Freight trains were making love nearby.
It shattered the night like glass.
I was drinking one
for every ghost from my past.
The shadows were dancing high
in their beds of neon,
their rainbow coffins all aglitter
until the cruel morning sun.
Where was I on Valentines day
but in the bosom of a stripper.
"Sorry I don't have cash for a dance
I spent my money on the liquor."
But I wrote a sonnet to you.
It's on the bathroom wall.
And I could still smell your perfume
despite the vomit in the stall.
The girls gave their tired pitch,
tried to get me in the mood.
They'd be wearing sandwich board signs
if they weren't completely nude.
Where was I on Valentine's day?
"I don't know, where were you?"
"Just answer the question." you say.
I say "I'd tell you if I knew."
When I drink you get mad,
Call me a weakling and a coward.
Well I was just taking refuge between the tits
of the lady for the hour.
I wish I could be a better man,
something like a saint or a scholar.
I wish mothers would make sure I was fed
and fathers would trust me with their daughter.
I'm so sick of whiskey talk,
forked tongues, and fake breasts.
You deserve much more than me,
and I deserve far less.
To show I was sorry
I brought you wine and a rose.
"I'd forgive you," you said
"If your gifts weren't as red as your nose."
"Now, where were you on Valentine's day?"
I say "Wishing to be with you."
"You swine, you dog, you horrible man,
you know that isn't true!"
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Okay.
Just smile and say “Okay”
At what point did I become
ridiculous?
My left shoe says yesterday.
My right shoe says it was earlier than that.
I don’t trust them
or I don’t hear them
because there are heavy-set gypsy women
stuck in my ears.
It’s cool.
We’re all waiting for a minute past midnight
when everything goes back to the way it was,
and everyone stops laughin’ their heads off
at something too true to be funny.
Stroll to the Convent 10-5-05
She found her virginity again
After 20 years of separation
Arresting Jesus - May 26, 2009
In the summer
ants lodge in my brain.
Ants
exiled by the queen.
I do not hate them
because I’m pretending
to be Jesus,
crucified in the front yard
until concerned neighbors
call the police
and again
I am taken away.
At what point did I become
ridiculous?
My left shoe says yesterday.
My right shoe says it was earlier than that.
I don’t trust them
or I don’t hear them
because there are heavy-set gypsy women
stuck in my ears.
It’s cool.
We’re all waiting for a minute past midnight
when everything goes back to the way it was,
and everyone stops laughin’ their heads off
at something too true to be funny.
Stroll to the Convent 10-5-05
She found her virginity again
After 20 years of separation
She forgot the scent
It forgot to smile
“Life’s a bitch
get it pregnant
stuff it till its belly bursts”
she heard the old man say under his breath
oblivious to her presence
She sees her childhood
Hung up on the pawn shop wall
Run through by hooks on strings
Visual stimuli burned through her brain
And tears evaporate down her cheeks
She trips on a dead man
Still holding on to the string of a white balloon
That reads “Happy 4th Birthday!”
She digs deep in her purse for a pen with which to pop it
But finds nothing.
Arresting Jesus - May 26, 2009
In the summer
ants lodge in my brain.
Ants
exiled by the queen.
I do not hate them
because I’m pretending
to be Jesus,
crucified in the front yard
until concerned neighbors
call the police
and again
I am taken away.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Porcelain Lady
She's the one
who wears the skin of a pretty psycho
and repeats to herself:
"We will be like rabid things
walking circles in the middle of the street."
I'm watching her cautiously
wondering if she is even aware
of the razor blade she grips
in the palm of her hand.
I'm afraid to comfort her
because she trembles
like something ready to explode.
And the foggy window that is her skin
would shatter into a thousand jagged pieces
and I'd see her every tragedy reflected from each
before they embedded themselves in my skin.
who wears the skin of a pretty psycho
and repeats to herself:
"We will be like rabid things
walking circles in the middle of the street."
I'm watching her cautiously
wondering if she is even aware
of the razor blade she grips
in the palm of her hand.
I'm afraid to comfort her
because she trembles
like something ready to explode.
And the foggy window that is her skin
would shatter into a thousand jagged pieces
and I'd see her every tragedy reflected from each
before they embedded themselves in my skin.
Our Lady of Mascara Tears
It ended like all things, with so many bifurcating roots at the ends of which precarious brown leaves mourn the verdant spring, its last vestiges dead and frozen beneath the snow.
It began out of primordial discord and ended with a haughty tone of sophistication.
It ends here, now, with the words that I am writing.
Fire. That massive fire that seemed to burn through the bitter winter. When it waned we fed it furniture we bought cheap from a junky fresh from a home invasion. Shadows slept at our feet and we stepped over them as we danced around.
Someone hidden somewhere in the black strummed a guitar and women swayed in an inebriate trance, gazing into our inferno centerpiece as if divining its secret language. The sky was held up by columns of smoke and through it they all appeared as phantoms.
Through that smoke, that soap-opera mist, I saw her; that actress from my nightmares. The one I inevitably fall in love with because of the secrets she hides in her eyes.
She moved gently to the music, drunk, imbecile, yet with all the appeal of Greek tragedy. I don't recall now who said what or what was said but we began talking and laughing.
When she left I thought I must know what terrible memories seize her mind.
