Fisting, Mapplethorpe 1                                                                         —Greg Casale


It disappeared inside me.
I’ve seen the pictures—the finite places open 
like a shutter on a western landscape.

Earth and sky race for perspective, 
clouds defy the atmosphere, 
saguaro and prickly pear, ripe red and 
pink. 

Fruit swells,
but the canyon 
fills with shadows.


Fisting, Mapplethorpe 2


It disappeared inside.
Me? I’ve seen the pictures. 

Tangled darkness. Egos waltz 
drunk on peristaltic ferment.

Disembodied idiots pan for gold 
in guts strip-mined by priests.

The search for significance leaves us with shit
smudged-up under our manicured nails.


Fisting, Mapplethorpe 3


It disappeared

Inside him I saw 
the pictures’ failure

No image circumscribes the depth of man

Cave and tunnel painted past
woolly rhinos running ‘round stalactites
antlered god-men ithyphallic in the gorge 
blood-red river feeds the cosmic tree

I bow to the black hole
anamnesis reliquary 
irresistible 
insatiable I tread 
prudently through antiquity’s dumping ground

In the sluice I feel it
   Him
            It       something
grab my hand and haul
my whole self in

Slain in the bog I lie
arms legs neck 
pleated fingerprints pristine 
awaiting discovery by another
groping explorer


Greg Casale

Greg Casale is an award-winning poet living in Arizona. Poetry publications include Origins Literary Journal, Bayou Magazine, The Literary Review, Arkana, HIV Here & Now, Ghost City Review, Bosie Magazine, Under A Warm Green Linden, and A&U Magazine, from which he won the Christopher Hewitt award in poetry.

ISSN 2472-338X
© 2019