DMC Mixtapes Vol. 4: Blackbox Of the Apocalypse, or First Tarot Reading After the World Ends

I. the colonel / death
after Derek Archambault

it takes a lot for holy men to give up
               anything //
so i killed god (took ten thousand dead
men to pull the trigger)

the holster fit / the barrel echoed with smoke
               i looked a gunnéd man in his dimming eyes
& told him he’s just going to sleep //
i know what it is to be god

& i didn’t rest after //
               i still wake in the night,
remember the river dirt beneath
my fingernails // the blood, same as mine,

               & weep

---

II. the fool / the fool

a vulture kettles alone behind a trash can
               & debris of Before //
a reverend & a sinner stand at one o’clock.
               holy man holds a bag / looks like snow //
the vulture is just pecking around
               behind the trash can /// still
there is time for our vices /// of course
               a man would think himself god / what kind
of reverend carries around bags of snow / & how
               on earth does he keep them cold?

Three Poems – lauren elma frament

FOR MY FATHER


who fell out of a treehouse he built
with his brothers.  twelve years of boyhood,
hanging by a slice of his arm.

who swallowed a peach stone while driving
alone.  how many years of unknowing,
how survival feels like choking.

who rode a motorcycle into a car, pavement
all winter & ice.  eighteen years of daring Death,
not a single bone broken.  not a scratch.

who fell off a tube tied to a moving boat, water
leading closed fist to face.  how many years of loyalty—
wedding ring, a reminder gashed into his forehead.

who is fifty-nine years of sadness.  who told me,
it's too late.  there is no one who can help me now,
& believed it.
 


		
	
				

Three Poems

 

Wilson Street, 9:53 PM

(The Acacia Strain Sucks/Baby’s First Punk Show)

 

“While sexism hurts women most intimately, it also damages men severely.”

—Kathleen Hanna

 

I am the new girl in a sea of bodies.  a boy

grabs the back of my t-shirt, drags me out

of the mosh-pit by the scruff of it.  he is wearing

a hoodie that says I HOPE THEY LEAVE YOU TO DIE.

we are outside Rocko’s & this boy is kissing distance

from my face, screaming NO CLIT IN THE PIT.

I want to punch him in his stupid mouth, knock out his teeth,

& I do.   my eyes become a post he is tied to, my fists

full of rocks.   he looks at me, his face frightened & abandoned

as I imagine it had to have been before he found punk.

I walk back inside, the shitty local bands barreling

into my eardrums, elbow my way into the pit, throwing my limbs

like the most loving stoning.