Premature dirge

Medusa boy bed-head-raggled

stench of stale bread sweat

camel red cigarettes

acid festered death breath,

is anyone loving you?

how do you stumble through

that crumbling underdirt room?

through the debris and carnage

of her heart's scattered garbage?

you could survive for years on starvation

bones knocking about like Pinocchio

a walking coffin

heartbeatboxing faint

strange laughter

strained veins in your eyes,

trained on the prize.

apocalyptic durability,

cockroach-issue sturdy genes.

a list of unfathomable things:

how the seatbelt bell in the car

never seems to occur to you

like the chirping carbon monoxide detectors

of morons,

who poison on their own oblivion.

how you spent your food stamps

on Red Bull til they stopped

giving them to you.

how sam still uses the same bathroom

where kelsey's toothbrush lives

on his shelf in a glass labelled

"kelsey's toothbrush"

even though her teeth have not been

brushed in that bathroom

for over a month and a half

and he hasn't been sober since.

how, when we're together,

your heart seems to leak

through cracks in your thorax

seems to seep through the threads

of hair my fingers rake,

yet, you won't call me back!

Well. Allow me

to drink this fetus to its miscarriage,

if it survives I'll starve it skeletal

you wouldn't believe the gleam

of an infant's femur

I'll dismantle this devilish train

before it can escape the station

and scrap the tracks

Trust me, trust it's inevitable derailment

trust the cut of losses here

let those people go home to their families

let my neurons fire in peace.

Soon you'll begin to wonder

when you began to stare

at the arid austerity

of my toothbrush

after it has atrophied

a month in your bathroom.

You don't make

a very persuasive case for you.

You don't even seem convinced

of your own existence.

But sometimes,

I remember

how you know me.

Reviews

[James]

This is really good. It took me a minute to get into it, but I couldn't stop reading. That's typically how I gauge a good write.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

damn this is so good...as W.k. said...the turn of phrase you use in this...the analogies to the almost homeless man...the empty room, the toothbrush...his heart still stuck in the past...killing the relationship of now...and soon to have another toothbrush atrophy from disuse...his heart will also atrophy...

this is a wickedly great piece of writing....one of the best i have read on here in all the years.
down and dirty, in a good way.


j.

[M. Shepherd]

Thank you for the words Jacob - interesting ideas- his heart will atrophy from disuse.. maybe overuse, maybe misuse?

[W.k.kortas]

There is a boatload of world-class turns of phrases in here, too innumerable to cite one by one. This piece has a wide, wide sweep, yet is intensely intimate and personal as well--and that is hard to do at all, let alone this well.

[M. Shepherd]

Thank you wk - :)

[. serah .]

-- it's just impossible for me to review such heartfelt heart-speak... -- i've been on this page for a while now... been reading this piece over and over again... stunned by your skill/brilliance/pursuit of excellence in poetic precision... and moved by the anguish you express... -- i know a bit about what it's like to be hooked to a substance... i know a bit about life... but this experience that you've written about is unique to you... and that's why i feel like i'm reading something new about a dimension of pain that i have not seen but can sense/feel upon reading your verse... -- you take the reader through a journey which (for me) begins at a point of complexity... but demystifies itself through your persistent perusal of it... and reaches a point of vulnerability and simplicity that is so earnest that it is startling... and i'll say this yet again... you have the ability to describe the indescribable... and you do so with such novel imagery (even if crushing such as in the 'scrap the tracks' stanza) that it is impossible not to notice your talent for poetic expression as well as your talent for delving deep into the hidden realms of the human condition... -- may you continue to observe society, people and your own journey as vehemently as you do and may you continue to express yourself in acutely sensitive, perceptive and unique ways...

p.s. i dunno if you've heard a band called 'dream theater'... they're described as musicians who make music for musicians... that's who you are on this site... and i'm glad you don't take anything i say seriously... because i do want you to remain on your toes... :p

[M. Shepherd]

Oh gosh thank you serah, you are always so unbelievably astute, I have no idea how you understand poetry the way you do.. and yes I have heard dream theater! I didn't know they were referred to that wat - that's an incredible comparison though, I don't know if I deserve that but I love thinking about it. I'm going to go listen to octavarium now. :)

[. serah .]

-- haha... you're very welcome, fellow dream theater fan... happy listening... -- i'll listen to their poetry here... along with you... :)

p.s. i have no idea how i understand poetry the way i do either... it's baffling... lol... :p but thank you for your kind words... :)