Clem Flowers

“REPTILE RANCH// FIREWORKS // WORLD’S BIGGEST TV- 3 MILES AHEAD”

Grandma told me I had tumbleweeds in my bones
& those words rattle me like the 5/4 rhythm
Of the endless stretch on red paved roads
& got a dashboard full of tacky keepsakes from 10,000 tourist traps--

Sands from every coast settling in my boots
Permanent farmer’s tan & the same five shirts
I got at an estate sale a dog’s age ago--

But, if I swallow all the fool’s gold from all the endless spots of grease & kindness, maybe then I
can let roots set for the first time in my life.

Studio Audience Laughed

Green dagger eyes
staring into my soul
at the cusp of dusk
from the high, scraggly bushes
next to the kudzu swarm

We were promised silk posies
and fishes in every pot
and that the good times would roll eternal
down the same hills Kate Bush kept climbing up
into foams of Heaven

Garden snake oil
in the kerosene heat
as your battered boombox
cut through the heights of mossy overgrowth
out along the backwoods
I’d only ever seen on a project to do etchings
of the Civil War cemetery a few yards away

I swear you did some kind of
Witchcraft
I didn’t care anymore about
the slump of my shoulders
the belly that stood out a little too much in those tight Hot Topic jackets
the constant dread that I was piloting some skittering machine
that doctors had decided to call my body

All I could feel or see was
Ecstasy
in the rolling swath of humidity
the sort of lust that can only survive
in the summer hours

You were only in town visiting family for that summer
I always wanted to find you to catch up
and see if you ever really
started that band
or really to just cry in your arms like the way you taught me it was okay to do

Jellied Tomato Refresher

Along the frosted bar glass
in a rare piece of unity
we all sing along to '“Time After Time”
while another smash of thunder due west
burst thru all the liquor-
for a brief reminder
of our rerouted fates & all the alignments
in infinity
that led us to 25 cent wing night
as a Godzilla movie plays on mute
on the bar TV in the background

I relish the moment-
Save for the feelings of firecrackers
running up and down my spine
as the crush of all worry in the world
seems to collapse my lungs
as Mothra starts some shit in the heart of Osaka
but I know I can’t say anything to the friends in my booth
about my withering hothouse tomato condition,
unless I want a wave of catcalls of “Emo Boy”
and that I was desperate for attention

and then I find the world has gone all fuzzy and pink
like my drink sitting on the table in front of me
and I remember reaching out for a hand to hold me up
and there was nothing and I spent years after feeling like I always needed
to apologize for every unpleasant move & it took another decade or so of nervous breaks
and uneasy night
& meds & therapy
& gender exploration
to finally feel
like I could feel my breath again