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Fear 13

siderophobia                           Top                   
(fear of stars)

Flat-backed in the hay
pinnacles of grassytips
tendrilling out to constellation
sugar cubes
and the iced frontier star,
but past its shoulder 
another
flung by some mad baker 
then another further more, and oh
how they do go
on
hug tight to the continental curve
or flop right off
to the endless massacre
sugar shards
in mad bakery silence

auroraphobia                           Top                                                  
(fear of the northern lights)

There is nothing beyond
the pole of this planet
no place untormented
with curtains of spectral night
bone-crackling 
blustering the sky entire
oh hold me now
I am miniscule
in every undulation
the earth resplendently 
conspires to end

monophobia                           Top
 (fear of one thing)

she barges into the kitchen
surprising roaches with swift lightswitchings
against the stark white countertop
antennae conduct intricate symphonies of alarm
Tonight in the tea house there was conspiracy
whisperings about the concealed matrix
present at the original birth of stars
Infinity’s Flypaper
stuck to it every caress and funeral and reunion
every single face
   You’re in it now, girl
The living proof
Magyar suicides plummet in all districts of the city
in ever-changing patterns
through wide-mouthed windows
storm spits snowflakes in like ninja stars
no two the same
now she sacrifices the bag of groceries
to the insect floor
eat! drink! scurry!
my ravenous Rachmaninoff multitudes

kakoraphiaphobia                           Top                                    
(fear of failure)

a black synagogue night
some cat curdling heartaches
in his throat
and the look of your face
when I ended us
carved me like a prison tattoo, indelible
you, most beautiful scar
Like a pack-rat from Lourdes
I keep the Kabala stones
your broken necklace of eyes
danced upon the stair
to never again meet you
where lupins stir fields to blush
most precious unworkable device of my life
ripping myself off
knowing how the world
will behave the same tomorrow
as if we weren’t forever altered
- the world, vast
a wonder
and somewhere upon it
I have lost you

hypnophobia                           Top                                                            
(fear of sleep)

the evacuation is underway
to the Oort cloud, where the comets breed
beyond the asteroid belt
drifts a convoy of whales
galactic corkscrews of DNA
skyscrapers overrun with night flowers
and lost in the breathless migration
among colossal crucifixes
million of cubits at the beam
ghost armadas, sails all shimmering glyphs
one sheet-wound mummy convulses in space
wracked by the fable of rest

hydrophobia                           Top                                                            
(fear of water)

starving feral cat
squeezes in the bakery vent
finds nothing good to eat
a sudden pitiless desert

belonephobia                           Top                                                  
(fear of needles)

the monsignor's back arches
weeps from thin crimson gouges:
a fistful of lira and I become pin cushion
for a magdalene with thorn matrices
welded to her cuticles
our heaving skin is a rind of ice,
translucent rivers of wine
rushing underneath
so lord, at last this
this is ecstasy

eisoptrophobia                           Top                                                      
(fear of mirrors)

there was wall to wall blood
I swear to god
and the moon stood mute
wringing its hands
What's become of people these days
All I know is heard hours of music
smashing glass
through the wall
Never paid his bills on time
and how he would battle in there
like a peasant uprising, a cyclone
When they broke the door
he was everywhere
and completely alone

eosophobia                           Top                                     
(fear of dawn)

a tale once
of blackness
the feet of swallows
upon a filigreed railing
scratchings in dew
- talons, the night belly pregnant
slumber of early blades

algophobia                            Top                                                              
(fear of pain)

lips lock to an icy mouth
as fingers strangle her neck
his protector, his ruination
Lady Midnight deflects
the smash fists of youth
fills home's brutal chambers
with tenderness
for some obliterated hours
rolls himself up safe like a prayer
ship in a bottle
awash on her forgetful seas

nelophobia                               Top                                                               
(fear of glass)

a tiger moth now inserts tenterhooks
in a shattered longwise crack
bristly tender hooks
tinkerbell the tiny storm window
economics etched in ice:
desire always outweighs supply
On a knickknack shelf, the pane-suffocated pic
two roughhousing boys
peer out from their pickle jar
teeth like Habsburg chandeliers
story goes
they shared an incubator when little
but grew greedy for open air

oikophobia                            Top                                                        
(fear of home)

late-sodden spring
one orphaned branch
cavorts down avenues of river
She was budded and blossomed upstream
but storm gifted her a snapping thunderbolt
instantly the copse opened to a vast forest
who knew?
now she's moving faster
than any known tree
beaming: this is how
stupendous new species
go about
getting born

phasmophobia                            Top                                                
(fear of ghosts)

banging like crack addicts
the radiators demand exorcism
there’s a hand in there
crashing rusty perambulators
down linoleum passages
of a long-demolished ward
The phantasm of an undead cactus
my gangrene thumb likely murdered
in some other apartment
(dandy little prick clutching
nosegay of dried smooches)
he's become a pet, answers to Dennis
follows me from town to town
rattling change in his pouty pot pockets
moaning to devour my chocolate bars
I’ll not ruin his sweet-tooth fun:
while alive
he was an incorrigible carnivore

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