UNDERGROUND VOICES MAGAZINE/KIRK

DEBBIE KIRK

Word Factory

When the words really scream
the kind of scream that makes red drip from the corners of your mouth...
I thought they had to have been written by a man
carrying the uneven weight
of unrequited love
Swaggering through dark alleyways
with a trench coat on and a flask in hand
contemplating the large exit.

When I read such beautiful words about madness
The madness that doesn’t know it exists, and lives
in it's own shadow.
Madness that make some people build gallows,
and others laugh until they can't bleed anymore

I think that they must have been scrawled
on a matchbook by a young woman who is aged only
by the layers of dirt on her face and memories in her head
A woman whose teeth rattle when she coughs.

So, they took my shoestrings
And gave me something “to calm down a little”
And I’m a little confused for a while
Because I thought this would surely be the place
Where the words would flow like the wine I finished
Without a glass.
But instead of writing words that dance on my tongue
I watch the clock for med time

Then I laugh out loud
As I realize, this is the factory
Where they try to take away your words forever
But they can’t get me
Without words, I don’t exist
And I’m not that fucking lucky

The Last Song

Maybe happiness is a warm gun
if I had one,
it would surely be hot
But we've got to start from scratch

I played tic-tac-toe with a chicken in Vegas once
and lost

A gun would trim the fat
ducks in a row
neatly and slow

I've been dreaming about playing with fire
maybe raise our own steaks
dancing flames
would put a smile on this face

Once I was told
not to stand too close to the fire
that someday
I would get burned

I already had that planned
as my finishing act.
So thanks for ruining my punch line, fucker.

Got a light?

(Fwd, fwd, fwd) Send this to 5 people so you may be blessed

Jesus came to me in an alley
on my knees
deepthroating lead
the white pigeons
flapping their wings like angels
and carrying the message

I tithed
and
I swallowed the seed of Christ
and from one donation
from a disciple
he cooked enough to feed us all

Main lining lies with Jesus
in that alley
He told me I was a savant of sorts
as speaking tongues
came naturally to me.

He didn't look much different
than my childhood drawings
now on a refrigerator door
that lures in children
in some forgotten field.

A stick figure.
He was never more than a few lines to me
Jesus baptized me
right there
showering me
with visions
of streets of gold.

One by one
all 13 of them
blessed me
with their touch

They asked for my watch
maybe it marks my name in a book somewhere
but they told me it was so I wouldn't know
when they were coming again.

The whole experience
left me feeling holy
Jesus is a chain letter
living in words
passed from sucker to sucker

And the best or the worst
is over
Now i have no fucking
idea what time it is.

Debbie Kirk is the author of two chapbooks “Lost Words of Suicide Lovers “(Pink Anarchkitty Press),
and “Valley of the Gallows” (Black Hoody Nation). She has been published in a number of online
publications including the following: Babel Magazine, Mystery Island Publications, Impetus,
Cherry Bleeds, Mystery Island Remark…a ‘zine of damn fine poetry, Lummox Journal, Foole’s Gold,
The People’s Poet, Sex and Guts etc. She has also been published in a number of print ‘zines,
to name a few: Failed Seeker, Fearless, Open Minds Quarterly, Transcendent Visions,
and Austin Celebrity Profiles. She is the creator and editor for Pink Anarchkitty Press.