Lungworm (It is Real)

by Penny Goring

At last you are here, an excellent unhealthy

do you desire paradise

come and wiggle, fat on dirt, in my moon-drenched kitchen

with the crown of the lily convulsed

belly-red to the melting, trenched in your skimpy skin

convulsed in the flesh, belly-blue

belly-blue to the fur

lily milk furled in the throat

exposed by the belly-white moon

 

show me the fleshy flowers, belly-red to the melting, trenched in your skimpy skin

show me the convulsions, belly-blue to the fur, milked on the moon-bleached tiles

milk bottled, full-throttled, for the choke of the throat

five fingers, full-facial, fur-coated

for the choke of the fur-throated girl

Itmight be said

she was in your head!

here and there were

flesh flame flowers!

you must remember

her rubberised thighs!

let it go on

her electrified eyes!

tell your children

Look! No face!

you formed wild theories

UFO!

here she began

Look! No hands!

behind the smile

her dry mouth!

you never understood

her double blag!

but she wanted it show me the dirt

you grew to believe some kind of dirt

 

She knew you for a dirt dude at first sight, bed-slugged in your spongy loam, you were perfectly adjusted to the acrimony, you lived between potash and ling, and the dirt girl in her liked it

showy cheapo lighter clutcher

paunched in your life-giving necro dirt

with the throat of the lily convulsed

woozy with soft suicide, stoking her flesh flame, you whispered:

‘it is real … everything is perfect and best i do freely’

she knew you’d said that same love tat to Junky Jenny and Creeping Fern

and the dirt girl in her liked it

She had super soda silting her pipes and gallons of basic slag flow, but still she begged you to hoof and horn her, so you let her have it, your full works, right between the eyes

10mls of the synthetic poppy syrup with the power sleep potential and your nitro-chalk crumbled artificials

’til she convulsed and wattled blue

dolloped like a floppy dolly

in the bindweed dirt dimension

and the dirt dude in you liked it

 

you nailed that hell doll to the paradise tree

sweet ‘art, it’s a pleasure

convulsed on the trunk, belly-blue

belly-blue nailed to the bark

exposed by the belly-white moon

 

under a car

she didn’t push you

into a coma

wasn’t her fault

open back surgery

she didn’t visit

epileptic fit

blood in your shit

memory loss

you forgot who she was

pale hairless legs propped useless below the bulge of your colostomy codpiece

numb feet wedged on the footrest of your wheelchair

see, she OD’d on your first date, but you die every day

and the dirt girl in her likes it

if you were ever alive, if she were ever dirt

or even a distant view of a hill

 

I see you

baring your vein to the drip

for the lube of the lungworm trip

I see what shape your mouth makes when you find the clarity to cry

it’s a perfect circle, drooling belly-blight

I hear what you gasp in love-tongue when you find the will to wank:

‘twa, duhr, uhn … fumer’

(after this, you like to sloosh the bile around in your mouth, in a cheek to cheek way)

I hear what you say in worm-tongue when you find the strength to speak:

‘surgical squirm, liturgical burn, willywormer, lungwormer, worm’

I see the worm that crawled up your arsehole

and bored a hole through your soul

it catapulted out your eyeball

(jelly flummery)

I see the same faces you see, intravenously

they shape you, ghosts of dirt

 

Give Thanks

for the intensity of comedy, the tragedy of driftwood, the death watch beetle keeping time, tapping in her spine

Give Thanks

for the plodding home quick on wooden feet, walking fast on carved wood legs, the black-notched silver birches, the copse, the avenue, the glade

Give Thanks

for the seeing tree, the hanging tree, the lightning tree, the family tree, the tree with a hiding-place under its roots and the tree-house made of wood

rose can’t remember, but the dirt does

Give Thanks

for the picture perfect garden, the wall you can climb over easy, the tidy path, the foxglove spill, the mother, the blamer, the uptight shamer, standing in a soapy puddle, froth on her best red mules, that glorious red hair alive on the breeze, those big wet hands pegging her flimsy smalls to the line strung between two trees and the pegs are made of wood

rose opens the gate, grabs the broom, swings for her mother’s red head

Thanks

mother swerves out the way and her bushy red hair-do jumps off her skull and leaps across the lawn, lands on the grass in a witchy heap – it’s a living hairy wig thing

mother’s head is a surprise boiled egg, and her mouth is a big red hole, shrieking

ROSE WOOD IS NO GOOD – CHOP HER UP FOR FIREWOOD

rose plants her feet in the dirt, up to her wooden ankles

places her hands on warm rough bark, leans against the paradise tree

GO ON, YOU DO THAT … IT WON’T KEEP YOU SAFE

that screecher, that bald old woman, that ain’t her real mother, anyway

rose is the wooden puppen doll, ideal reborn, oak baby and fairy clay

she treads heavy, crushes trees, all ungrows in her wake, flowers wilt and grow backwards, down deep where the worms shrink

she treads light, trails silver dew, all blooms before her, the belly-moon gloats from its oak tree cradle when she lifts her eyes

for she is the paradise, and the hell, and the wood in the dirt, and the tree on the hill, and the fossil, and the brain, and the sea, and the rain, and the hell in the doll, and the you in the me, and the sky and the sky and the sky and the sky and the last sigh is the longest and the flesh flame flowers know

if you were intact she would break you

 

consider it from so many various angles, it’s like men and women are not involved except it’s something to accomplish in paradise and hell

 

She is the lover hidden under your bed

she shits, spits and pisses diseases

hosts of angels will torch you

when you spread her rubberised thighs

her face will turn to dirt

when you look in her electrified eyes

Look! No soul!

she brings the thirst and you’ll slake it

she craves the beast and you’ll fake it

she will fuck you in your own personal hell

you’ve been there before, she can tell

she’ll wear the mask or the wig or the pleather

sweet ‘art, it’s a pleasure

her hell is the entrance to ache for

Look! No heart!

she is swallowing you, convulsed, in her mouth

is that what your hell tastes like

nasty but sublime

this knuckle-fuck suffocates time

sacred but profane

you’ll get choked up, again and again

is that what you want

your own stuffing

 

foxes turn to stone in the alley

how does real love happen

birds burst to flame in the sky

how does real love happen

get in the Safe and Sound position and you will say to yourself:

It is Real!

f

lesh flame flowers

flesh flame flowers

paradise fossils are free