Kenophobia
After S. Clay Wilson’s horror vacui in Zap Comix
Bad thoughts fermented his hippocampus,
festered in his amygdala, turned to rancor
in his hypothalamus, and finally
ignited in his adrenal medullae.
But at the zero-second, his superego dialed
his prefrontal cortex to sublimate physical
mayhem into the pornographic opera
that flooded from the nib of his Speedball pen
and out onto the innocent page.
What’s more terrifying than the null & void?
He crammed each panel like an overcrowded jail
with drooling devils and demented angels,
perverted pirates and dykes on bikes.
Dismemberment begets squirting nubs.
Exploding exit wounds are de rigueur.
(I won’t mention the naughty bits.)
Stink waves, speed lines, and claustrophobic
crosshatching fill every negative space—
it’s what kept his demons at bay.
Lammergeier
An Old World vulture
whose diet is 70-90% bone.
Yo, plutocratic pols,
improve your public images
while freeing up more land to grab!
How? Make the liberals
love you by legislating
the wide open immigration
of this eco-friendly
Afro-Eurasian vulture.
Next, buy up cemeteries
across the US
from Hart Island
to Hollywood Forever.
Excavate the occupants
and lay out fresh arrivals
naked and uninterred.
Our domestic scavengers,
condors and other Cathartidae,
will be first to the table,
consuming skin, flesh, and blood.
The last bit comes gratis,
courtesy of the lammergeiers—
valkyries soaring glorious
in their nine-foot wingspans.
Call them your profit kickers,
call them your end-phase recyclers
of the recently alive.
All they want are the bones.
R. A. Allen‘s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in the New York Quarterly, Poetry Online, B O D Y, The Penn Review, RHINO, The Los Angeles Review, Pennine Platform, and numerous other publications. He has been nominated for a BotN and two Pushcarts. Some of his stories have appeared in The Literary Review, The Barcelona Review, PANK, The Los Angeles Review, and Best American Mystery Stories. He lives with his wife in Memphis, a city of light and sound.
The Marbled Sigh 