Hungry

I’m hungry for a new poem

My stomach cramps

Irritating words in that old alphabet soup

Words like want and now and clear

It’s stagnant, I say, and stale

I need a new poem

Something that sits on a different taste bud

Sweet or bitter—doesn’t matter

Shock my system out of that—

Bring it kicking, fresh

Time’s too short for these routine flavors

Repetitive predictable unpalatable patterns

Same notes—they make me tired, I say

I’m hungry for a new poem

And addicted to the old

Claw

I want to stick in your mind’s eye like a claw

Sensation interrupts vision, blurring focus,

The world is a watercolor

Reconstructing into abstractions of me 

Before fading to black

The world’s tastes blend, bland

Everything a dry cracker caulking the throat

Smell my perfume and feel it thicken, saccharine

You big glutton, crave and starve or gorge and fester

Water will not help you

You read a story once

Maybe twice, maybe two thousand times

Its wisdoms swallowed, churned, dissolved

A--T--C--G littered about your mind

Tag, you're it, come get me

I'll rake, you writhe, itch spreading

Fingernails deposit cells, thighs to mouth to heart

For relief, come closer; scratching feels good

Many things feel good back here

With my claws, in you, in the dark