Live Nude Poems

Stigmata I never predicted my hair would be in the fist of a man who collected pieces of me as souvenirs, had a shrine with my underwear, my childhood videos; never thought I’d live in a sick man’s fantasy— so real that he felt he had to kill it; never imagined a stalker could be handsome, could flinch guiltily when I argued that parents did astonishing work fucking us up; never envisioned a stranger could kidnap an inner child so he becomes Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; never prophesied my wrists up, post-resurrection, bleeding my shames, watching strangers recoil as if before a witch. Corpse Bride In some places, girls are made to marry their rapists. This used to strike me as barbaric, until a man broke into my apartment and raped me. I imagine our marriage bed the same way a rash of suicidal thoughts migrate across my flesh like a flock of crows. What difference would it make? My bed is my coffin now; a corpse bride. If another man were to ever

Eight of Swords (reversed) You know things have gotten bad when the local prophets have taken off their sandwich boards, stepped down from their soapboxes, and removed themselves to your armpits. Hasn’t stopped them from their attempts to spread the good word, though, no sir. In the diner when you stop to avail yourself of the ham and egg special, they proclaim the horrors of parallel parking; when you pause on the path in the middle of your jog, out they come to harangue the passersby about the dangers of burglars who break into homes, steal nothing, but leave Legos in your hallways for you to tread on as you head to the bathroom at three in the morning. You’ve consulted the authorities, but of course, they say there’s nothing they can do. None of this, you’ve found, is a huge deal until they speechify in your ear. The laundry can wait one more day. There’s just one more cookie, you can’t leave a whole box with just one cookie in it. You have a spare room, and the

The Wanting Mare Wanting more The wanting mare brings her furious desire to the water’s edge Waiting here She dips herself in Many moons of dusk A sad star frozen In the icy night Sheds tears One frozen moment Stopped in its tracks From the crescent Of the other pink moon Cassandra sings Prophecies of A watery wedding Of one mermaid To the endless sea She twists like the tide And rolls her soul Out upon the rocks In prayer An offering to the Crash of the collapsing surf Rumbling roaring in a Ballad of blue waves She sings Amongst the mists Of the day Soft sibilant and sweet Entwined like a bird to its Flight, a minstrel to his song. Jim Dunn  is the author of This Silence is a Junkyard(Spuyten Duyvil, 2022) Soft Launch (Bootstrap Press/Pressed Wafer, 2008), Convenient Hole (Pressed Wafer, 2004), and Insects In Sex (Fallen Angel Press, 1995).  His work has appeared in Castle Grayskull, Blazing Stadium, Can We Have Our Ball Back?, Bright Pink Mo

Tramposo de Sevilla Within white washed walls, weathered stone and blue sky the Gypsies arrived unseen. I was green and little traveled, planted on a bench with back turned, abiding my time with Hemingway. He approached with dirty bare feet on herringbone brick and an open linen blouse with little tears in place of lost buttons. His wedded his palms, held to heaven, reminding me of our mutual friend, and could I not share a little of my good fortune? He tightened and contorted his back which would not work, and gestured to his mate, to misfortune and fate. She sat nearby wailing, swaying on hot stone, her mosaic of rags flowing with the four limp legs of her children, starving, a boy and a girl, one arched over each arm, mouths open. With Jake paused and Brett in mid-sentence I shuttered and searched and dug into myself, putting pesetas into his palm, wanting to return to my Fiesta. He bowed in thanks and limped away to beg others of different tongues

Half Days My daughter, thirteen, pale shred of herself, fought an unidentified infection in her spine as it softened her discs into disappearance. I’d unread that story if she were young and still listened to lullabies. After she got discharged, I set an alarm for two a.m. each night to shoot antibiotics into her port while she slept, her limp arm resting in my hand. Her return to school: half days—follow my dotted line smearing across months of sleepless breadcrumbs— at noon I idled high, anxious in the school driveway rattling off the latest test results in the zero gravity of fear. She startled me with the brittle thunk of the car door slam, then snapped at me for staring at her friends as they strolled across the street to the cafeteria, creeping them out, she said, embarrassed by illness like hard acne or a blooming hickey, wrong music or flakey hair, or the tacky middle-school jumper she no longer had to wear. I was there to drive her to

The Swell, I Did Not Know When I hit the hog it ran a mile through the thicket and fell in a foot of water —drowned. You hit it in the head my daddy said, the zombie effect.  How the body moves in death                              a dance and after the dance a knife that grooves                                              the bloated gut,                                                                                      gropes like filthy men. Believe me, he continues: even the innocent eat, son, throw themselves                                              in acts                                              of rage and reach for what the world will offer them. Later,                                     the fire                                     leaps like magic from his fingers and a full bottle                                 passed                                 like prayer. I pretend to sip. Spit to ward the spirit, divination. A warmth the body turns