: tucked in for all to see.  Making a mess of ordinary quartz, dog in the machine.

The Earth is totally hollow.  Nobody's hollow.  I'm hollow, you're hollow.  Hollowed be thy name.  Thy kingdom done, I won't be done--on Earth or in Hell, which, theoretically is under the Earth, ergo inside the Earth, as opposed to Heaven, which is the heavens which are empty, cold & full of dirt.

Bury him deep in the beryl & gypsum & seal the tomb with a rune so he, like saltines, stays down.

A geode is a wounded ordinary rock.  Split Nobody in two and see what's inside: styrofoam peanuts, gall stones, corn syrup & centipedes.  Tell it to the hound.  Down in the ground where the dead men go for a little time to be alone.

Lying Tamer

Lions of the wood
we salute you; three
toes, three woes, beset
by the powers that be

& their lion-killing man,
just a workaday yob
in impressive livery,
nothing but a ratcatcher

to me, Nobody, brother
to vermin & the forest
creepies but lacking the teeth
these others die for.

Beneath contempt, above
the ground.  A rubied
mane is tousled in the gusts
of lawful prurience, not

brooking roar or yawp
or the meh of Nobody's
business but my own

road winding from yon

castle. Chaos is a bear trap,

a net baited with fairy

cakes, a fair maiden waving

from far-off towers. Even

this armored abider is weak

beneath the arm bits,

backs of knees exposed

just enough for dagger

to sink in, but Nobody

just peers from between

the manicured trees.

He is no hero, low

on charisma as he is,

so with hung head

he creeps deeper

into sycamores until

wails of his companions

recede beneath his own

snuffling sobs. Nobody

hopes against wisdom

that his friends might’ve

prevailed but even he

knows better, wonders

what the opposite

of Valhalla might be

as each step brings

him closer to where

cowards go to cower.

Us Chickens

We peek: two wisps

willed into being. Begin

creaking of hinges.

Squeak under

feet, whatever’s breathing

in the corners.

Collars up against

cold. Bold boys,

but who goes first?

Opening outward now.
Chill wind, a sudden

gust rattling the

shutters. Visions

of viscera, 

a gory end cut,

chunked, spat back
into cisterns.
Within Nobody

peers out at two
ghastly ragamuffins.
The eyes have it;

under omega,
bodiless dog:
sad & lonely.

Sad & lonely--
playtime is
casting stones

at shadows who
dwarfed by a torch
shiver & retreat.

Feral in the corner,
been quite some time;
catching up on reading,

brooding, the brood
advances, with poking
& cackles.

Nobody believes
in ghosts
these days.