With this small pistol
I invite you to shoot me.
You are safe from repercussions.
I will press no charges.

Shoot me in the shoulder!

Is this art?

Some ask that art be gunless,
unarmed.  Well, I am asking you
to take an arm from me
and use it to take an arm from me,
so if this is your perspective
you can console yourself
by knowing that together,
we will be making art.

This is disturbing to you?
You don’t wish to help?

Or, it does not disturb you at all
because I sound like an artist talking,
speaking figuratively?

I assure you that I’m an artist
but I will not say if I am speaking figuratively,
or rather, I leave that up to you
and your decision as to what to do
with the pistol.

I could shoot myself on stage
but then, you’d bear no part
of the performance. Or a small part only
if you felt pain or fear for me,
or for yourself as I fired.

When is pain performance?
At what point does a grimace demand applause?
These are the questions of art we face tonight.

Here is the small pistol I promised.
Perhaps you have your own to use?
Please, take mine; it’s not traceable.
I built it myself.  Learned gunsmithing
just for tonight’s show.

At what point does this become insanity,
or some form of illness? I assure you
I was sane enough to learn the new craft
with great care.  The gun will not go off
in your hand by error.  It will require
your attention to go off at all.
It is not the finished product of an insane man;
my thinking is quite well-ordered.

“Shoot me” is also not my crazy thought
but a calm invitation, a willingness to take pain
for your educational and entertainment needs.
This is compassion and sacrifice.
How am I insane?

You may stand very close, if you wish,
if it will salve your fear that you may miss
and make a lethal error.  Press the barrel
against the meat…If you like,
we can clear the room so it’s just the two of us
here, intimates in shared creation.

At what point will my pain,
vicariously thrilling at one remove,
become worthy enough of your attention
that you will assist me?

No blame will attach to your choice
no matter what you choose to do.
But I have come this far for you;
how far will you come for me?

Tags: poems, poetry, meditations

I’m going to try.
Laid out like that,
they look appetizing enough.

I try.
The clash of flavors is…
interesting.  Interesting texture,
too. 

I try again a little later.
Now they’re cold,
and the congealed fat
that once seemed to add so much
is just so much glop.

I’m still hungry
so I snack a little while later.
Junk food, strangely aromatic,
still unsatisfying.

I put myself and my hollow gut
to bed wishing I had taken
more time in preparation,
stocked up on better ingredients.

Can’t live like this — should have
just had something simple,
something I knew ahead of time
would fill me up.

But I will try again, I know.
Have to try a million recipes.
Something in me makes it
so I have to have a thousand pots going
at once and time everything to come out
at the same time perfectly delectable,
all the seasonings working together,
no gristle, no fat beyond what’s needed for savor,
a good meal at last, and one
I might be willing to share.

My dirty friends and I talk dirty in private and public.
We the dirty, sanctified profane, mud spitters.
We the dirty music of living bother.
We the basement orators licking mold.

When we say gun we mean penis.
When we say fire we mean the act of losing the gun to its purpose.
When we say target we mean the regret of the immediate afterward.
When we say empty clip we mean not again we have a communal headache.

“I have a dirty Bible written on lambskin.
I tear the pages out to wrap my gun in.
I pass the Bible around for my dirty friends to use.
I’m a dirty boy so precious you want me to talk dirty.”

Ooooooh, so the lovely, aren’t we the lovely?

Sometimes we use the dirty words to talk sense.
Sometimes we don’t want to but we do it because you want to.
Even if you’re not here when we do it we do it.
Thank us after, spank us, make us come hard again.

So little a word as the obvious four-letter verb all purpose is beyond us.
So we invent a new finger for it.
So we stick the new finger up in it.
So we are the dumbasses with our fingers in our love.

Don’t you love how we smell, we dirty talkers?
Sort of mushroom and the hot new grass after mowing.
We pastoral because talking dirty is impossible on a farm.
We farm so you can see us farm dirty, manure, guns, varmints, words.

Nothing you don’t say to yourselves.
Nothing you haven’t thought of all clean in a rec room.
We the dirty songbirds say that’s all right, little lambs.
Dirty songbirds off the bathtub rails not clean ourselves, just for you.

Every dirty word is a scapegoat bell tinkling running from tribe stones.
Every dirty talker knows this and keeps the clean mouth for some.
We and ugly, dirty friends of ours do the big talk you won’t.
Thank us, kiss us, make us a hard drink, admit one with coupon, let us be.