Naked And Now Dead

What does it matter now, this derangement of the senses?

I have kissed the black cloud till its juice has penetrated my lips,

dripping its thickened blood down my chin,

my chickenbone chest, my hollowed out belly.

What does it matter, that I have danced with death?

That I have felt her velvet pudendum against my groin;

and suffered, oh how I suffered! The ecstasy of abandonment,

Peter’s salt in my bowel, Satan’s nightlight

in my burned out eyes?

What does it matter, through this haze? Through the mire

of medication, in the bright light of rebirth,

under the bitter neon sun, with angels’ fingers dancing

on the concrete carpet of my veins?

What does it matter, in this televisual void of delirium?

In this humdrum, bored, acquisitive world? What does it matter

that I have torn open my flesh to inquire into the nature of pain,

when the senses can be invalidated: as simple

as a needle slipping, insidious, into my naked flesh?

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