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bloodletting and the strobe of hearts


by Kevin Army


culture wars and loss

he was a disease on us.
we wondered, how can we rid
the world of this
illness. in stolen places,
we swabbed him into a dish and
found no cure. he grew; he turned into a dance concert, and
by raging lights and deafening sound,
flowers burst and died.

when confronted, he claimed
we're all infected. it's just the way things are. we 
will all wear off onto each other, and that's 
both good and bad. there's no fucking cure for the 
shitstorm that is 
humanity. so fucking dance and get over yourselves. 
disease is beautiful.

he set fire to buildings. built bombs of beauty and vengeance.
he grew out of the dish and overflowed,
stood naked on a mountain and

disappeared.

there was no sigh of relief. no better world.
we hung our heads and read the mail.
heavy on the two for one sales, and
yes, we threw away the bills
and took some drugs that
didn't really help.

signs of the end, embedded within and around.
around, and yes,
all around.


bloodletting and the strobe of hearts

and then, much as the self-conjured disappearance,
he faded back into the strobe,
the injured color wheel of the world.
we gasped our displeasure, and
mesmerized,
we shook hands and then washed them,
dripping with our smug belonging, our
inner flames of truths and lights.
we tore out the floorboards, we shook down the
world, and we
did not do anything for a long time.

look, i drip blood, but 
i don't die until i say it's time because
my blood is fucking endless, it's a river of red shit
climbing all around. we are all in that river together, the
sewer of life motherfuckers. the sewer of us.

and so he spun around, he spun and bled,
smiling and dancing, skipping beats and raining down on
all the desperately righteous, all the uptrodden, and yes,
we tried to kill him, but he became invincible in his outcastness, his
endless fucking and breathing, his
blood, branching out, onto all our skins,
we all caught something that night, and
we still are not sure what it is. was.
will be.
he's fading again. in and out and back in, then
halfway, coming and leaving, leaving and halfway. we
are halfway, and lost,
very fucking lost, a
heartbeat lost.


freed souls and the echo of fuck

and then, all that was left was echo. a
resounding sound, bounce of the loss
of civilizations that never were. we stood,
breathless; there was no air left. we
stood dead in frozen moments,
while he danced wicked
displeasure and erotic destruction.
he had spread throughout us, and

i am the final fuck.
and who among us
is not a thief, a vagrant of reality, a shining example of
decay. the earth is decay, jesus is decay;
compost returned to earth, the earth of shit, dead
seed and freed souls. souls, souls, souls, echoing in the dance, the dance, the
dance…

he turned the sound up, up louder than ever heard, he spun
a mix of fatal orbs and valleys and half-truths while he danced the jig of the end, and
yes, life began at the end of that night,
another fucking day of lost things,
from mountain to mountain,
from heart to heart, broken heart to
broken heart.
our wounds revealed, and cherished,
rebirthed and cherished, ever more, until
once again, no longer.
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