TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES -- Charles Borkhuis

my smile on pulleys
curtain going up
on the ha ha toothpick's fandango
sliding between my teeth

you've just walked
through a burned out doorway
the threshold holds you
in cold embrace

draw closer
while standing still
rest inside this vacancy
that smells of embers
and forgotten rituals

lost fingers tap
a silent drum roll
on your egg shell

cultivate your weaknesses
faults your secret strength
see your eyes closing
in your hand
forget you ever heard this

(a little more laughing gas)
it wasn't fake
but you couldn't call it true
it was on another order
sliding through the doxa
of remaindered ideas

here take this double-edged kiss
affected and sincere
specks of clarity in the chaos swoon
or just beginner's luck

lapsed homonym in throat warbles
where walking fingers lie

better hold your fever against me
embedded in soft tissue
time-spasm I'm leaking
emotional underpinnings

serial thoughts collapse
into starlight at the zoo
heavy hearts fold up at quiet time
all those animal eyes watching

wisdom extracted
from a sixty-foot tooth
growing out of the mud of my mouth
make a nest in the homing devise
and pry the bloody zeros from my lips