Lauren Brazeal is a former Bennington MFA student who lives with her husband, the DJ Mr. Dark in the middle of a mean Texan desert. Her work has appeared in a bunch of places including Salamander, Natural Bridge, American University's Folio, Painted Bride Quarterly, and online at Verse Daily. She has also had several of her poems recorded and used in various music mixes. These can be found at Deathrockradio.com if you look hard enough.
The Sneaky Fuck
You'll argue no one loathes a Fuck, but there
it is, egg-shaped, and never matching
any decorative pillows on the couch.
What creator could conceive a mustard
yellow so atrocious as the yellow
of that Fuck? Look at its dirty candy smile,
and it's oozing its own putrid jelly
too. I'd like to scrub the Fuck with spray infused
with bleach that's meant for caked-on goo.
Did I mention that our Fuck is mute?
What would it talk about? Could a conversation
with it be astute? Don't give a Fuck
a bone, 'cause it will chew. Don't trust that Fuck,
it's a suspicious, sneaky Fuck. —Come now,
best prod it with a broom into a corner
away from mother's foam-blue Doulton formal set--
and let it know, “You are not welcome, Fuck. Now shoo!”
Dear Winter,
I've modified my body to your taste,
sheathed my limbs in lambswool, changed into
an arctic creature; whitely skinned, blue lipped.
I've left my canines sharp to tear tough meat--
smoky strips of venison and marmot.
I thrilled to feel your lips lancet my
thighs. Your kisses, hypodermic—such pain
meant you'd shown interest. You've sucked
my fingers numb and purple. But how can I resist
your breath's frozen suspension in my lungs?
Your icy tongue? The passion of your rancored
gusts? Now you, blood-starved, chase birds to warmth,
leaving my form, uninteresting rubble.
Your biography: a list of victims.
Dear Spring,
You're just too spooky
with your ovulescent
pistils, and your stamens
thrusting powdery
yellow gunk that drives
the bees insane.
You're loud, parading
greenly in the streets
past 2:00am, bottle-
brushing branch tips
labia pink. You stink
of sex and insects,
and you encourage birds
to bedroom-eye
the trees. Spring, sweetie,
your drag show's bad.
Fuchsia's just
so 1985.
Just look at you in June,
your leggy legs
no longer steady.
Your music, pretty once,
now yaws off-key.
Get clean, and ready for
another round
of tits in tassels and
conveniently revealing
boudoir screens.
Hang Mioku Becomes the Moon
So much is needed to change
the living into rock.
For twenty years I lathed
my face with recoil buffers.
I calcified, absorbed
steel dust; and patiently
learned to beam without
exhaling. Those I loved
abandoned me. —I now
understand; we lost
all interest in our moon
when news came of her
bareness. I forged my own
completion; polished my
pores to a glint,
fossilized my smile
and can tell you now,
once whole, I mirrored suns.
Did you see the crowds
finally hook their gaze,
capturing my beauty?
It was me they chose
to orbit. Me, freezing
them in the gravity.
My pain redacted, I
was grand and pale, exactly
as that knowing, waxing goddess.
The Sneaky Fuck
You'll argue no one loathes a Fuck, but there
it is, egg-shaped, and never matching
any decorative pillows on the couch.
What creator could conceive a mustard
yellow so atrocious as the yellow
of that Fuck? Look at its dirty candy smile,
and it's oozing its own putrid jelly
too. I'd like to scrub the Fuck with spray infused
with bleach that's meant for caked-on goo.
Did I mention that our Fuck is mute?
What would it talk about? Could a conversation
with it be astute? Don't give a Fuck
a bone, 'cause it will chew. Don't trust that Fuck,
it's a suspicious, sneaky Fuck. —Come now,
best prod it with a broom into a corner
away from mother's foam-blue Doulton formal set--
and let it know, “You are not welcome, Fuck. Now shoo!”
Dear Winter,
I've modified my body to your taste,
sheathed my limbs in lambswool, changed into
an arctic creature; whitely skinned, blue lipped.
I've left my canines sharp to tear tough meat--
smoky strips of venison and marmot.
I thrilled to feel your lips lancet my
thighs. Your kisses, hypodermic—such pain
meant you'd shown interest. You've sucked
my fingers numb and purple. But how can I resist
your breath's frozen suspension in my lungs?
Your icy tongue? The passion of your rancored
gusts? Now you, blood-starved, chase birds to warmth,
leaving my form, uninteresting rubble.
Your biography: a list of victims.
Dear Spring,
You're just too spooky
with your ovulescent
pistils, and your stamens
thrusting powdery
yellow gunk that drives
the bees insane.
You're loud, parading
greenly in the streets
past 2:00am, bottle-
brushing branch tips
labia pink. You stink
of sex and insects,
and you encourage birds
to bedroom-eye
the trees. Spring, sweetie,
your drag show's bad.
Fuchsia's just
so 1985.
Just look at you in June,
your leggy legs
no longer steady.
Your music, pretty once,
now yaws off-key.
Get clean, and ready for
another round
of tits in tassels and
conveniently revealing
boudoir screens.
Hang Mioku Becomes the Moon
So much is needed to change
the living into rock.
For twenty years I lathed
my face with recoil buffers.
I calcified, absorbed
steel dust; and patiently
learned to beam without
exhaling. Those I loved
abandoned me. —I now
understand; we lost
all interest in our moon
when news came of her
bareness. I forged my own
completion; polished my
pores to a glint,
fossilized my smile
and can tell you now,
once whole, I mirrored suns.
Did you see the crowds
finally hook their gaze,
capturing my beauty?
It was me they chose
to orbit. Me, freezing
them in the gravity.
My pain redacted, I
was grand and pale, exactly
as that knowing, waxing goddess.
