Two Poems by Rauan Klassnik

INTO THE SKULL

As we dance and kiss.

A tongue in an ice box. An assistant with
endless brain and sexual organs.

I go back to the bed we shared. I place a pebble
on the bed frame and begin to gently rub the
folds of my ear. A children’s music. Sharp-
speared. All the heads squeezed into you.

I’m lying there, sated, content in your arms.

Everything’s   rustling.   Trees   and   rocks   are
snoring. Foliage, sky, little birds’ nests.

Along the jaw line with two fingers.

I rip out the ear drum.

Sit down and wait.

 

RIGOR MORTIS

It feels like I’m being electrocuted.

The bird sang. The dogs hadn’t learned to
bite.

I was watching a football game, you were
reading a Cosmopolitan, giggling, as you
walked up from the creek. There’s a bird in my
mouth. We made love again. I spit it out.

I peed after sex. God is such a vengeful
mother fucker.

I was disappearing. I dug deep into the earth.
A flesh-eating bug.

I tap for a vein. I tap and I tap.

Turn it down, you said.

I flapped off.

 

 

Poems first published in A SLOW BOILING BEACH by Rauan Klassnik, 2019.
Artwork by Louie Otesanek

---

About the Author:

Rauan Klassnik is the author of Holy Land and The Moon’s Jaw (both from Black Ocean) as well as Sky Rat from Spork. He lives close to Costco.

Louie Otesanek is a painter based in Reykjavik, Iceland. The cover and frontispiece of A SLOW BOILING BEACH are details from his work.