Poetry since January 2011

Comments appreciated.

Your face hangs off in strips,

(Not our blood, but Clorox

welling out in drips.)

open like my blinded eyes,

gouged for redemption

since I was sixteen

in crusted circles on the tile

that never came clean.

I hold the knife.

I'm on my knees.

The chemicals were stronger

but your love more sweet.

How could the moon reach me

way down in this hole

to sever my body

from what's left of my soul?

Baby, please stay...

Get the f**k out of my face.

Let me bleed the way I want to;

let it numb you dry.

Let me fight it back against you.

Baby, let me try.

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Pretty words for me and signed,

pretty words against your ears,

in the prettiest words I'm left behind

to meet further down the years.

Our roads unknown may reconverge,

and if not again, I content myself

to submit to God our secret dirge,

and put my hope upon the shelf,

 

and catch your scent from time to time

in my clothes if I'm ahead

or on the wind if I'm behind

or in my mind if you are dead.

 

We'll both kick rocks along the road

in hopes that the other

can catch a glimpse of secret code

to bring home the prodigal brother.

But if you've left for good this time,

I'll hold my little pretty song

I won't stay too far left behind

or feel that it was wrong.

 

I'll catch your scent from time to time

in my clothes if I'm ahead

or on the wind if I'm behind

or in my mind if you are dead.

 

My pretty words just won't erase

and we'll sing the whole way then

lest we not know each others' face

and never meet again.

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All the air pulled to the flame,

left void and toxic

collapsed in on itself.

 

Never the home,

hollow shell,

abandoned nest.

It hated itself,

ran away,

the antagonist in its core.

The parasite:

the fear.

 

An old death,

a new life,

an old death,

a new life,

 

sprout roots,

spread wings,

ossify, eviscerate.

A new death,

an old life,

your heart still,

mine cold.

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The days since have been resentful at best

without purpose handed to them.

I, their god, without joy in their existence,

they, the reminder of my inevitable last breath:

tar vapor and grey humor.

I just know it'll be a gas.

A big f**k-you to the ones who pushed

and the ones I couldn't push back.

It was you all along, my painkiller.

Left with just the ache of betrayal

scars back to wounds

pouring from this shell.

I never ran dry; every pore was plugged.

I never was broken; I rip and reseal.

And you never were crazy, my love, only weak.

As many times as you've said it

and I've denied it,

yes, love,

you are a piece of s**t,

but I neither deserve nor want better.

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Sockless, shodden, but unlaced feet
crept along creaky floorboards...
Squeaking hinges gave way to a
drift of white specks:
a print preserved,
a moment frozen,
not on this amnesiac world
with its ephemeral season
and fleeting existence,
but in the mark of stillness on the soul.

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[Villanelle]

I will burst with these secrets I hold,
all my companions to the grave.
Clipped wings for granite are sold.

Until the blood goes marble cold
and the heart ceases to crave
I will burst with these secrets I hold.

Still, my shaking vocal fold,
into your lying cave.
Clipped wings for granite are sold.

Too soon I'll see the gates of gold.
Then, too late for you to save,
I will burst with these secrets I hold.

A rose will in that place unfold,
remembering all I forgave;
clipped wings for granite are sold.

Laying bricks of faults chipped and old,
condemnation for myself I pave.
I will burst with these secrets I hold.
Clipped wings for granite are sold.

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The crowd cheered in the middle of the song
and I wondered what had just gone on.
I advocate my own bullshit
not because I love it so much as I proclaim,
but because I want to look the part.
Sometimes I want to be a writer
more than I want to write.
Feigning art
for the life it offers.
Constantly caught in that teetering
frozen moment between
a precarious situation
and freefall.

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Such fragile bodies in a world unkind
and violent chaos in the mind.
Tender, thin, cracked to the bone.
It's how we all will soon atone.
 
I want you, lover, now, forever,
to keep you mine, I start to sever
all your sweetest locks of hair
and stuff them in my teddy bear,
 
and seal him with most loving stitches,
and hide your limbs in roadside ditches
all along I-59.
Your torso's home, hung on the line.
 
I keep your powdered teeth in Ziplocs
under your rump roast in the ice box.
It's only evidence if they find you.
Until then, I'm right beside you.

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the ruthless ones are the most imprinted on my memory

the welts on my body i'm proud to say
created by men
now charring on spits in hell.
their hungry hands, bright eyes, empty words
crisping to the ashes
i can't wait to taste.
their voices rise like smoke
so high i can smell it.
mouthwatering.
eyes watering
lover in mind
knowing the shake, the need, the grief
of loving a ruthless one
of holding a loving one
finding in me a
loveless one.
half my father
half my mother
a coin toss into the abyss.