the sickest form of madness

by Nick Petrone

psychotic deviation
Mother and child
Earth and man
what kind of person rapes his mother
fits her frail body for cheap vinyl
first
then rapes her–
gangbangs her with the guys from the Rotary Club
while still in utero they gag her,
violate her with neon
preside over the desertification of her womb
and give her fever with their concoctions
and so-called remedies for despair
make her chain-smoke till her face is calloused from burns
bury their excrement in her belly ever deeper    ever wider    ever
more toxic
they turn from her touch and call it harsh uncivilized
and old fashioned
sorry they say lady you are passé
nobody wants your flower
we can paint our own with plasma
nobody needs your bread
we can eat fresh at Subway
I dig you but you’re in the way of my dream house
Nick Petrone is an American history teacher and professor in Syracuse, NY. When he is not writing, meditating, pushing his kids on swings, or reading, he is generally losing at tennis or drowning the sorrow of these stinging losses with a pint or two. His poems have appeared or are scheduled to appear in Poetry Super Highway, Epiphany Magazine, Word Salad Poetry Magazine, Dark Sky Magazine, and in notebooks crammed into boxes in his attic.
Back to Issue Nine: Fall 2010