Lee Nash
MORBIDITY RULES
In case you’re an editor obsessed with departure
like others I could mention who are very much alive
I’ll work demise in here as best I can – yesterday
feeling like death post-’flu I was cleaning windows
when a car drew up outside someone got out holding a rifle
started shooting into the trees I thought he’d see me
peering through the crack pick me off on the first floor
but he carried on killing pigeons adjusting his shades
and his peak cap – my friend and I went for a walk in town
saw a restaurant sign on fire the people dining inside oblivious
he caught the owner’s attention the guy cut the current
so we didn’t return to find the diners cremated –
later the commuter next to me on the train dropped off
spent from his day’s graft his head sank in my shoulder
a deadweight so incongruous and delicious his breath
smelling of beer I let him stay expired when he woke
he said it was nice sleeping with you then stumbled out
the wrong door spread-eagled the line of the oncoming express –
I croaked it out to my parrot she perched on my scalp
we pottered from room to room till absent-mindedly
still shaken and upset about the flattened man
I walked out onto the terrace she flew away of course
the next-door neighbor’s cat was watching taking in
the scene the way cats do and the bird won’t see tomorrow –
depressed I turned to the internet read that a teenager was killed
by a metal butterfly that detached from a fairground ride –
perhaps you’ll publish this on misery merit despite the lack of sex
or profanities or pandemic – btw the last male northern white rhino
died in 2018 two females remain kept under 24-hour armed guard
their names are Fatu and Najin her father’s semen appears to be
the only hope though his sperm count wasn’t high
so I made a good stab at fatality by the way
if I get any more rejections I think I may just top myself.
SUPERORGASM
sex with a superorganism
is not a simple matter –
it all depends on the matter –
distributed intelligence
(intelligence for all) – to wit,
you won’t know what he’s all thinking
in that techno-macho global brain
or if your grasp of gestalt
is as tight as his gray-limbed grip...
has individuality, in bed,
become a tad confusing
for horny termites and ants
or coral colonies for that matter?
back to the matter in hand,
the alien in my arms
the one with no sexual organs
who still wants to get it on,
along with his ten million friends...
if i’m the one getting excited
perhaps that’s turning them on –
i hope they’ve found new ways to come
THE VALENTINES
Happy Valentine’s Day, Father.
How painful was it
to wish your ardent parishioners a wonderful feast?
You held your head in your hands
as you slumped into the presider’s chair.
Would it be easier to physically,
not simply emotionally, castrate the clergy?
Would an orchidectomy lift the dis-ease
of giving the sacrament of marriage all summer long?
But God, the Creator of animal instincts,
requires (it is written) your natural urges
as a mandatory, perpetual sacrifice.
Notwithstanding my case of limerence,
do you wink emojis at other women?
Have I misread your oeillades?
Did they slip you chasteberry in the seminary?
Ligustrum and skullcap to dull the morning wood?
There are men that wear their celibacy well,
whose prostates are not compromised,
but with that sensual orifice and throaty timbre,
you’re pure hetero cis male.
A charmer of the Jesuit order,
swishing a cassock among the pews of contraband
must be a thrill of sorts,
but ambition doesn’t warm the bed.
I defer to such a powerful Institution.
And yet, as Issa would say,
look at any of my cells
(Hooke named them after those of a monastery):
a city, vast as Nineveh. You couldn’t cross it in three days.
You couldn’t breach its walls.
I am billions of years of Intelligent Design
and even Darwin could not explain my eyes.
They are Chartreuse, distilled by Carthusian monks,
high in the mountain of my face.
I am living flesh, not dead dogma.
I am bone and blood, not rite and ritual.
My body is hormonal medicine.
My feminine energy the antidote for loneliness.
However, I come only on prescription,
one the Doctors of the Church will not sign.
Here, in honor of the martyrs,
are my parchment heart, my pheromones, and my light.