Suicidal

I shuffled through gravel

In black high heeled boots

Made of dead cows and

Stitched by slaves

And I laughed at everyone

I passed and pointed

as if

I found no flaws

In myself.

The change in my pocket

Knocked against my thighs

And against each other

Like my very own

Instrumental minstrel

Following my every move.

One heel broke and I tumbled

Into the soiled gravel.

I was vaguely embarrassed

Falling face first

In front of a group

Of slender blonde topped

White men

Resembling cigarettes

While Smoking cigarettes

And watching them

Laugh at me

Falling in my righteousness

Like felled timber

Into the strip of gravel

Lining the sidewalk

But it was

Mostly tolerable because

I was mostly numb

To begin with.

Twelfth Street Blues

your chin reminds me

of last night’s

drunk breakfast meal

biscuits

and gray hearted

gray smeared gravy.

you may not

be the Picasso of perfection,

the carbon copy

of a Michelangelo

celestial acid trip

on a foreign

chapel ceiling

or the full figured

ghost of Marilyn Monroe

painted by

Andy Warhol

but

your meaty chin

beckons anyway

in my drunken

bones

and blood veined

tear stained

eyes

for five

minutes

straight

and that’s enough

to make

both of us come

and awake

in the

fiery sunrise

to no memory

of it all.

no titled

The red shirt fell off on my way to the liquor store running from the spoiler, spilling on the ground like a lake of fresh foaming blood drowning insects and pebbles who never thought they had to learn to swim. They cast you away because you were too much for them, but you know you aren’t too much at all, no one will listen to them anyway, or will they? It’s not like you can’t be too sensitive about these things because everything is ephemeral anyway, it won’t matter two days from yesterday or four from tomorrow, all that matters is this time here now in this perfect sand moment, a grain in a million maybe but it’s still the one you’re talking about and it’s still the one sitting in your hand and it’s everything you ever wanted and it’s everything that ever mattered and it’s the only thing you have.

not my problem

a diseased panhandler

hunches against brick.

hands wrapped around knees

head bowed hiding a forest

of gray whiskers

and grayer eyes.

skin the color of khaki speckled

with coffee stain tears

arms cracked and bleeding

into his cup.

almost full now.

I drop a quarter into the red pool

and watch the ripples radiate

to the dirty plastic edges and gone.

god bless he says

with a soulless voice

bitter blue and ravaged by life.

the moon is barely visible

in the sun drained sky and

the black slanted ghost silhouettes

painted on the cracked

concrete streets file past us in

the falling light

as cars creep by in

impatient rumbling traffic.

everybody’s always going somewhere,

except the diseased panhandler

until the quarters make dollars and the dollars

make enough beer

to get through the cold

hard night rain

as a family forgets

he’s out there.

A Letter to the Lone

I look at you

through the window

at your face.

Awash

in a swirling sea of pale grays

under the fluorescent

electric suns of 2 a.m.

breakfast mornings,

hiding from the moon.

Body draped

in a bleach stained blue t-shirt.

A punch hole patron

sitting

eating

drinking

and thinking, what?

at the Golden Gables

24-hour diner

all pall bearer solemn

on a Thursday night.

Alone.

Weary eyed with

hair slicked back

into a sad thinning mullet

brooding

over cups of coffee

and white ovals

drowning with the grease

of Midwest American obesity.

Bulging gut

resting and breathing

on the plastic wood

of the table while

you beg the dangling

red-headed cigarette

to take you soon,

to make good on their promises

as even the smoke

leaves you

alone.