PJ LOMBARDO

Trucker Milk's ar ignota
for Hildegard of Bingen

o clipwing waddling marshall of ants
adieu your castle that liturgy's
quit ring                  i'm swirling salt
into the stew of many undead chipmunks

eyedrops for a chapped uvula

Trucker Milk careens into prophesy

wiping the frogsmut off my nosebridge
swamp on my palms
swamp in the psych ward
swamp along the circumference of pluto
in the morgue
in the slimmest crack of vertebrae

my rope's all thorns
tattered drooped toothy daydream
sequins crust the mud
kissing horses kinda panoptic

if god speaks run!
i eat peatins by the truckload
kings dukes princes the opulent

sootbuffed ironclad
steeltoe bender on a pissing match with a sharp needle of grass

evacuation chime of key

cradle of daylight goes twister once more
flashbacks switchstings cross my cheek
i keep chug

swingset on the brakes sparking sewing machine
wheezing with my dogs on a comet's perch

garage fulla ocelots o my terrace
sung with bees
menstruating blue fungus
i walk among the concrete oaks to faint

consistency i dunno
whipping thru the meatscreen with my tangled online
crops                   i am so warm

under lakeglow on strike
with rottweiler my lap
The Excellence of Virgin Men

whatta lovely morning
to sludgeride the century
oven gutgrowl rummage thru the petrol
dollar bills onyx ink
o farewell pissless basket of used syringe
i trip bellwires
sag my shorts sparkles the frame
this global amnesiac dereliction

Trucker Milk gets the milk
for Courtney Love

slumpdrum saturday eternal where
violet sky nosedives my archangel is a scythe
around pacific northwest's jugular

my vulva's name is Trucker Milk it trickles
ys hollers grease down
the apple neck of a sewn doll
parse my ashes
purse my mattress twice the narcan
luscious nineties snot

gargling
asinine cardboard thru stomatube
bah! i screech to those
monastery cakecrumbs

asshole! i want ate!!

youthful tavern with an arrow
thru its door i'm so glamoursmacked
doused in doused in
glossy cheddar
i carve a curse into my father's forehead
i shit floorboards broad brushstrokes

feathers for the Milk
angular i strike my crochet
ached snake

i pullup nickel on my breath
yellow yup o no
he's got sixfigures out in nethersphere

drenched olympia
sour with placenta
can i carve it                   can i carve yet

vox smooth crisp razorwoven i
shed the stars the dead names
obits for shitpaper
halfpipe heresy then i'm with the boys again
capless machetes to shear
multitudes of spoiled silk

gutted drag thru emperors
dilapidated sloppy

prancing gremlins
down my stage where's that legion
i've pierced my bootheels
so flexed                 so opalgrime

ATECAKE

ur a lensflare dropout sever the camera
deux marguerite on hairy rockets
stretching psycholiberated
i'm uhman i'm omen and so is

pickup wheels they skipsmack purr
when i'd rather be a fossil
phone the wings to drip stringlights
across the cells as they powder
punch party
we oughta twinkle party

who let all these goats indoors my skull??
is it raining in ur cabin?????

if there are many claws (christnames
there r MANY claws) curl
inside my wingspan flout that
eyedagger when it caws u
devilsneak

scalp me u oughta! earpiece!
taurus zenith scalds pulsing resuscitation
bathbomb circuitry 2 carpet cosmic

Hot Pocket

leaden sunstroke
clogging bidets with ur perspire

i dig my hipheat cuz ur copbrain shivers
u dig ur copbrain shivered best autotheft
& all my gangrenous jeans molt
to silt in ur pinkies triggers @ sunup

dynamite manakin
implosion on the borderwall
waterwhips careen u

ran my clip toothbrushing
swervy lovebug shucks
my lungs sweet clementine
holster! zero that
pharoah             u know it rips

to wieldy rav
el & all the honeybees do
tideflatten decadent

Swansong TWENTY-THREE
for max

sometimes it all seems so pointless. like jesus christ will this horniness ever end! i imagine the earth's crust splitting into a chapped chasm & gulping down cars like fleas. nevertheless the butterheaps'll churn in the wake of god's departure. masticating viciously. viciousness remains underrated. despite all evidence to the contrary. many children have grown old with such devotions on their minds but still the wheel oscillates & whirrs in its hedonistic martyrdom. u have nearly forgotten breath! i'll love u forever for that. in a sense there's nothing anyone can do to stop it. that aimless bacterium floating in the junklined stardust. that painter with her brushbristles up her goldmine nose. nodding off in the planetarium i see u dash thru cosmos. riddle me this u plump goblin! how come my cellphone shatters when ur near. maybe it has something to do with the weight of spittle in a shortcircuiting faucet's neck. or maybe a siege of coalminers is storming the highrise shitting on the desks of anyone willing to listen. either way. this poem's done for! i can feel it withering in my palm like a rubberbound lobster. sometimes i stretch my toes til my foot cramps. & sometimes i just smoke & then there's no pain & nothing changes. but no matter what happens i want u to hear me love u. no matter what i'll pound ur pavement til my knuckles are caked in its sweet sweet sap. the porridge of contemporary america. the merrychase u've spent millenia pleading for on ur horny hands & knees.

PJ Lombardo is a poet and essayist from northern New Jersey. His work has recently appeared in Dream Pop Journal, Protean, the Brooklyn Rail and elsewhere.