5 Poems by José Montaño
The Progress of Grass
Aureate springtime aura
consume the winter skeleton
rib cage cometh with a new flower(dust)
and ash of cold weather wincing
The chlorophyll trembles in the flicker
of a million gilded suns
invisible to the stupid eyes of life
and a winterlong nictation
green wrists cut at the gasoline rainbow puddle
A concrete thirst slaked by industry
the very drool of destruction
The big fat mouth of rust
A vernal halitus warms blooming nostrils
lungs sprout out of aurora soft
pubes in the stars
corolla wigs of a million useless colors
The male cone of garden
discharge the golden grain of cum
fertilize the young ovules/blow and blew
Aires clock echoes in the purity of earth
Now look at your pruned body
whom waters your pubis?
The tears of humanity?
or the spittle of capitalism?
Perhaps the maggots in your peach and tongue
no growth in the shins of conformity.
An Angel Dies at the Sewer
Violinist at Chestnut & Main
as if some secret seraph
a halo blurred in the smog
an invocation answered
by a perhaps of empathy
A dozen torsos of wheat at the well
sewage noses on wobbling faces
reddish and vomiting the night’s neon puddles
the urine cakes in the ashtray
nicotine specters in the lungs of geek
A heap of sag on all cola depressives
vapid beers slosh through amber teeth
a screech of complacency off the jukebox
the sloppy dancers in the mud of crummy carpeting
the vibration of crotch on crotch
floating cocks full of midori and impotence
My misery is a curmudgeon
in the flavescent mucus of my brain
moody in red glow corner of scum
I belong here in hell
miserably dizzy at the bodies' air
they’d sell their souls for more attention
for another lick under their chins
for another olive in their peeholes
My eyes fill with sweat
swollen intestines or fun
brine and ache liquid
temporary assuagement
clotted veins in the liver want sex and salt
I enter her random gaze with desperation
I want her petals smeared on my wrist
beeswax around my clavicle
a pelvis or thigh caught in coital jaws
the courage in vermouth is mostly flower
the courage in me is mostly gone
it’s neverminded and the proprietor’s rag
drag lemony bleach into the rainy purple night
I let rain fall on my head,
as if a petunia will sprout out of the skull in spring
just a lonely nausea
a numb tug at the heart
and 200mg of sugar & ketamine as a blanket
in the morning, I walk my headache out like a rabid dog that won’t stop barking,
desperate to be freed of a leash, to run out freely in front of a speeding car,
leaving its guts smeared on the hot afternoon street.
Fungoid Anonymous
//I place the slice of garden
between my heavy temples
and a burst of teal
swallows whatever sky
remained
An hour-long blink
to flush the rainbow tears
from the electric goo
of shining brains//
My bones melt into -a pinkish puddle of awe
mystic scent of everything in joy
flesh hallucinations in the purplish wind
of breath//
Oh, skinny gleam vision!
view of vortexes or dizzy wink
my eyes become the vegetable
a throbbing sight of ultimate
sense
I pierce the sun with my buzzing finger
like a fork in a light socket/
I put my tongue in God’s ear
a euphoric taste of heavenly
with time’s drool on clouds/
The dozen arms of float
carry my electric body
into the door of the
secret universe hues//
a million little mellow flowers
sprout out of the pores on my nose
//enlightened midnight caressing
the human fontanel-
of plain dimension//
with a zillion emotions of blood
gushing into cranial awakening!
The penultimate second of infinity
dragged in the hot air simmering
like the snail of (normality)
//my brain the slug
reality the salt//
fizz down to nothing again.
Bland!
It’s a Box Social! (A Pietro Crespi Themed Party)
I’m sorry I urinated on your cat last night,
my eyes detached by the lava lamp
a liver sized chug of brandy and gag
the claw of a hammer lodged into my skull
pried open the dust of bones and membrane mucus
for the hand of drunkenness to pour tacks into my brain.
cringed at god’s arrangement of clouds that night
suddenly an eloquent schmoozer to the walls
just a burgundy stain on the rug to pompous reality
make believe comedy til the ashtray was the clock and I wanted to die again
how arrogant to pretend to feel interesting in this meaningless world.
I only need the calm of Eston’s trees
and a companion for the breeze
but she’s busy giving her cat a bath
call me alone and weird in the eye of party again.
The Great Plunge of Mangled Body
my supine grief
celestial sigh in water
about to plummet down Niagara Falls
teal spine bathes in its final soak of foam
reciting the last stanza of “The Tyger”
a stapled image of Saint Anthony on my chest
the sun winks cloud eyelid disappointments
it’s a cold life for all breath here
yet there’s an innocence to nature’s violence
the little mist that sticks to my mustache
a rush of cool to the cranium cracked!
the sense of falling amplified the flooded ears
the absolute splash of fragile existence
oozing spinal fluid, blends with the stream
every vertebra mangled by starving rocks
the dangling sinew on obtuse shinbone
remove my elbows for the fangs of water
all of this algae will gain territory of my shoulders
all detached from anatomic purgatory
a skeleton in serenity pecked at by weather
bless my body, holy, trying to heal me in a panic,
even here as my ghost turns blue gray vapor
please mother, don’t cry for me,
enough water has entered my lungs already.
Regardless, I was stupid to think, I was ever anything more
than the nothing nature intended us to be.
Jose is a poet/writer from California. Jose’s poems have been published in Pretty Cool Poetry Thing, Idle Eyes Zine, and Yes Poetry. You can find Jose on Instagram @holyholyholyholyholyholy
glitch art by DM Rice