Ashtray
I’m caught between the fingers of an addict
Embers still alight but when he’s done he’ll soon forget he even had it
Stab it down into the ashtray, pale gray
All the taste burned out upon his lips and for such low pay
You don’t say
The birds should sing your songs until they tire
And the fire only flourishes when fed with wood not iron
Not a fist around the copper, crumpled paper
Die now, we’ll pay you later
Perpetrator of the murder of the choir
They all want so much more of us, a pack a day for single digit dollars
Smoke us down into oblivion, expect us when they holler
I hear screams and stare at sunbeams for pennies at the dawn
But my heart and soul are still worth less than means to carry on
And though I fight, scratch and bite, my blood alone will still be drawn
Because once a cigarette is lit, you use it ’til it’s gone
Mystery, Mystery
The doctor was joyful
My mother's new hope
They pulled me from blood
And pronounced me "kaleidoscope."
Capsule of beauty
Object of stares
My pieces distorted
And nobody cares
For if I'm to be lovely
I must be concealed
The mundane mechanics
Cannot be revealed
Mystery, mystery
That's all you view
You refuse to see less
Than a plaything for you
So twist me and turn me
To fit your desires
I will be glitter
And gemstones and fire
This mystery disqualifies me from power
But mystery hungers you 'til you devour
Kaleidoscope woman, irrational blur
You won't change the lens, and you'll never know her.
Ninety
It's not even a pretty diamond. Just a crystalline mound, really. Disgustingly large and cut unevenly to preserve every piece of it, more of a testament to the rarity of the find than a show of elegance or use. But if value comes from scarcity, it's the perfect score.
I hook my rope to the skylight and begin to slide down. Ten minutes before the mansion's security systems reboot, no matter how thoroughly my forced power surge took them out. If these cameras catch me, the police station lineup will be little more than ceremony.
I turn on my flashlight as I near the ground, careful not to misjudge my landing in the almost pitch black room. I hate the sound when my own boots strike the tile. It's the sound of a pressure plate, a sensor. An error. Close calls batter one's nerves.
So does the figure across the room.
I choke back a startled noise and level my flashlight at it. But the fear devolves into irritation when I recognize him.
"Oh, don't balk at me," he says with his insufferable British accent and his ridiculous toothy grin. "Surely you knew I couldn't ignore this find, either. Donbury, out of town overnight? An empty house? It's irresistible."
I glare. "Ryker, stay out of my job before I put a hot ball of lead through your chest."
It's the windup to a punch I can't land, and he knows it.
"Don't play, Tonya. You can't hide a body in ten minutes. Settle with me, and you can go home to your quaint little dugout with ten percent profit and no prison. Deal?"
I don't let my shoulders slump. Five minutes left on the clock, and I'm tired of running. If he doesn't bend, we both go out.
"Ninety."
Want
Talent. Tantalizing, too tall to reach, and yet
Ceases to be itself when you climb for it
The envy of the average, the drug of the exceptional
A gift from God grasped by the fingers of Want
Want although we do not know its meaning
Want although we question its mattering
It lies deep within us
Tangled up in our obsessions and drives
The minotaur in the maze, the string that we follow, and the bride who waits with held breath
Its size does not matter, it fills us the same as it leaves us empty
The talent to sing is not the talent to smile
The talent of mind is not the talent of hands
But these talents, living in our bodies like a spirit of their own
Are nothing more than the insatiability for skill
And a raw hope that we may one day see what our Want already does
Death Begs No.
A palm is put up, that no pity could make it through
“How can you console her knowing death is afraid of you?”
I did not compose these words, yet they are mine
Uttered in a dream, one echoing line
Spoken by Death herself, while she holds a girl’s hand
She looks only twelve, and the child smaller stands
An audience watches, a statement, a show
To a pit at the bottom the children all go
The sand does not sort them by age or by name
They fall, listless, down, to be buried the same
Death never asked us for these bodies, so small
What she asks is a question, overworked and appalled
“I am but a reaper, a guideman, a door
What terrors are you who keep sending me more?”
So her palm is an army that will not make way for you
“How can you console her knowing Death is afraid of you?”
How can we console her, us watching the news
With our guns in the closet we’ve never had to use?
It was not our bullets that broke through her chest
But we fought for the weapon that laid her to rest
How can you console her, you preachers who pray
When you say that the young must retrieve those astray?
How can you tell a child, while wishing them well
That their weakness and fear sends their playmates to hell?
Were none of us sacred before we were grown?
Are none of them sacred now, not on their own?
Is innocence meaningless, the perfect white page
That we write on and fight on, turn black as our rage?
Are they pawns? Are they dough? To be molded and used,
Or abused, until like us they grow? Death begs no.