I blink and I find myself, days later, at her birthday party. She has just turned twenty-two, or so she claims. We are playing a drinking game in the garage with her friends and when someone suggests we play truth or dare we all say "Hell yeah"
"Dare" said she, our Lady of Mascara Tears.
It began out of primordial discord and ended with a haughty tone of sophistication.
It ends here, now, with the words that I am writing.
Fire. That massive fire that seemed to burn through the bitter winter. When it waned we fed it furniture we bought cheap from a junky fresh from a home invasion. Shadows slept at our feet and we stepped over them as we danced around.
Someone hidden somewhere in the black strummed a guitar and women swayed in an inebriate trance, gazing into our inferno centerpiece as if divining its secret language. The sky was held up by columns of smoke and through it they all appeared as phantoms.
Through that smoke, that soap-opera mist, I saw her; that actress from my nightmares. The one I inevitably fall in love with because of the secrets she hides in her eyes.
She moved gently to the music, drunk, imbecile, yet with all the appeal of Greek tragedy. I don't recall now who said what or what was said but we began talking and laughing.
When she left I thought I must know what terrible memories seize her mind.
I blink and I find myself, days later, at her birthday party. She has just turned twenty-two, or so she claims. We are playing a drinking game in the garage with her friends and when someone suggests we play truth or dare we all say "Hell yeah"
"Dare" said she, our Lady of Mascara Tears.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Jaundiced City Nights
The night was mine once
but the city took it away
and washed it in a phosphorescent orange
that seeps in through the cracks in the blinds
and on the backs of the roaches.
And my silence,
that anthem of my peaceful solitude,
that too belonged to me.
But now we share it
as the sound of the distance and the hatred
that grows between us.
Looking around from the creaky balcony
where I go to escape you
I catch the last moments
of a generation.
The eerie glow of their cellphones
cast green shadows.
I listen, anticipating a ghost story
or some dreamy reflection
but all they do is shrug, sigh,
and mumble "whatever"
as they type their suicide texts
ttyl, cruel world.
I drink to everyone of them.
I raise my glass to every glint
of their dead eyes
grumbling Cheers to each.
And the more I drink
the more this balcony railing resembles
the bars of a penitentiary
and this apartment complex,
a panopticon.
"Lights out!" shouts the Warden who is never seen.
but he can't seem to find the switch.
but the city took it away
and washed it in a phosphorescent orange
that seeps in through the cracks in the blinds
and on the backs of the roaches.
And my silence,
that anthem of my peaceful solitude,
that too belonged to me.
But now we share it
as the sound of the distance and the hatred
that grows between us.
Looking around from the creaky balcony
where I go to escape you
I catch the last moments
of a generation.
The eerie glow of their cellphones
cast green shadows.
I listen, anticipating a ghost story
or some dreamy reflection
but all they do is shrug, sigh,
and mumble "whatever"
as they type their suicide texts
ttyl, cruel world.
I drink to everyone of them.
I raise my glass to every glint
of their dead eyes
grumbling Cheers to each.
And the more I drink
the more this balcony railing resembles
the bars of a penitentiary
and this apartment complex,
a panopticon.
"Lights out!" shouts the Warden who is never seen.
but he can't seem to find the switch.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Unemplyment
Time to shave this beard, this mark of unemployment, and get off the floor where I've spent most of the month. Time to put my tongue back in my skull and wake up.
If I still had friends, they'd say "Wow, Lizard, it's good to see you sober. We're proud of you"
and I'd fail to mention that my vices only ended when I ran out of money.
How much time has passed? A week? A year? And how much more is left?
Fast Loris, my lover, sits in the darkness of our modest apartment staring at me and wishing I were someone else. I stand in front of the bathroom mirror doing the same.
"Have you heard back from anyone yet?" she asks, masking the bitterness well.
I don't answer. I haven't spoken in so long that my lips have crusted shut.
If I still had friends, they'd say "Wow, Lizard, it's good to see you sober. We're proud of you"
and I'd fail to mention that my vices only ended when I ran out of money.
How much time has passed? A week? A year? And how much more is left?
Fast Loris, my lover, sits in the darkness of our modest apartment staring at me and wishing I were someone else. I stand in front of the bathroom mirror doing the same.
"Have you heard back from anyone yet?" she asks, masking the bitterness well.
I don't answer. I haven't spoken in so long that my lips have crusted shut.
Monday, January 9, 2012
White Rat
Pile of trembling
white hair
in the corner of the room.
No one sees you.
No one watches you
white hair
in the corner of the room.
No one sees you.
No one watches you
chew through your tail
but I.
The people around me
have gone senseless.
Their eyes dart around
too fast for their brains.
but I.
The people around me
have gone senseless.
Their eyes dart around
too fast for their brains.
Their teeth grind
furiously, mechanically,
as if the factory were not dead at all.
They are killers.
White rat,
it is only by watching you
that I can breath steady
even as you unfurl
and scurry clumsily away
from your mutilated remnant
matted with blood
and filth.
And yet you are still
less repulsive
than the other occupants
in this hell.
furiously, mechanically,
as if the factory were not dead at all.
They are killers.
White rat,
it is only by watching you
that I can breath steady
even as you unfurl
and scurry clumsily away
from your mutilated remnant
matted with blood
and filth.
And yet you are still
less repulsive
than the other occupants
in this hell.
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