One Thousand Kisses
I’ve been free-basing phonics
in a room dark as the lone
black jellybean stuck on the side of the jar
a room
cut with light from a Coke can
filled with paraffin
and a homemade wick
that juts to the side
as if to light my cigarette
in a thriller
about a plot to steal
the V from love or valentine
or just vowel
so that we can no longer
say what we mean
for months
we gave each other
deep tongue
and thought we were talking
the only two members of a tribe
in Tottingham
who base their whole language
on glottal stops
and the balsamic dystrophy
preceding cigars
and kim chee
hair wrapped in a turban towel she stands naked
at the sink flossing her teeth
reading of paper catastrophe
while steam
dissipates
what is a scimitar she says except a silent c
splitting an infinite ocean
what are we except simmering
boats
on that sea
unmoored
from any conscious intention
except
the next infinitive to brazenly split
and me ready to eagerly
swallow your spit
which I strangely enjoy
or enjoy strangely
a feuilleton of diphthongs
oiltoymeat
lies crumpled
between the sheets
alongside a crossword puzzle
devoted to black arts
and
handcuffs with spent Velcro
so a safe word such as purloin
is no longer needed
post-coital tristesse only means
her first thought afterward
was water balloons
for the child’s
birthday party
rapt attention is now spelled wrapped
to make use of the underemployed silent p
wrapped in my arms
she became a waterfall
splashing to a place unknown
even in Lonely Planet
and gazing into the pool at my knees
I reflected on her essential
unknowableness
a word just ugly enough
for the predicament
at night the moon through the windows without curtains
mirrors the bathroom’s LED light which in turn
burns like an eternal flame lit in my heart
by midnight sprites masquerading as advice columnists
with a tendency to write “vulnerability is sexy”
without actually reading the letter first
Oh Oscar Wilde
I could use one of your quips
such as
shake yer moneymaker
or
I can resist anything except execution
she sleeps without panties
not as a lure
just as if she forgot them
which is in itself allure
in the far distance the icemaker rumbles
as if it has secrets to divulge
no matter
I’ll drown them in bourbon
effacing all evidence
of her past lives
everything except the lives themselves
at night her cat walks over my body
as over a grave
and settles on my chest
to face me green eyes shining
bearing witness to my transience
then rubs its face in my left hand
initiating an act of divination
to the rhythm of its purr
it licks my palm
over and over
as if kisses were words
Cathexis
reify reify my soul mmmm yeah Jesus
got the Freud got the Freud got the Freud
mmmm in my bones in my bones
negligée literally neglect given little thought
or attention
I think about her all the time peach and vinegar
three fine snaps at the bottom
a thimble keeping my fingers nimble
as they tremble at the entrance to the world’s
smallest volcano ready to reduce me
to ashes like the monstrous weather cooling
burp
at Mount Tambora tallest peak
in the Indian archipelago
90,000 died
so I don’t
take it personally
the odds of that eruption
are one in 700,000
in the pre-crepuscular pre-coital radiant gloom
in the swoon of last conscience and first dream
a dream in which her red press-on fingernails shone
like the first stirrings of the window’s blood moon
I took the free hand not wrapped around my cock
in the twilight cockcrow of poetic paradox
to kiss its splendid palm the one that had slapped me
and she said daddy I adore thee please spank me
I unsnapped the abovementioned peach lingerie
as her loins warmed and slender hips began to sway
and with sensual abandon gave her some swats
then harder still harder than the riots at Watts
there ensued a struggle like the conquest of Canaan
troths, vows and oaths and an actual caning
radical and true as the Protestant reformation
transcendent and trite as the building of nations
then I read to her from Keats’s Endymion
of a beauty under-lit with whispers of demons
an endless fountain of immortal drink
pouring unto us from heaven’s brink
and we ate Doritos straight from the bag
and our minds turned to blank verse
and she said darling what’s with that one teddy
I have lots of sexy undergarments just ask
then I awoke from the fever dream and lay shivering
while God snuffed comets between finger and thumb
yet I was grateful for celestial points of reference
and the song of the lark as it heralded morn
love is some wicked shit just ask Darwin
rhymes with darlin’
about the origin of feces
about those finches
with insensibly graduated beaks
we become what we must
moving to San Francisco to follow
the waitress we banged thinking
it was gonna be a one-off
next you know you chuck that law degree
and you’re a courier
taking orders from the man grinding a bike
up a hill suffering aortic strain
literally she’s breaking your heart
what’s left of it
but then there are those chalupas
and watching the tallow re-harden
on the Chianti bottle
such sweet death within the breath of life
du dieu aveuglé as they say in French 301
the joy of cardiovascular suffering
as each cliché breaks apart
like a coconut smashed
by a standard size hammer
it reveals the tender meat
and fresh clear milk
beneath the rough surface
the gift of irony
cloaked in sincerity
or vice versa
oh flatfooted lyric
with fallen arches
thou hast trod
the earth in steps
measured and
unerring yet
remember
to stand on tiptoe
once in a while
I got sunshine on a cloudy day
when it’s cold outside I got the month of May
alternatively
oh oh here she comes
watch out boy she’ll chew you up
she’s a man-eater
then again
she took me to her elfin grot
and there she wept and sigh’d full sore
and there I shut her wild wild eyes
with kisses four
whatever the case I’m fucked
those wild eyes
should have been the tip-off
on a trestle
in the thistles
I lay me down
in earshot
of the train’s whistle
like Tristan
when he drank the potion
that started all
that huggin’ and kissin’
then the poison
‘cause in the great love stories
it always ends with poison
let me smell the resin of my Isolde
no matter how many times
she’s been bought or sold
her perfume hints at primordial ooze
and a shot of Jameson’s
her favorite booze
let the cold stars wheel
like a centrifuge
flinging off liquid
in a great deluge
let the harps play sharp
and the trumpets hit b flat
while I handle her sap
like a sap
in a trap
Johnny Payne’s work has recently appeared in Neon Door, Gasher Journal, Sparks of Calliope, Society for Classical Poets, The Chained Muse, and Soundings East. His most recent published novels are THE HARD SIDE OF THE RIVER and CONFESSIONS OF A GENTLEMAN KILLER, which won the IBPA Gold Medal for Horror in2021. His books of poetry VASSAL and HEAVEN OF ASHES were published by Mouthfeel Press. He has directed his plays DEATH BY ZEPHYR and CANNIBALS for Slingshot Players, Los Angeles.
About the illustrator: Edward Michael Supranowicz is the grandson of Irish and Russian/Ukrainian immigrants. He grew up on a small farm in Appalachia. He has a grad background in painting and printmaking. Some of his artwork has recently or will soon appear in Fish Food, Streetlight, Another Chicago Magazine, The Door Is A Jar, The Phoenix, and The Harvard Advocate. Edward is also a published poet who has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize multiple times.
The Collidescope 