There Is No Dog

artificial man

my head it churns crude oil and in my heart
I strain it through a collection of wires and
car parts all neatly frayed and impeccably rusted over
held together with the same glue they used on
my tear ducts to close them off for the
next 20 years of rain

the only well made trap on me is my forehead and oh
what a well made trap
where yours is detachable mine is welded shut
the stars at night float down and gather round it
sing songs to it as if it were a wall in an alley
and they drunken poets

and on it they project movies even!
each one a similar story of a pig having its blood
drained out
I have no such blood for my pump and filter are
sold separately

Instead I produce an alcoholic red paint
which bimonthly must be emptied out in the most
beautiful fashion
I become the pig and the knife and sever the wires
out comes the thick, sputtering and
spraying corrosive violent on the sky and the streets
infinite in gallons and pressure scrubbing clean my
perceptions and showing each thing as they are
red and objective with
shoulders bare and immodest
everything just a little burned
I watching my own film instead