Neurotica, U.S.A.!

Guy at the grocery store has stolen

my face, like literally, my face

is on the front of his head which

is on top of his body, and come

to think of it, looks like he’s got

my body too, you can tell because

it seems awfully soft and pudgy

for a guy so young, like you want

to look away, it’s embarrassing,

it makes your stomach moan a little.

Anyway, this guy has basically stolen

my, like, entire person and now he’s

got a cigarette lit up (indoors!), thanks

for the free PR, asshole, and I’m afraid

he might try some funny business here,

all of which, in line with previously

aired concerns, would reflect poorly

on me, but it’s not me, I don’t think.

Creative writing prof once told me

doppelgangers are cliché, and this

bastard sure fits the bill, all shifty eyed,

like you’d expect a damn doppelganger

to be, all sort of quasi-hiding like he thinks

plain sight is a rock in the crick, like

he’s a human mudpuppy with my face

and body, and it’s pouring rain outside,

which might be cliché too, brownish

liquid slowly percolating through cracks

in the corky white tile, bacterial cave kisses

surprising the lady who meanders past with

her toddler in a cart shaped like a fire

truck, oblivious to this, like, battle for

humanity going on all around her.

So guy keeps rolling through valleys

of vanilla yogurt, vanilla ice cream, French

vanilla flavored coffee creamer, and jeez,

what happened to all the flavors here,

bastard probably stole them too, where’s

the, like, moral fiber of this grocery store,

and now he’s heading toward the front,

slow, but that’s just to avoid attracting

attention, and I never want to attract

any either which makes him look even

more like me, but the point is I take a dive

at him and tackle him against a wire rack

that showers us with beach bodies, both

best and worst, and Challenging Sudokus.

And you probably expect that now is when

I figure out he’s not me, like I’m losing

my mind or something, but what are you,

an idiot, of course he still looks exactly

like me, he is exactly like me because

he has stolen my face and body, but even

once I tackle him, it’s like, nobody ever says

what you’re supposed to do past this part,

when your doppelganger’s looking at you

defiantly, like he’s somehow got more

of a right to your face and hands and balls

than you do, and really who’s to say he doesn’t,

as a couple of guys untangle the two of you

and you both just stare, eyes rolling, lips smacking

up and down in perfect wordless unison.

Kuato

Alone again, it’s a race thing,

he surmises, but then again who

can say for sure, he’s so drunk now

that the oddly sleek and futuristic

Martian barstool  seems to rock him

to unsettled sleep, so drunk that

he’s covered in a solution of sweat

and tacky mucus and God only knows

what else. He’s in a baby sling,

his life is fetal, but it has advantages,

the bass drum influence of the human

heart in his sleeping ear dampens

this howling psychic miasma,

this future looming sharp and terrible.

These women, these women

should know he’s a man where

it counts, all he wants is a hand

on his scraggly forehead, sharing

in his toothless grin at the weight

of all he knows, all he’d whisper

softly in their ears if they’d just

open their minds, open their minds.

J'onn

Martian Manhunter is on the cusp

of a pretty serious nervous breakdown,

skull in a garlic press and eyes about

to blast off like veiny cannonballs.

Not Batman or Superman or Spiderman

or Wolverine or like not even fucking

Aquaman, people even know who that

asshole is, is the point, Jesus Christ

we get it already. Maybe if he had a definite

article, “THE Martian Manhunter”?

Maybe he already does have one, he forgets,

there's no written record to consult anyway,

it's flickering like everything does these days,

it really isn’t easy being green, or invisible,

especially when you have brain cancer,

could be, it sure feels like it, unless he’s just

bored, depressed in this apartment,

this sepulcher of newspaper and old

jizzed-upon tissues (space jizz) and pop art.

And like, that ice pick, last night he woke up at 4:27

and he had turned invisible, he’s not even

controlling it anymore, basically, and so one day

he will inadvertently slip into the wallpaper

permanently, and nobody will even notice,

but he can fly, damn it, he’s got super strength

and yeah, fire is his weakness, turns him into

a mound of skin flakes and bacon and teeth,

but it’s not like you’d do any better in a fire,

that's for sure, and can you cut the guy a break,

can you just cut the fucking guy a break already?

Pica

I wanna mouth fulla smooth river stones

so’s I can chomp up sticks an pine needles

I wanna bowla sweet yeller paint flakes in D fortified milk

I got a oral fixation, Jesus  was a Jujube and I cannibalize

everbody’s worst idears an I think maybe I wanna drink

up the ocean till nothing  but desert’s left

an when my teeth are all fell outta

my head I ain’t gonna worry me none

I’m gonna just keep on eating whatever anbody

put in fronta me, gum it up like a earthworm

like chew up dirt til I make a hole in the ground

what people can squat over the open mouth

an you know what happen next anyway

won’t trouble me none cause I wanna devour

the moon an a planet an some comets

an like little people lemmings to jump

over my throat cliff and go rattlin down below

real loud and maybe they even keep talkin

down there with their “eat this, eat that”

an I guess that’s why I need to like chew

my way through the walls, swallow a escape hole

an maybe the drywall an cement can trickle

down my gullet grave an bury them all

dead or alive til all that tellin finally stops

Cry/Wolf

Hello i am a Nigerian Prince with an endowment well-endowed of United States American Dollars for U!

if you will simply reply to this correspondence

with great vigor + alacrity like mojo jumping

jack flash in the pan just your name, social security number, favorite movie, cup size,

do you like pets and what are your views on love at first sight.

so look I think it sores me just to be breathing this Nigerian Air;

if I breathe; but i Want; if this is a lie;

      no thing 2 U;

if I am real anymore?;

Prince Of Nowhere locked in my oubliette, i only exist as black (scary Black)

man with 11 trillion shekels whistling

“ve are zee foreign element! ve are ze blak of your mind!”

I don’t need nobody needs no thing I need you i need can you

tell me anymore for now i am forgotten

                i have, how you say, moneysexfamepower for U! for U! desperate?

                who is the desperate?

                                who is predator?

                                                                                prey for me?