Itty Bitty Bastard – Jake Symbol
May 21, 2021
“Archangel”
The archangel was born when Dad came in a fistful of Earth
It came out blond as biofilm
The swill of errands filled its skull
Dad set it on the grass and let it find its way into the house
It broke down what it ate into bioluminescent fluid
Corn and green beans sludged and stained its guts gold
The hiss of wind in sedges coated it like language
So did the color of filthy snow
Sometimes the sonic residue clogged its nerves
Grandma would find it passed out with flickering skin
Hot and soft as fresh cake
It had its golden tantrums and never learned to speak
Transfusions of universal dog blood kept its skin from igniting
It loved to kiss surfaces, kiss skin in a sexless way
I’d lie on the couch while it chapped my face with kisses
Dad wished he could unplug the tendrils from its back
He wished my brother were exempt from signals
Kissing petroleum-stained lime under dander crystals
Puberty tore it open like corn, men took clandestine whiffs
Its sweat smelled like brioche
It came home on weekends with blotches of red skin
Cameron Hollis tried to wash the golden fluid off his dick
His girlfriend saw the film of glowing bile
Brought a baseball bat to our house and called it a faggot and hit it in the face
The blood made its jagged face more beautiful, busted blowjob lips
It stopped going to school
Would wake up and toss pissed underwear into the hamper
Leave glowing puddles on its sheets
Grandma pushed it into the shower and made it rinse its crotch
It went to house parties and took its clothes off and flirted until someone had sex with it
Grains of moonlight spilled on the bedroom floor
Significance welled up beneath the highway
It heard the broth of souls burbling from the underpass
Welts on its forearms
It was big and filthy now and Dad and Grandma were getting rough
It lay on the concrete slope and listened to the cars
The liquified sorrow rushing over it, soaking its clothes
Wincing and spitting as the brine filled its mouth
—
“Digby Speaks”
Dipping my face in landscaped
I have sad breath
It’s no use; the township chafes
Ouch a bee stung my lip
Backroad pop star. A queen
under pylons as time rots
ideas slough off me
Infinite queens shot dead in the dirt
in the midst of my tender filing
All of day they dole out
punishments onto my destiny vein
My pepperoni tentacle
My dripping diamond’s crypt
I seek your enclaves via the crisp
deciduous aether and railroad crevice
and baby pylon and stinking
golden retriever on my decrepit Plank
Driving nails into junebugs
I, an itty bitty bastard
alone in the bathroom with the cartoon frogs,
My whatever flesh
My mountains of sponge
Clean water squelching
A kiss for my teeny swine
—
“Thread Chaser”
I will think of you as the world boils. I will see you purling in the sweet shag dust, garbled moment of molten glass. I always wanted to lick off your aura. I wanted to huff the static off your chest, burn you with my limitless kiss. I want to carve open my palate and wrench out the dream. I want us still there when the carpet decays. I’m in the screw factory, goading a blunt-tip into the whirling hole, stopping to sip Kool-Aid. My eyes became milk beneath the pylon, watching the lakes boil while the rigs siphoned my grief, stunned by the apraxic dream. There’s no escape from the slaughterhouse of facts. I will live without you.