Darlin' by Cody Davis

I guess I am the freak,
because I can’t just stand around old towns
and smoke my lungs black, or follow girls dancin’ in their yellow dresses,
or follow girls not dancin' in their yellow dresses.

My head will get rollin’ down dams
and splashin’ up prehistoric fish over pipe drains and sand beaches.
They’ll scream fuck! because they haven’t felt the sun in a long time,
and their sticky white skin will sizzle drip in the heat,
and all the water will taste like fried gnats.

Then I’ll get to stabbing.
My knuckles will run flesh mean into the concrete.

Those fish will be breathing or not breathing in the air
and their blind eyes will get big because my knuckles turning
into bright light will dry out their fish eye sockets.
They’ll start licking their fish lips because they feel a flood coming.

But In all my fury, pushing my bones, and taking vibrations,
I’ll feel sorry for the fish.
They’ve been alive a long time,
and they need to be dried out and discovered by some old man
with a brush and an alcohol problem.

So I've stopped breaking the dam.
I ain't gonna follow no yellow dress.

Though I miss it like the pledge of allegiance.
I'm hoping it ashes and mixes,
flushed with brown piss.

Inside It's Orange by Cody Davis

I am tired of all this cold
and wet and hurt.

I fill my lungs with the inside air
and hold it, warm hugging,
stretchin’ my lungs until
they shrivel from the outside’s
wind and mean.

I grip and sand paper my hands
into a ball and friction them up
into a sweatin’ ammonia.

Sometimes I sit under dry places
and kick shit to keep warm.

I see people pushing their faces
through the wind’s ocean tide
and I wave to some, and I judge at some.

I take my poison to keep warm
and I hit it hard and it greens my eyes
and I let it fill my lungs.

It weeps around pushing against my life
and I walk it out to the door,
counting heel scrapes,

and it burns good in the cold,
and it burns good in this mean.

Dirty Thoughts by Cody Davis

My mind has been clean sheets for too long.

I need cloudy teeth and smoky fingers.

I need black man chords and numbing sweet low.

I need wet dirty in my ears.

I need burning and love yous under my feet.

Push me with your Stockholm lips.

Hold my face tight between your hands

and run your thumbs in my eyes.

Pour your palms of salty sweat on my stinging feet.

Choke me out with your gray fingers

and spit blue on my forehead.

We need to dance like we did drunken,

holding ourselves off the green with our laughing teeth

and wiping the sky’s dirty windows with our wash cloth sleeves.

We need to breathe the air with snaking viruses,

the black mass breath of burning tubes.

We need to tie our tongues and hug our lips

with our eyes open and afraid.

We, we, we, need to be we,

again, lovely.

Stranger by Cody Davis

I.

Behind you, in the elevator,

                             I talk ghost speak.

I spit milky words

Into your soft ears

                                and coo

                      As they spin and drop

Like pennies and nickels.

II.

I swim my hands through your hair.

My smoke molded fingers get lost inside strands.

and they  thread

                                  red

                                          my blue veins

and set my arms to deep sleep.

III.

August. 7. 1976.

The kids are growing too fast and the heat is killing the crop. They play through golden leaves and hunt like stalking hyenas, laughing and throwing their eyes to the sky. I watch them from my porch and nod to the sound of the girl’s short breaths.

IV.

“But why are you leaving? Stay here with me.”

I can’t. I ha..

“Come on,

                                                                  stay the night.”

V.

I’m the shadow behind the door.

I show myself to you

with the Polaroid playful.

I am not dust flashes

                     I am not termite squeaking.

VI.

I rub ice under your       long     pale      arms.

Cold rivers run through your gray avenues,

              Drown small

       town mailboxes

   And hospital

wrist bands.

VII.

Ghost mist mops the floor.

It tangles its thin curved legs

around your scarves long.

It leaves sweet smelling

and ash traces on your cuffs.

You are used wardrobe.