NOW I DIG UP PATINAS

Now I dig up patinas
I chew on slit logs
I polish surfaces of cyclones
I mount bullet wounds to inspect mutilations
I uproot the spirit of
the chemicals that make me
violate myself
I count limited resources
I view sinkholes in
the atmosphere
I lubricate the batás
& provoke in all keys of
flesh & hallucinogenic gongs
the obscenities stuck to
my elbow of whistling bones
& with Olmec sculptors shrieking through
banana grove of my solitude at 12:45 a.m.
& with the jaguars dropping from
my throat
& with the pumice of bulldog ants rising from
my damp discharge zone of
poetic fission
& with medicinal fat of
a big-time rooster
in my nose of talkative boogers
& with torn crows flying from my
brown-bearded ovum of
sulfuric acid blood
& with the insects blowing from
my colon of atomic leaves
& with mescal tears of oppressed fleas
smeared on wings of my ovarian cysts
I detonate
I nuclear react
I frenzy faces of
fascist thought
I become
Zaire River mouth
pissing on every
corrupt officer in an old
leopard-skin Mobutu Sese Seko cap
I unmuzzle my
black stretch-limousine lips
and say
I’m a poet
to vin rouge
vin blanc
drunk fly
corpse of a roach in a cup

--

from Digital Vestiges

Read more here

--

By Jayne Cortez (1934 - 2012)