Unending Philosophy



Today cacked on mucoprotein
and warmly inched its way
up bog-swaddled, mired throats.

Today was filled as with blatant,
exhorting bladders in a stagnant
fly-spangled pond.

Today was gall.

I should have parsed the day’s rye
and placed the simple night’s sleep
between and had my bite.

Today was a loud horn played
by a choking fatboy, and so
general toppled, one wonders
if it wore its skeleton at all.

Tomorrow
will be isolated
and lovely.




Shower




The water whales me, upshot, unbewildered,
so I wiggle where she can not see, awake.
I sing eyes of larks wide,
hopping foot to foot,
and ha, even pee at the drain.

Somewhere encased in pipe,
the water takes on mineral and rust.
The showerhead wilts and sienna stains my face.
I whoop and slip, cracking my chin
against slick, rotund, false porcelain.

She enters, having heard the cease of bad song,
and the subsequent dense slam.
Her care and curiosity are answered by my lips
spitting an amount of tooth-nudged blood,
my crumpled body's ugly ass in the air
like two dull, abandoned foreheads.




Play of the Short Heads




Around the stagnant glass pitcher
wherein great mice exhaust their limbs
paddling to an end against the
clear barrier, exhibitions of history
and massive loves,
I and my son see and play.

We speak snake. We hide in brush.
We do not fly with our arms out,
or unfold our shouts in space
from dull suits.

Our heads, tidbits;
our endlessness, improbable.

All the world is off-road the hour,
and I with my son play about the pitcher.
We burn beneath hydrogen,
snack as if starved,
and where an ancient man looks down
pleased, I spit.

Who does for the snakes
as Sun and the hideous morsels can?
Not now, this me,
and not then, that ugly man.




Novitiate

A regiment fulfilled:  Pages activated.
    (parched chapter and irreligious poems)
Email navigated, charted, swallowed live.
    (electric mice and obliging beasts)
Clear head, deprive satisfaction, cement character.
    (strikes from damp nooks like a copperhead)

When done, I approach a crosswalk to my wife and son.
They stand on the opposite side, waving.
The white pictogram man arrives,
replacing the sturdy red hand.
I am closing the distance.
I am so near.

Nowaday Spry




Where colic toys antique the ephemeral gods,
where the sight of one's old ills the spider he wishes to become,
where no quick of a hand can bring profound edict anymore.
All have been given the might of the shrug.
We are so modern, cover pups that don't greet much,
but for wags and sniffs, then off in electronic retire.

Today we are so modern.

A woman I know is not what I know.
I will annotate her as not doing what I am doing.
The world opens and we fuck in the vestment.
The world opens as we close—
we are so modern.




Ray Succre currently lives on the southern Oregon coast with his wife and son. He has been published in Aesthetica, BlazeVOX, and Pank, as well as in numerous others across as many countries. His novels Tatterdemalion (2008) and Amphisbaena (2009), both through Cauliay, are widely available in print. A third novel, A Fine Young Day, is forthcoming in Summer 2010. He tries hard.

For inquiry, publication history, and information, visit HERE.

Read more work from Ray Succre.