I LOVE FUNYUNS!

I’m bewildered. 

Those onion-flavored, 
puffed up rings always
the last offering of the 
vending machine.
They are waiting on
my gentle tearing.

PepsiCo is more dependable
than God when looking at 
Mother. She makes me
want to throw up
or shove a Funyun
down her throat
watch her choke.

Bonded by telekinesis,
my unsaid inspires her,
so she bites at
my bruise, a lover’s hickey,
something seen one
too many times to care.  
She barks & bows and I give up
wearing harnesses
refusing to be lead 
across the floors
of the oncology ward.

She says knowledge is
overrated & mothers
know best. At funerals 
she spits on the graves
& says God denies us
the most simple pleasures
making beasts happy
on Halloween, we
give each kid
a single Funyun.

I make sure to lick
my fingers before I
touched each treat,
which made mother laugh
as I knew it would.

I have no recollection
of my mother eating anything
from a vending machine.
There is no better feeling
than watching sustenance 
or trusting 
with the same ferocity
as a ventilator.

Who would waste
their mortality
asking for a refund
for a stubborn bag
of Funyuns.  There
was a tinny voice
on the other line
who asked detailed questions
about the incident|
& I got so frustrated

I head-butted the machine
& out it came.

They were gone
in thirty seconds flat, 
the dust coating my lips.  

O Funyuns, I love you so
I crunch you long after
expiration dates.

Looks like I’m munching
on the haloes
of comatose angels. 

FLYING DILDO

The thing then took on a life of its own & went after the guitarist
who planned to object to the marriage because of his past affair
with the groom who didn’t believe in the supernatural except for
the smarmy demon that appeared during his grandmother’s exorcism.

Let’s not digress. It did bonk the guitarist in the head, putting
him in the most minor of comas—the length of a mere lunch hour!—
& when he woke, he had amnesia costing him his job, because he couldn’t
remember any of his shitty songs. As for the dildo, it kept travelling &

targeted different populations: the elderly at Bingo Nights, truck drivers
at rest stops, and stoned cashiers at Taco Bell. Two people died 
just from the anxiety of seeing a hungry piece of rubber coming at them.
I heard it’s still hunting down people with the ferocity of Charles Bronson
in Death Wish. Great, albeit limited, quietly vengeful.

Although I believe all narratives to be morality tales,
please don’t think this follows the logic of sex=death. No, that's not it.
I caught up to the dildo after it crossed the Baltic Sea and then, months later,
found its way back to Pocatello, Idaho. I lassoed it as it chased

a High Priestess in a forest with curiously malnourished deer.
The dildo tried to escape but I had a pretty firm grasp. After a couple
minutes, it settled down. Don’t think I’m going to tell you this dildo
spoke to me in some way. Even if it did, I’m not going to make this

a tale of a talking dildo. A willing suspension of disbelief only goes
so far when it comes to any story involving a re-animated sex object. But
I will say this: I cradled it in my arms, held onto it with both hands.
And then—and then—it launched straight up into the sky, and up we went.

We travelled alongside a skyscraper, my feet hitting a window cleaner
or two in the head—(nothing fatal!), and then into the sky. Where
I saluted a bald eagle. This was just before we found our way through
some cumulonimbus clouds. Don’t be jealous. We even went 

further—barreling through the stratosphere and the mesosphere
until the dildo catapulted us into outer space where it zigzagged
around measly comets and unclaimed planets. As if that wasn’t enough,
we made it all the way to the heavens where we were greeted by

a herd of voluptuous angels. We didn’t quit there. We circled the belly button
of God. Whose beard was a little too overgrown for my taste. I let go
of the dildo and off we jumped onto Our Savior’s stomach.
Where we bounced up and down. As if it was the most divine

trampoline. We were somersaulting higher and higher until we
reached something, something beyond, something beyond
the beyond ---dimension, spirit world, infinity---take your pick!
I’m not a person who is good with words. At least not when

it comes to the true-life encounter between me, God, and a
flying dildo. What are you to make of all this? I don't think it’s enough
to say that there is some sort of lesson here which is as lovely
as the sight of you lying in a bedroom alone, looking in the mirror,

and here I am, below, licking the inside of your too often neglected armpit.