“Mine is bigger than yers”
Up to my eyeballs in a cold world
that suddenly turns around and gets hot
the moment you mention the afflictions that waste you
and their conversational prodding suggests that
“everybody’s a little x” or “everybody’s a little z”
and that’s my cue to beeline away from their version
of my life’s narrative where they demand top billing.
Self destruct
Today’s cocktail of chemicals and apathy
brought me to skinned knees and compressed headaches
with today’s lost marbles
rolling all over the shop
but the will to suffer morning’s snarling bully
is fodder enough for me to wake up with a determined pulse
driven by an insatiable appetite to not self destruct
and I will clamp down upon your ignorant notions
that I try to bury in pharmaceutical haze
Old Man’s Last Day On Earth
“I think I’ll retire now”
Said the atrophied old man
His ancient voice all husked grain and shattered glass
As those telltale words
Crept from his mouth’s gossamer canyon
For he was at war with time’s decimating beasts
Whose phantom jaws dug violent fires
Beneath his wizened flesh sheets
All fare for grief’s conquering fathoms
Skinned soul deep
And so he collected his dust blanketed books
And bandaged his groaning fingers
Exhausted from the year’s tombstone pace
Kept awake each night by his coffin dry coughs
Which rattled like bloody thunder
Leaking from each black balloon lung
Ready to pop
For the buzzards
Under stained glass stars
Like hungry sparks peeking behind sullen nights
Thus decided he that this year was a draw
In that it bloodied his fists
But still taught him to crawl
And he was pleased with such bruised sentiment
And stepped bent but forward towards bald funeral sky
Drinking long the last few drops
Of sinking lemon sun
His bronzed goblet now retired
For he had outrun the devil
With final leathery foot steps
Tattooing sacred victories onto unleavened ground
That even a universe of horned tragedies couldn’t erase
So his last day on earth was one hell of a party
And now he was home.
The Night Bleeds Electric
The night bleeds electric
Spilling neon throbs which halo roving satellites
And mausoleum skies blanket plum thumb stars
Cocooning amethyst glint in marbled solemnity
Their dying fever of infinite flame
Fleeced of livewire ember and dulled to charcoal vault shade
While the rebel throated wind screams bawdy and nude
Through sorrow beaten boulevards
And hectic carnevale avenues
As her teasing cabaret legs
Cut through deaf air like sultry whispers
And the wind speaks obscured passages known only to God
Whipping her shock of dagger hair
Against starless vacancy
To frame the frisky and beguiled moon
That washes dark earth in his pulsing currents
To mirror the cityscape’s blossoming gloom.