"If men dig me, It is only to bury me..." - Buk

CHOICE WORDS
by Debbie Kirk

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'HOW DOES VOODOO REST IN PEACE?'

Our lusty Atlantis
Our own
Lucky pennies
lining the bottom
Of unlivable squalor

I wonder if mermaids
Remove their clam shall coverings
When they swim by
For pearl necklaces
Or if you can just buy them now
On ebay

A place
That had the perfect mix
Of class and debauchery
A place where Jack Micheline
Walked many a mile
In someone else�s
Dimestore shoes

They say they will rebuild
They say they can rebuild

I wonder how long before
Us dumb humans
Will no longer build
Neither graves nor tombs
But simply throw bodies
In the water

Not with flames and ceremonies
For leaders of even the most evil causes

More of a shove off
To clear room
For more dry cleaning
Tyrants.

Gargoyles floating
With bodies and oil
Would make a good photograph
But not for a family album
But I look around myself
And ask

What is a family anyway
But one more hierarchy
To impose order.

Viva la new Orleans<
May all the dead
Walk the earth

Zombies
Real horror show like
And some bad 80�s band
Will do the soundtrack

And may the rotting corpses
Kill every last one
Of you motherfuckers
That are clouding up our gene pool

With lawnmower hummers
Palm pilots
Non-narcotic pain killers (bastards)
Clean white socks
funding gentrification
As their own homes
Slide off mountains.

Then,
We can fucking rebuild.

� Debbie Kirk
Reproduced with permission

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'LITTLE FRANKENSTEIN GIRL'

Little Frankenstein girl
has the hands of a pianist
And the heart of a broken organ
With thorns, glass
Bats and Indian ink
Seeping thro�
Sewn together
Crookedly stitched
Like a pastel valentine heart
Filled with mismatched parts

Little Frankenstein girl
Has the right brain of a killer
Her right hand is dominant
While her left foot always faces away
Wanting to disconnect
To run
To be free

To not be part of this
Fucked up experiment
Dreamt up by
A genius dressed in rags
And chased by demons
The kind that really scratch and bite
When you are fast asleep

Little Frankenstein girl
Is not a little girl anymore
The curls in her hair
Dreaded up in the sun
Medusa in the wind

Her loud strong voice
Muffled under the stitches
That firmly binds her lips together
Bondage bringing pleasure
Only to those who wish
To keep her silent
(and they are many)

The little Frankenstein girl
Can�t count the stitches on her wrists
From all of those nights
With her right hand doing
What her left foot
Wanted to walk away from
And her not understanding
That she was never really alive
In the first place

Little Frankenstein girl
All mixed up
And
Mix matched
Returning every evening
With fresh wounds to be sewn
From another vain attempt
To be mortal for just a few seconds
Before the fall

Little Frankenstein girl
Stolen parts
Come with stolen lies
Maggots and flies.
The gravedigger, looking to make a buck
Steals her a kiss
The moistness quenches her lips
He promises more kisses tomorrow
She scurries home
Knowing full well
She�s damned to a life of stolen kisses
And malfunctioning hearts
that spit in the moonlight.

� Debbie Kirk
Reproduced with permission

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'IT WILL TAKE THE BLOOD OF ANOTHER TO MAKE ME CLEAN'

I want to cast a love spell
a heart shaped noose
around those who have raped me

I want to waltz down south
bust in on the snake handlers
and me,
Medusa.
With all of them fingering and taming
my dirty slinky locks.

i want the wrong things
for the right reasons

feel my disease when you sit next to me on the bus
hear the black pieces jingle inside when you break my heart

no psychobabble terms
can describe my affliction
no pills take it away
sure, they take it somewhere else
but in the morning its back.
Sitting on the end of my bed and looking at me.

An eye for an eye
and I've just seen all too much
smash out your teeth
one by one
i think it will take the blood of another
to make me clean

and I think that when we are at that swimming hole
and I ask you to hold me under,
I'm asking you to save me.
And I really think if you loved me,
you'd do it.

� Debbie Kirk
Reproduced with permission

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'COWBOYS AND INDIANS'

When I was little I liked to pretend that I was an Indian.
My sister and I would pick berries in the field behind the house
And paint our faces with them
Like warriors
Young smiling faces with halos
And red red songs of war

Everyone knew about Cowboys and Indians
And mostly people wanted to be the Cowboy.
I wanted to be the Indian
And so I think I was.

I�ve never slaughtered a bull and used its hide for warmth
But I�ve strangled the moon,
Shaking out words to hide under

I�ve killed plenty of cowboys though
And I can make my own weapons
From stone
Or from wood
Or from words
And I dance on their graves
Saying ancient chants
About taking back my land

It was all for play
And all make believe
Who would of thought every cowboy is carrying a gun
And The Indians with their war paint
Spend all day chanting for rain.

A flood would do us all in

And I should have eaten those poison berries
While there was still a happy ending.

� Debbie Kirk
Reproduced with permission

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'CAN SOMEBODY PLEASE CALL MY BOSS AND TELL HIM I WON�T BE INTO WORK ANYMORE? I�M SERIOUS, I CAN�T CALL HIM. THE NUMBER IS (512) 467-9438'

It all kinda hit me at once
I asked you if Flash Gordon could breathe underwater
You rented a truck
We were on the way to California
Been high for days
And then I got word that hunter
Went out.

Its sad
That I am such a shitty employee
And couldn�t walk up to my boss Jeff,
(about whom I�ve had many sexual fantasies)
and say
�Jeff, I love this job. But I was raped a year ago,
and now im going away to therapy�
I mean, if I tell him that
I can never use him for a reference for anything
But something else I left uncompleted
I always have an excuse
But I think this time my friends were right
When they thought I needed to buy a dime bag
To make it to rehab

Im an asshole
Im sorry I didn�t call you
Instead I just kinda slept
And drank and smoked
And the next thing I knew
I thought I was talking to Johnny Cash
And maybe I was

So, Jeff I will be unable to make sandwiches for you
Because Im going to LA to get rehab and �find myself� sic
I should�ve known I wasn�t ready for a day job
When it pissed me off to stop painting to go to work.
You were a cool boss
And (I mentioned) kinda cute
So,
What do you think my chances are
Of getting a job with you in the future
After I�ve lived in California
And have had time to develop as a person?

Mostly,
Thank you for all the weed connections.

� Debbie Kirk
Reproduced with permission

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'JOHNNY CASH, WHISKY AND ME UNDER A TABLE WITHOUT SHOES'

I�m putting my foot down today.
Which is probably a good idea, �cause standing with one leg on
shaky ground
is quite a gamble.
It�s no secret, I was born to lose, born lost even�
But I can make out the sign for the liquor store ahead and today that
means I�ve found god.

Sometimes you have to do whatever it takes.
Whatever it takes, just to distract yourself from the open window�
and the no frills fast departure.

At least I got no one calling me up wasting my time.
But I never drink alone,
I always drink with Johnny Cash.
Every time I take my first drink, I know how the evening will end
he�ll drink me right under the table where I belong.

I don�t know if I�m drunk or hung over anymore.
I have no sense, and I don�t see that changing any time soon.
I�ve got holes in my pockets anyway�
and today, I�m just gonna stay down here with Johnny

He takes it away for seconds
Seconds that feel like weeks
And that�s the best I can hope for.

�Cause tomorrow I�m putting my foot down again
and if I can find my shoes�the music will stop�

� Debbie Kirk