Hollyland

They say that Hollyland is funtastic
but I’ve never been there to toss my jollies
into the vat that is currently deep-frying
cola, butter, or whatever other horror this year. 
As thick as a butternut
squash in the endzone, 
barbeque smoke drifts above the trees,
suggesting the abattoirs
abroad in the opium fields of terror
and yes there’s pleasure,
Why not take it? Why not indeed?

Hollyland was the mutant child
of Hollywood and Disneyland,
whose aborted fetus, the neverland ranch– 
thousands of hours, hundreds
of workers, all funneled
into one blessed diadem of letters: M. J.

I cross the river Jordan and milk Michael’s
rowboat for all it’s worth,
and it turns out that the boat
is made from garage sale signage.

A regatta ensues, LED snowflakes
light up the desert, and much
merriment is had,
while I, in the bathroom,
retch in the manner of the dogs
Heimlich drowned to test his maneuver.

Hollyland is happiness. Vomit. A brain scrambler
of a rollercoaster. The bushes where you lost
your virginity. And became properly socialized.

Practical jokes include fake fingers…left
in empty chairs, rogue text messages
in your name, pirate ships
to induce the sea sick sway
of destiny’s illegitimate child.

An ark in a tub. Beluga caviar on Kraft Dinner.
Skull and Crossbones. Bows and Eros.

Hollyland had a problem with cockroaches,
until Willy Wonka put in a guest appearance
and waved his trench coat over a muddy puddle
for us to walk across, a latter-day Moses
of the Midway.

Mid way between Hollyland and nowhere
Is the highway to hell. It’s a wrong turn of course,
but everybody wants to go there because of
the sexy billboards. And the blank spaces
invite you to fill them in,
fulfill your duty, participate in
an incipient, partial, pate-opening,
brain surgery as a spectator
and a patient.

No vaudeville debauchery waits, but perhaps
a hammer, and some mischievous groundhogs
give up the ghost for a lobotomy or a funnel cake,
depending on your mood.

Nerves of pain, yanked like a scalp off a cadaver,
like a bunch of wires from the switchboard,
and all that entails,
all automated. If energy still flows,
there is the cleaver.

And the chopping board.

Electricity, Elvis in tow, has left the building.

In Hollyland, everyone wears meat dresses
like Lady Gaga, and everyone eats steak tartar
off each other’s backs.

The Birds Inherit the Earth

The sides have been drawn.
arms need to be obtained.
The vultures circle above, certain
of the buffet below.

A hawk cries out in the distance–
meat is meat,
and there are dead people on the field
everywhere.

Bits of broken glass in dried cement,
pointing upwards.

The fenced enclosures of POWs
are electrified, the chagrin of zeus
and his livestock of matter.
If only our graveyards
weren’t fertilized with opium.

Helicopters in the distance
chop on.

If only our smart bombs
were smarter still.

An eagle takes out the reconnaissance drone.
On and on the charred field
stretches, smoking still 
with a sulphurous stench
the only movement–crows waddling
among the still bodies.

Moans escape here and there
and seem to ride on the smoky fog.

Some are still alive as the birds pick at them.

Trevor Cunnington is a queer and neurodivergent writer/artist/educator who lives in Toronto. They are the poetry editor of KayTell Ink Publishing. Their work has appeared in Open Arts Forum, Poetry Super Highway, Last Leaves, Cerasus, and various anthologies. Additionally, they have work forthcoming in Radon, Word For/Word, The Orchards Poetry Review, and The Rivanna Review.