Hells Bells
Wasn’t allowed to listen
to secular music. Mother said
it was the devil’s music.
Church said Satan was made
of music, glory of the Lord
inlaid in his pipes.
Before he was cast out, pastor
said Satan led heaven’s choir.
Lucifer still sings pastor said
and we could hear him
on Rock ‘n’ Roll records
backwards, hell-bent & warbled.
Sometimes when I’m bored
I research the Manson murders.
I often think about Sharon Tate’s
shredded pregnant body. One night,
I even looked up the pictures. Yes,
of course, it was beyond brutal.
But I wanted to see complete damage.
The mess didn’t scare me.
Supposedly Sharon screamed:
Mother! Mother! Mother!
Mother! Mother! Mother!
before & while they knifed her.
When I said I wasn’t scared
I’m not saying I wasn’t disgusted.
I’m saying copious amounts of blood
& horror look familiar to me,
maybe expected is a better word,
or, rather, that I that wanted to be certain
I was alive. Okay, it was about control.
I’m grasping at what I know
& don’t know for precise meaning,
even now I think scare is not quite right,
which makes me think of Lowell’s
wedge-headed mother skunk
inside that empty cup of sour cream.
My first CD was Alanis Morissette.
I listened to her Jagged Little Pill
on repeat. I liked that secret song
about her breaking into her lover’s house
& dancing in the shower just like the raw root
of any dark sound: desperation.