after Ikkyu’s A Crow with No Mouth
Days pass with crystalline fluency
while my cranium dangles
off this floral spear
bowing with fate
Termites and i, we meal on the spear
and leave the mill with bloodplaqued gums
mewing ecstatic grievances
Yeah you can visit
on hospice, pace
wingspans, bulletproof, glassy
I’ll recite you mute stories
whatever i swear i saw
before this peachbranch
mounted in my gut
its arid yearning
its spiritual malady, and if
you have
any questions
ask away, ask whoever
There is a silent fluency
between yourself and the dead planets
peering back at you
where questions boomerang for
ever in amnesia
where my
saké canteen never dries
PJ Lombardo is the author of THE BLUE CHERUB (Cult., 2026). He lives in Baltimore, Maryland and serves as co-founding editor of GROTTO, a journal of grotesque-surrealist poetry. Read his writing in Tripwire, Midcult*, SARKA, Hobart Pulp and elsewhere.
