Jeffrey McDaniel is a word-spouting hero to me.
And now I have one of his books, yay.
If anyone would like to borrow it, let me know; it's amazing. It's like he's a teacher and I can learn from him. Here are a few of my favourites from his book, 'The Endarkenment' (mm this will probably be long so don't bother if you're in a hurry, writing like this should never be hurried through).

The Soul Farmer
In the beginning, with only a few acres
of humans to care for, god planted
each soul by hand, but over time,
as his business grew, he got more

and more removed from the day-to-day
of his enterprise. Now he reclines
in a celestial hammock, nibbling meteors
like intergalactic hors d'oeuvres,

star clusters glittering like martini
glasses. His migrant angels oversee
his humanoid crop, plucking us
as we ripen. Ah, the rich taste

of a tormented soul properly marinated
in experience. The messages pile up
on his prayer machine. Centuries
since he's repainted the sky.


Guidebook to Nowhere
I wear a patch
over my right eye.
Not because
it's damaged.
I'm saving the eye
for a rainy day,
saving it from
all this crap.
One day I'll
go to the desert,
and I'll switch
the patch to my
left eye. And
I'll only look
at cacti,and
butterflies, and
jackrabbits, but
never in the mirror
and never at
the sky, and like
this I'll train
myself to see
the difference
between what's real
and manmade.


Lament for a Shrivelling Flesh Plant
Each morning you rise and apply glue stick
to your lips, sealing the words in,

then you fill your pockets with kitty litter,
sit by the door, and wait. The buzzer aches

like the nipples of a wife who hates
her husband. Humans are the rarest

of plants - needing to be watered inside
as well as out, all the while swearing

independence. Imagine a dandelion
roaring in a field: I'm the one who brings home

the sunlight. I sit here by the bed, pressed
against the exterior, wishing I had more to give,

so in the dark, when you tilt me to your lips,
a wave could rinse through your insides,

but alas, I'm just a cheap, unwashed glass
with three measly ounces of tap water

in my grasp, and you are the whore
who will one day hurl me against the wall.


Exercising My Demons
Tomorrow I will
exercise my demons.
I will rouse them
from their mink
caves and make them
run sprints till
their long tongues
dangle like red flags
of desire. Oh, soon
my demons will be
in such good shape.
No one will call
them fat. My demons
will be the fittest
demons of all.


Blessings from the Shrine Pit
You stumble in here wearing a blindfold
made out of beer wrappers and ladies' underwear
with your palms out, swearing you're looking
for god, but you're not looking for a deity,
just something to hold onto, something
to get you through the night, a strip of masking tape
to slip over the lips of your demons. You say
you got no faith 'cause you held a pillow one night
and cried into it like it was one of god's ears,
then got mad the next day 'cause nothing changed,
which was either proof he didn't exist,
or was treating you like one of his bitches. God

will send you a signal, but it's your job to see it.
God will meet you half-way, but he's not
coming to your house and waiting out the front
while you fiddle in front of the mirror. God isn't easy,
the way the devil is. The devil has hounds
sniffing the air, letting him know when you're rolling
around in the sheets at three a.m. like a giant blister.
The devil will slither in through an air vent
with a flask of whisky in his sock and an envelope
of nude Polaroids of your ex. The devil
will smile with a mouthful of crack rocks for teeth.
God isn't like that. You're not gonna find god

sitting on your sofa with a forty of mouthwash
and a bunch of stubbed-out prayers in the ashtray.
You gotta hit the street and find a god that fits you.
You don't want one of those gods with wings,
always fluttering around in the clouds like a ballerina.
You're not one of them pretty people. You need
a god with housemaid knees so when your mind's
flopping in the gutter he can bend right quick
and snap it up. A god with dirt under the fingernails
so he can dig his hands into that cracked
flowerpot of yours. A god with sunglasses
so he can see you the way you need to be seen.