DESTRUCTION OF MAN: AN EXCERPT

Abraham Smith

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yes  when people partake in killing the thunder
of the belly  people  they kill the lights
in the eyes  shut to bite
poor food
very poor  long ago  must have been  happened upon
it must have been an accident 
a wreck a mess a food  or
the tongue own wayward and wandering un eye
a tooth a milk densed a brace of flowers

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say cheese  say if the moon had skin
and a carpet foam of fat underneath
ponderous orphan phlegm
it's a hard on the body  it's a little new religion halter
a for airy a chafe a
f for false staff stab at uneven ground f
caulked the castle all night but i still feel a little drifty 
tickle quince johnny blows chunks crumple and blend
where the bend should be  the nose rag there
working its way out of the black pocket of the man there 

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what is that nose rag doing  tell me
that older faded red rose nose rage doing   what is it up to  as it does the double of a leaf on the yard in the wind with a crab crawl liquidity  arches back
held  by its crusts  in the oldmandrunkface folds of a flower  is it
down on the yard is it embarrassed over the house dog's deuces is it just yard day
it is in exquisite collapse 
rake like a mustache on a teen  lain lightly
against the constantly giving tree
a giant in a fairy tale  besotted on winedrunk farsighted citizens
their bedlinens  some stuck between his teeth sails
upon the gingivitis of the sea 

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something to how strawskins of green  to how
several feel  holds  one  above  at is dirt
cat dead bird murdered badminton birdie
barrelhousing hard  that snot in yr blood
that's sledding on a newspaper sud sud suds
blur new old  honey  holy  finally  against the ass of fun 
ho  those ducks  fat farts  blow the pant brown 

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do it the good old blind way   say cheese bye
and a group suffering mood  vibes back 
thick milk clay moth nose anonymous 

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is it dark in its whiteness? is it personal? it is
what we've always been doing and will do 

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a call a mist a cleaning a separation 
cheese  space  
mother  between  a rupurration   mother and child
kept apart
a hornbook a clot a clook of skin wanting to
brutalize the nipple for grow
how they stand the pee
our own eyes bubblegums clenched between the molars
of the ammonia emanating  ol shit hill
has some sleeping to do on fields far as the eye
but piss like a bullet in the ground
can't kill the dead twice  
is all killdeer brokewing at the noses 

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say cheese  tag suffolk thick  we supped upon uh uh 
waterlogged walls  rats swimmin  flood winnin
little and long bap bap white rat lines
as tho the life of flashlight light
living in a slit
lays the belly of a lightning contents seen  bald and flat and open and found to be  
docile as possum lips
the lips not the incandescent icicle teeth mind 
asleep in a snake sleeping the high and tight sleep of oblivion
bell vine gulch where the little thing goes? went

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this big tractor  may it frickin forever churn full
like a turtle  lives  forever free fall old
water's a catchy relaxing atmosphere
and the turtle in it  suspended  floating
an idea  not an action
the skydive free  
the opposite of that
were to paint it  would paint it with
water no one would see  paper wilted
is no good for fire  the oldest hotel
the oldest hotel elevator  each bing a
going up  old person picking high fruit
very old person very high fruit

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so goes blood through turtle
their one blood
share it  at night they pour it
one to the next  at night turtles
their mouths tilt then touch
like children
simulating lovely love
with dolls  turtle stopped
no slosh to slosh
however deft
if ever level ground

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tractor refractor ever whale
i musk i wrench i will
coo roll ocean door
rolodex window  
in each flop and slap
a mother's son's son
and the sands inhale
and the sands dream of pearls
in the ears of etiquette 
 
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farmer sailor whaler adult butter knife dragging
behind whose son's son's
speed too much for the turn
of phrase hides
helluva blind
turn pain pill pain road
hay hawk turning sky
a ray can opener 
and the scalloped potatoes of
a vigorous sexiness spill 

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a definite fish
split from the school 
the waking in the night
taste of diesel at the spit

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in the language of a fantastic castle
at the drawbridge of the skull
not a swerving
into the life of the machine
more the residual of a diesel combustion
more the shadowed shepherd of the vowel A tastes
more burled than birdly
string of xmas lights
die out random 
random and rainbow
caught in a sudden rain
one umbrella between the two
randow

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tooth aches too soon
early poor
smoke stack mouthtomouth 
old muttonheart pulpy
ask the bog barf rheumatic  
for redirections ooh to the blued sea
ahh to the sky's bruised knees    

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implement kicking dust
the now and again bang  BANG
a big rock  old dead glacier startled
into crank  and what if old stone new seed and what if
planted
what will it bring  of
course ice god this blind cold grace course
to sore an eye with squint in watching for a sign 

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want one? one what? dime
this is my  minimum face wage
the slap unheard  steady
as the river through a fish
city construction silt
far from here  pastes the pace
in a race to ungrace

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that's debt's iron hand  glowing red
a dawn or dusk
demonic hamburger helper
the power to swat  power to pinch 
as a child pinches
first one wing then another
then another until they too
could be seen for seed 

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said as seed
laid down fie low shallow
storm of hair above
us finger sun lean  
tip sun
some good frickin grand canyon sized apple
blossoms beyond the dead mid of life
when a person starts living  again

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as youth is making
a gun of some fingers  some of yours even 
and stick it in at the bellybutton
and the workin years then
you catch sight of only
when yr truck windows get so
they need clean
the dirt holding the image in
yr shoulders bunched and tipped
as tho this one time is punchin you in the gut
o cold as a chemical thought up
and made to do just one thing    

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some swell hot fat pinch beyond middle age
some hardshell fruit on a caracol cruise control
soft  exposed  soft  variety seeding in again  
in the second revelation of water
in the water that sticks  and the hawk hay brown
that hair lampshade  
salty sap  sweetly suet
lost  not gone
roosts  in cross mouse 
vacuum for haw  portrait
of a correct decision to go to bed early
for posterior austerity
lay above him upon a puff of wind
sexual part
the shadow of
ran the zipper zig zag open

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baby maker par
plastic window thrown on a fire
the clearest grease that is   the war rocket
thumbed to a crying  the exploding death
knife has feelings too  lord
lord

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and it shall be down there the feeling of
as tho a hand scooped deep in the creek
comes up with mud  stone  and water  and that's
minnow shy darter's pulsing gills
the the the the the the the the fleshy echo o' a heart
the the the the the the the the heart itself necking
the the the the mouth needs go round
for O
the circle world
of animal and thing

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how else nurse

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the wheel  invented by bellybutton gawk 
and you can write that the frick down 
the mother the memory the broken heart the song's i
thank being down wrong for wet my throat
and stretch  almost giant  the tune is
in a skeleton eat  talk about my kingdown
for a cage yr transparency  and the mouth
the gouged eye socket off a giant just mentioned
offhand  optical  lock  grass  
eyes  two new tomato volunteers off
to the races  all square  makes us human
hearts  from this angle  circus life

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Destruction of Man is my hick poetics: this is a snippet from it: I have pinched a flea from a frozen mastodon from Rusk County between lip and gum all the while inhaling tractor diesel smoke.