Internal Suffocation, poems by Juliet Cook

 Internal Suffocation

I'm an adult so I'm allowed to watch

as many horror films as I choose.

Some people say that has a bad effect on my brain.

I do sometimes have violent dreams, but

the last disturbing dream I had based on a movie

was re-seeing the rape scene from Boys Don't Cry,

which was based on a real life hate crime.

Sometimes I like some extremity in movies and art

because I can turn them off, turn them back on,

re-interpret them, revise them, re-analyze them, 

do whatever I want with them. 

Other times I can't control

what my own mind sees

or what happens to me.

Sometimes my mind exaggerates things.

Other times it blocks things out.

Sometimes my brain cells discharge 

uncontrolled electrical activity.

Sometimes it's not up to me.

When it is, I'll watch whatever I want to,

whether it's based on real life or exaggerated make believe.

Internal Suffocation 

I know what's starting to happen.

I've heard this before, this wooshing

inside my brain as the room disappears.

I sit down on the floor and shut my eyes.

Then I'm suddenly back up on my feet 

and confused about what day it is, 

what time it is, what I was doing,

how long my seizure lasted and why

I wrote a bunch of people's names

on a sheet of paper. Why I rearranged

rows of clothes in my closet and piled

rows of books in front of a suitcase.

I don't remember doing any of this.

I don't remember where I thought I was going to go.

I do remember who I am though. 

Demolished flesh that nobody wants to look at.

Least of all me.

Shaking around out of control,

groaning a low guttural moan

that dries into a hiss.

Acidic vomit drips

from a vulture's mouth. Clotted

saliva is mixed up with blood then rots.

The good parts get eaten up and shit out.

Haggard Hooded vulture woman

with nothing better to do than grunt and swallow

her own semi-digested dead heart.

Juliet Cook's poetry has appeared in a small multitude of print and online publications. She is the author of numerous poetry chapbooks, recently including "DARK PURPLE INTERSECTIONS (inside my Black Doll Head Irises)" (Blood Pudding Press for Dusie Kollektiv 9, 2019) "Another Set of Ripped-Out Bloody Pigtails" (The Poet's Haven, 2019), "The Rabbits with Red Eyes" (Ethel Zine & Micro-Press, 2020) and "Histrionics Inside my Interior City" (part of Ghost City Press's 2020 Summer Micro-Chapbook Series).

Cook's first full-length individual poetry book, “Horrific Confection", was published by BlazeVOX. She's also included in a full-length collaborative poetry book, "A Red Witch, Every Which Way", with j/j hastain, published by Hysterical Books in 2016. Her most recent full-length individual poetry book, "Malformed Confetti" was published by Crisis Chronicles Press in 2018. 

Cook also sometimes creates abstract painting collage art hybrid creatures.

Find out more at www.JulietCook.weebly.com.

The Nepotist

Somebody likes me!

Three poems worth: Parkinsonism; Sonnet for So and So; Hollywood Appalachian Noir: A Lesson.

Five New Poems at the Dead Mule

I would have said on the Mule, but I didn't want anyone to get the wrong idea. These are part of the last couple year's work. Poems.

Still radio silence until we get moved into the new house, where I will have an entire room full of books. My library, finally.

New Poems at 13 Mynah Birds

Three sort of sonnets.

Poems from Thieves Jargon

I like my poems; I guess that's all I can say about them. They're not for everybody.

When the Wrong Words Get Said

Car-tire against gravel,

rough smell of beer

and roasted corn,

heat-lightning like a sine

wave loops across a pit

of gray sky between pole-light

and the quiet barn;

the low of cows,

moonshine slips in like a tongue

through the treeless hedge fence;

the empty faces of women glow,

a child in shirtsleeves gums an apple

while the mutt runs a rough circle

around the feet of your friends,

pissing every time someone raises a hand.

Your wife says fuck it. Goes to bed.

Shuts the door. Says go ahead and drink.

Be with your friends.

Wrong words get said.

Your head breaks like a fist

against a stone wall,

knuckles feeding fire.

Somewhere the swollen lips

of angels call you home,

but before you go smash-mouthed

in to the house to watch your kids breathe,

stagger into your marital bed,

you tongue-kiss a seventeen-year-old,

realize the sweetness in her mouth

is your own blood.

Phlogiston

Don't call me late again, knocking your drunk

head on my door. You're a cracked engine block

sitting in the car like always but useless as tits

on a boar hog at least from the outside.

You burned the eggs when I let you cook

that one time and we ended up eating

bear-claws for breakfast and cold coffee.

You shook so badly you couldn't press

the button on the microwave and your whole life

dribbled out of you in sobs like you'd pissed

down my leg. I can only do so much for you,

prop you up when you're about to hit the floor,

buy you Cokes to wet your chapped tongue,

clean your pretty blue cowboy boots of puke,

curse when you kick them against the divot

in the floor near the entrance of my trailer.

You need the heat turned up high and blankets

crowded between your thighs. I left your bra

and panties on last night; I didn't want you

to think I'd taken anything from you but now

I've pretty much decided: I wouldn't piss on you

if you was on fire. This time it's all on you.

I've had enough. I'm only interested in how you burn.

Ocean Ave, Winthrop: Addressing The Breakup Photo While Disturbed

Dear So and So: a gray lick of water pounds your bare feet.
The ocean's heart opens in front of you, a failed embrace.
Cold salt and hard driftwood slam in the eddy between
two immense boulders and a dinghy shudders in its shallow
mooring. The crack of rock on rock fills the air.

You can't write a fair poem about the ocean without the death
of something. Oceans hear you but take revenge in their own
slow time. You shouldn't be out in this rain and wind but yeah:
there it is. I snapped the picture. The very last one.

Walk into a redneck bar in mid-coast Maine in 2022.
In flip-flops and tight jeans, she'll be numbing her ganglia
with gin or by the memory of you putting up sable curtains
on rods at the apartment with the lobster traps outside;

the way you fucked her raw on the tar roof with no blanket;
she picked gravel from your knee abrasions with a whiskey-
soaked washcloth and your Buck knife's dulled blade; it'd been
years since that knife had been near a stone but she sat nude

at your feet. You felt the tips of her breasts glow. Strewn-haired
and damp with sex, she'll turn to you now, glass-tipped,
fornicatory in her slippery movements and she'll nod in disbelief.
It's 2022. 20 years of salt water spitting right in your damned eye.