Mark DeCarteret
“Poisoned Tale”
from Caketrain Issue 03

Head squalls, an almost snow
bedding down in my skull.
Leaves reveal their contaminants.
Footage of malls and their runoff,
an epic that streams under noon sun
where dust is more adjective,
some mood for the ages.

He comes with the papers,
eyes like two padlocks,
his face a fat pyramid—
a perennial sucker for history,
when clouds shadowboxed in the meadow
and sheep actual-sized aired
those bluest of tongues.

Permits scale the trees.
This could be me they have
hung on their back.
I don’t like my selves either,
but I’ve worked at it otherwise,
getting used to the shopping—
so let’s say it’s burgers tonight.

No more red-ringed receiver.
No more naps with the dead.
I will smash myself into the moon
cause your dad is a bum head.
Cause your dad’s a small ant.
Unpackaged like the battle songs of old-
words often work once and that’s all.

Caketrain is a literary journal and press based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Our interest is in bringing you, reader, the very best in contemporary creative writing, full stop. Our goals are for each issue of our journal to submerge you in a birthing tank for gelatinous language monsters, young masses of tentacular foci undulating as directed (in all, at once) by our eclectic stable of contributors; for each new book we publish to seduce and ensnare you, sometimes intangibly, always undeniably; and for you, reader, to be able to draw at least one passage from our banks that prods your mind with such precision and power that it feels as if it was written for your eyes alone. To wit and to whet, here is a snippet, a slight nip of our delicious lit mix:

Copyright 2003-2006 Caketrain Journal and Press. Rights to literature revert to their respective authors.
ISSN 1547-6839.

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