bitter time runs frantic
always chanting about summer lust
and sordid sausages
drunk as a mad goddess on honey
the delirious black shadow screams a symphony
crushes the raw mist soaring in the lake
and dreams the sun away
Tag Archives: Scribbles
Cloud
the enormous black apparatus
lies still
sleeping with
a thousand bitter shadows
never recalling
the delirious rust sky
and lazy purple wind
pounding, singing, whispering
a quick storm beneath
Cat Ghost
Ophelia
she woke me up one gray morning
back from the dead
seeking answers from me
why
two years before my death did you
create upheaval
invite noise and chaos
test the limits of my anxiety
Cousin
sometimes when I put on a little too much makeup
drink a little too much
and smile in a certain way
in the fuzzier hours of night
I see her face in mine
at first a shock but then I welcome it because
I find
it’s the closest thing
to bringing her back to life
from the dead
Black Fiona
sometimes in the afternoon sun
I catch my black cat
out of the corner of my eye
in the magical recesses of periphery
and I see instead my
dead
black
cat
gone for over a year
slinking toward me
her claws tapping the cold kitchen tile
fat
slow
and so endearingly ordinary
looking for solace from
the grating existence of all people on earth
the source of her eternal anxiety
or maybe seeking out
just one more cheek scratch
before taking her final leave
Boredom
Well, I said, sipping cold coffee in the sun
Your hero –
He could stop neither time nor his sister’s moral degradation and
You two look like a couple of washed-out whores. You gonna make some money tonight?
You see?
Here we are
Two decades later
Also unable to stop time and our own moral decay
Joe
Was the last straw
They used to chain smoke together on her balcony and laugh at the morning dew
Make cocktails in the early evening and talk about the future
I used to watch them and think
Maybe this is it
But he inevitably disappointed her
With his bad cocaine habit
Joblessness
Unreliability
Weight gain
She said no one would play with her like he did
I said better men were everywhere
But she did not believe me
So she took her mango salsa recipe
Homemade curtains
Bread baked from scratch
Her psychology degree
Left me in Los Angeles
And went home to the country
Where disingenuous city boys could not find her
And her friends had more to offer than drowning her bruised, bloody, young heart in whiskey or sitting by the toilet at the end of the night
Eric
He was irritated, she could tell, and she said not to worry, but I have actually slept with 69 people, as of this day, June 9, and can you feel the syphilis eating away at your own brain?
Myself, I have less thoughts these days. All the better as I deliver this morose letter to the front door of a fraternity house, to a boy who cares less than he should because he does not know any better.
As she stood on the front steps of the house, contemplating his stupidity, it suddenly occurred to her she was once in his shoes, on the receiving end of an over-zealously maudlin letter, which she hardly cared enough to read; she half listened as her roommate rattled off pages of complaints, heartbreak, and insult, and might have even laughed. The letter ended up in a trash can under her desk. This was but a fleeting thought when he came to the door to accept the missive, and she turned to leave him to his poor choices and to comfort her friend in a night steeped in cheap whiskey.
Tim
I heard them in the bunk above
didn’t like the way he said her name but
she liked it, giggled until her cheeks were pink and eyes were bright
Until two weeks later he said
He was driving across the country with his ex girlfriend
Mary
And I fed her whiskey all night
then held her chestnut locks
while she cried into the toilet
a rainy night long ago
if she looked into the dark far enough hard enough
she could smell that night
its rain and promises
then
the mustiness of old youth appears
dusted off in the sunshine like
a stranger knocking on the door