Enochian Rituals for Clerks (entry 1 in 'Receipt Dandies' Series)

mucinex, vaseline, and tampons

can you guess what demon I am summoning today?

No, not the pervy Baphomet seeking to impregnate

every bar queen ever to make a pit stop

at the altar of Magnum

I am making a wicker man

of cotton balls and guaifenesin

and glitter glue

to burn away this haunting

of coupon slips that never seem to add up

to more than seventy five cents of the retail total

of a babe caught

in the trafficked chutes and ladders

children’s mayhem

leaves my livelihood

nothing more than convenient store nanny

gotta summon demons

to fight demons

and I’m not afraid to use receipt slips

as papyrus scrolls

to request the aid of Babylonian horrors

to make me a ward

a shroud against broken letters

which rain down

on those of us helpless enough to try

reeling in a living

in the midst of this bloody Nile

the flotsam

of deposit slips surge by like a watery omens

an emblem of time spent

hoarding roasted dollars

never to be tasted

starlight

deflated of breath

you are the doom

at this drugstore crossroads

before Cerebus  comes to call for his nine to five

buffet at your confessional

or his sunday sacrifice

This Hades likes to think no one

whispers of him to the White House Muse

She knows he’s buying the skirt out from around her thighs

but a girl has a right to bitch, doesn’t she?

you can only steal Persephone so many times

before we open our eyes to see

Wallstreet Demeter, hanging limp

from the platform of the infernal marquee

Etched Facets Along The Strasse

I faced away from the window

but the blinds were projected onto

the inside of my glasses

trying to make a spectacle out of

AM nothings

sunlight filters in, a dance

I’ve long since grown

used to

as it shines in a pirouette circle upon a carcass

we called it a feast

but it was a extermination

of a pest in my bed

wearing my skin

I once went outside to discover

that changelings were the new vogue

Bodies along for the ride

while our eyes read the story

of a nativity in which the infant DOW

was hallowed, wrapped in streamers of Nasdaq,

and endless marquee of wealth, lined in the thread blood

of our veins

I sit on my patio, drinking my share of imported blood mocha,

and wonder how does one’s skin always return it’s shape,

with so much writhing always undoing its attempts to reform into self

as the beast that longs for more tries to always remodel it’s design

waiting to see

if you could at least

somehow bargain to get your eyes back

in the divorce proceedings.

The Well

What do a pile of submerged pennies mean

to an aquatic fae queen?

How does a cent turn into a wish?

Do you trade them, pawn them off

as golden tokens of a secret network

of well wishers, a society who grants open doors

at the sign of the copper?

Or are you a dragon, biding her time,

less inclined to ravaged

and more interested in

the story of a pauper

wishing to be king

You collect dreams

You give wisps of hope to the barren

they sprout up children with five heads,

only one survives,

weak, returning, allowance in hand,

to you

the dream gatherer,

the hope counterfeiter

but once in awhile

you throw in a doozie

a warrior’s vengeance

a queen’s demise

And as you slumber between visitors,

you weave a tale of humanity

with your scales, each one imprinted with a wish

each  a refraction of desire

and it holds in your fire

like a holy vessel