Three Poems

Brandon Freels

ART

My worldview? At the Earth’s core is a winking sphincter. Even after we flush, our shit-souls stay with us. The first thing I remember from my childhood is screaming. Two mountains pissing on a mirror. Eggs breaking as the Great Collector brings our waste together to sculpt his filthy city. But what if this DNA discredits my extraterrestrial origins? What if this isn’t Atlantis? Outside of my brain, someone is talking into a beer can as if it were a microphone. He’s reading quotes from Allan Watts off a television screen. What if he spoke a word so offensive you could smell it? Would it smell like something burning? Would it smell like shit? In the basement of the world, this same man lights a piece of paper on fire and calls it poetry. Eyelids open and close. Am I sitting here alone? Am I applauding? I never wanted to look like a painting. Every unconscious being has more than one name. My worst fears have already come true. Meet me outside in five minutes and I’ll explain everything.





BLOOD

In Heaven, death is a recurring dream. So much blood came out of my nose that the toilet looked like a crime scene. I could hear the sirens outside. I could see my head wrapped in caution tape. Are there veins in these overalls? Is my face just an icon for something elsewhere? I put a floppy disk in the death drive. Don’t worry. Keep your cool. Take a step back. Why do I have all this rage? In Heaven, everything is lacking until the blood clots pour out of your nostrils. After that, the clouds part and the solar dot lifts up the world. Have you ever had blood come out of your dick? Where I come from, it’s an annual event (an old bicycling injury). I sweep the red stuff into the toilet. I keep it hidden. In the distance, a herd of human horses gallop off a waterfall, gutting themselves of their earthly identities. I feel like I’m forgetting something. What’s going on tonight? Where can I take a hot bath? For my birthday, I dreamt I had two heads. The day before, I swallowed my own teeth. I guess it’s time to empty all the blood from this body.





SPIRIT

“Less lightning, more spirit,” shouts the bossman. But don’t switch off that television. It’s the only way I can show you my reality. As a baby, I cracked open a vacuum tube. The electrician said my skull was wrapped in static. As a teenager, the cops cut off my arms. But each one grew back in greater numbers. How do we change the channel? At what point should I go home? “I rarely advise people to do this, but maybe you should join a cult.” Aren’t I already in one? Floating from balloons, the patriarchs pass down the ancestral televisions. It was 1993 when I first got mine. Can I get a cheeseburger with that? Can I stuff my mouth with the ancient fries? I want my intestines to be as powerful as a Chinese dragon. I want them to have their own head. I want them to wrap around me like a boa constrictor. The salesmen tell me, it’s not about the head, it’s about the mind. Is the price right? Is it the best deal in town? Lost again, I split my spirit down the middle, dividing it between the body (dirt) and the space (brain). Life on Earth began when an asteroid fucked the air with a billion ghosts. Once you take away the antenna, all that’s left is the tube inside.

Brandon Freels is a poet and surrealist. He can be found at brandonfreels.com and @koalacanth.
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