The House of Baba
“Men are Important.
We need men.
I like men,”
Says the hefty Russian woman to no one.
She shifts her weight from side to side.
Her name is Baba.
I just know that her name is Baba.
A voice grumbles through clouds of logic.
“Audacious Bitch”
The pinging sounds of bullets whiz past me
As the Whole Foods checker rings up
Baba’s carton of oat milk.
“See what you see.” Baba replies
Baba lives in a house
That rests on top of a single chicken leg.
I know,
I know,
I know
That Baba’s house rests on top of a single chicken leg.
She knows the cesspools of disgust and desire.
The soporific patter of Jane Pauley’s voice on Sunday mornings.
The promised trips to the fountains of St. Augustine.
The Texan doctors promoting new watermelon diets.
I’d rather leap off a cliff and die.
I’d rather swim through putrid cesspools of pus.
I’d rather die like an animal
Having seen the undermining creep of water moccasins eviscerating academics
Before they strangle themselves with their own seasoned logic.
Rue the day.
Rue the day.
Rue the day.
When Baba’s turquoise arrow,
An arrow that cleaves the air,
That wants to thicken your blood,
That wants to glaze your eyes with the sheen of death,
Punctures through your thickened gullet.
Fuck all the pietas. Fuck all the priests.
Baba lives in a house
That rests on top of a single chicken leg.
Baba proclaims to me
That red flags are wanton,
That the throat chakra of America is crushed,
That espresso cups do not have fathers.
She warns of sonorous wars being fought
Between the medicinal side effects and health insurance sonnets
That are sung to us on Sunday mornings.
The American throat chakra is crushed.
The ancient queens are in comas.
Silenced by focus groups of whorish quaaludes.
Show your disgust now.
Show your disgust now.
Show your disgust now.
If I hear one more nature poem from a female poet,
I will die
If I see one more image of Rachel Maddow,
I will die.
If I taste the tepid hemlock drawn from a Starbucks cistern,
I will die.
Baba lives in a house
That rests on top of a single chicken leg.
Her eyes are pulsing red.
A turquoise arrow slips through my throat.
Its tip finds life on the other side.
“Did you come here on your own
Or did someone send you?” she asks.
My blood is thickening
I can taste it now.
It’s not Starbuck’s hemlock.
It pulses. Squirts. Slowly fills my belly
I had said, I’d rather die.
That I’d rather revel in the fleshy metallic stink
Of dead bovines dense with opaque maggots
Crawling out of their rotting bowels, morals, and ethics.
The turquoise arrow of Baba has found its home.
Its wanted home. Its needed home.
I have to answer.
I have to answer.
I have to answer.
“60 percent by choice.
120 percent by compulsion,” I sputter.
I see Baba smile
As my glazed eyes close.
Baba lives on a house
That rests on top of a single chicken leg.
