Inside Read is our sampler of new Canadian books we think merit your attention. InDOOM: Love Poems for Supervillains, Toronto poet and music journalist Natalie Zina Walschots brings a distinctly erotic edge to her examination of comic book evildoers. Says her publisher: “DOOM addresses the results of abuses of power and presents a case study on the pathology of villainy.”
Published by kind permission of Insomniac Press.
she creaks in my eaves
a sharp tangle
each curve of her
hones my blades
she is rash and razor-witted
snarled in her hair
she lacerates
cuts my every quick
oh whetstone of appetite
she growls for excision
I long for amputation
slice across the distal phalanx
they assume your weaponry
was all tip and tine
fools ignore
the blades in your eyes
Red Skull
never a victim of acid or blade
merely contraction and keratin, skin’s armour
he grins a nine iron
dapper eclabium
slaps against jackboots
the rigour to my mortis
your cheekbone and orbital
slough dragon scale
islands of skin grind
against each other
bleeding tectonic plates
my body rubble
beneath your blitz
my twisted rune
you flicker heteroclitic
riding crop
a minefield
clutch
choke out
see red
From DOOM: Love Poems for Supervillains by Natalie Zina Walschots. Insomniac Press, 120 pages, $16.95