Classic Michael Appleby

This time around, "Classic Michael Appleby" presents a poem that was inspired by one of Michael's fellow Toolarmy members by the name of Random_J, who, in a poem of his evoked the image of two lovers merging their veins as a sign of their love for each other. Michael was moved by that image and decided to take it a bit further. Talking about one's self in the third person totally kicks ass! Enjoy.


Marionettes
We’re each other’s marionettes
now that our limbs have been opened

by crudeness in dirty steak knives and sandpaper,
a serrated cut, jag slicing long slits
before wearing away the excess skin curtain
until all the strings exposed,

allowing the wiring of our veins
to be stretched out
and tied together,

bonded,

grafted by surgical staples and a scintilla of stitches.

Your heart thumps
and I feel your blood pumped
into me
before my heart bumps
and pumps it all right back into you.

Do I make you blush?

What an odd couple we are
connected like this.

I stretch my arms back and to the sides,
striking a messianic pose
to draw you nearer to me

for a kiss

and tasting my own body
in this flesh loop.

Who leads whom
in this postmodern dada dance?

Sometimes when I walk
you allow yourself to be forced to follow,
your feet mimicking my pace,
but when you want to
you can stand
and in my weakness

I fall,

trying to walk away,
but tethered helplessly to you.

Do you mean to drag me
to all your gynecologist appointments?
When you put your feet up in those stirrups
it’s also my legs that are being spread,
my genitals on a cold medical table,
not for examination,
but on display nonetheless.

Mealtimes are messy
because we can never
quite get the rhythm of our eating utensils in sync
I’ll try to chew on my meat
when you spoon some more of your soup
which means I am forced to shovel
even more chow into my mouth.

You choke me
and I choke you
when I manipulate

more soup into your gullet.

In simpler days,
we were still in love
and this commitment
of slavery to each other
seemed idyllic in every sense,
but it’s only gone to show
how out of rhythm we really are
and would it not prove fatal
to sever our connection,
let our spewing veins

retract

four ruby fountains
into their native bodies,
I would suggest scissors.

Now here we are,
stuck together,
two marionettes
and puppeteers,

two people who can’t agree
where the other should be going.