Robert Beveridge

Adult Oriented

The ocelot dollops

frosting on the cake, spreads it

with a spatula. Tastes

with a filed claw: “salty”.

Every time he tries

to detail, he punctures

the paper of the funnel.

Frustrated, he carves

the words with one

nail: “Congratulations

on your new location.”

The Black Soup

the eyes

presented

melts

the black

                                        bag

halfway covered

by earth, humus

the rich rich loam

to make blood sausage you should first begin by grinding your spices and incorporating them into your blood. bay leaves, pepper, celery seed, asafoetida, fenugreek (both leaf and seed), and paprika all have notes that will play off the metallic, mineral taste.

the tank

                                           stores

the drops

mendicants

                   wander

                               through

                         the

                                           ashes 

collect

the                          toll

          wait

rigid

                  outsized

this new sustenance, this new weight

Byelorussian Sacrament

hand

shatters glass

violent glass

blood mixes with dark

rum, crushed

fragments of yellow

bar-glass

I turn

the clock whispers

in disillusioned

Wallace Stevens tones

time to go

in the street before

the car a dog yips

sudden thumpcrash

under wheel

an animal has claimed

his own

through the glass

of the passenger

side window

in the mirror

which hazes things

makes them go away

the dog

yellow fur

spotted with red

lies in the street

hand bends steering

wheel twists searing

wheel in pain

dead dog fist

rams through glass

both sides now cut

arm baptized

violent red shards

of glass flow

a rum and blood

stopped car communion

in the fashion

of Chartreuse

O Face

The morning fleas

tickle the pink heater

against the vinyl stack:

tremendous dadoes,

Francesca, stained

glass all around.

Mighty cotija, the almond-

barrel prognosticator

within the troglodyte

mushroom farm;

a slept-on rubric,

a barely-labelled

necessity, strongborn

in a tide of sheer

gastrotourism.

Admit the deed,

tear up the planks:

what was once green

is now only a mystery,

a limited-edition worm

amidst a seethe

of tonsillectomy.

Operators Are Standing By

Ten varieties of weed killers

and not a single drop of blood

that looks like less than

a number of kisses

that can’t be returned

because all sales final.

Twisted against the night

of somnolent carriages,

astringent protein against

the crossed and powdered

elbows of Steve Bucknor,

methorned in tangles

of cattailed illusions. Streaks

of currant jelly, ropes of tripe,

a softshell Burt Reynolds

on a river of garlic butter.

A stand mixer skinned

in a haze of nucleotides.

Tangerines. Listeners.

Potatoes whose names

all begin with vowels.

A tungsten maiden that can

be yours for five easy

payments of $mouse.99.

Put on your cleats, even

if they are a size and a half

too small, ask the oracle

for next Wednesday’s race

results. We have toads

to scramble, eyes to kiss

Waterfall

dark hair

cascades

over your

black leather

fringed shoulder

into bottomless

depths

my blood

burns just

a touch colder

every time

your fingers

frigid from your

highball stop

my breath

one more shot

my veins

stand still, rigid

I must swim

to get warm

Who’s Laughing Now?

broken mind turns

to electric night

walks among six

billion ghostly faces

on the shore

of the River Beer

bottle of Sambuca

cradled in your palsied

hand, paint smeared

across the back

of your calf and all

of those six billion

faces smile, smile,

smile and you feel

as if they all want

you to smile too

and thus it is time

to duck into the nearest

doorway which turns

out to be a McDonald’s

and you might as well,

it’s lunch time

but you pause

and wonder why the center

of the foyer is occupied

by a fire pit with ash

logs ablaze and a-crackle

and hey maybe those

burgers will taste like it

you get through your order

with as few words as possible

then take your stuff, slip

out the back and try

to find a boat to take you

out to the least inhabited

island in the middle

of the River Beer

so you won’t have to see

any more of those idiotic

grins on those idiotic ghosts

Robert Beveridge makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry on unceded Mingo land (Akron, OH). Recent/upcoming appearances in DoubleSpeak, Medium Chill, and The Impossible Archetype, among others.