On the hillside she stood
and with bated breath
told the man with
innocent eyes…
“I am legion”
as flowers spouted from
his chest.
What remained unspoken
was that he needed you
and you needed him.
“On bended knee they adore you
but run from me
and push me back into this dark house
yet, without me
you
could
not
be.
We need each other.”
© 2011
(Photo by Nicholas Dement)
Within the veins
of silver twine
there is the confidence of a golden charm
that will carry the daughters
of queens for many miles over rough seas.
Yet
the daughters of peasants
before they swim
are washed in the fear
of the stone brimmed banker
and the landlords dirty hands.
© 2011
(Photo by Nicholas Dement)
Darling daughter,
don’t do what I have done or
become what I’ve become.
Don’t aspire to be
anything like me.
Take your passions
from your breast
hide them in your pocket.
Don’t look upon your chest
for my picture in a locket.
Don’t give your heart
to a soul that’s cruel and
abolish the golden rule.
Don’t let them get you
like one got me.
I advise you to sell
what should always be free.
© 2011
(Photo by Nicholas Dement)
The bitter pill that your love
left me with
I could not swallow.
So, I crushed it to powder.
Cerebral vacuum.
The doctor came to my house
and laid on my floor.
Wrote me a prescription.
More pills.
It struck me as odd
how she left the bathroom door open
where I could see her
swallow pills of her own with
panties stretched around her
ankles as she sat on the toilet.
Shameless and strong…as the wind.
She said amnesiac
farewells and
I wondered…what she took?
She had taken so much.
I crumpled that script and
drank rum straight from the bottle.
© 2011
(Photography of Julian Mandel 1920)
I dreamed of you,
walking the streets with me.
Black hollow memories
as doorways and alcoves
open wide to show the faces of
young chalk-lipped children
staring up at us with black pool-eyes.
Hands extended from the darkness
that alone is their mother.
Devils in her footsteps
that would splash
through the rotten, muddy streets
as the rain would fall
like twilights weeping vitriol.
Into an ally I was pulled
where I became awash in your mad kisses
and the stygian tentacles of your blackened hair
wound their way ‘round my fingers.
Possessed in the flash of doomed skies.
Claws between rain-soaked thighs.
Locked in my arms.
Something between a goddess & a monster.
Strange worms my eyes did see
arise in orgies of our misery.
There was a watcher in the dark.
This was a wonderful dream!
That dark girl, a black star bright
capped in a bottle
forever’s dancing light.
My eyes cracked wide and
you were nowhere to be found.
Again to run this ragged race
against the goliath above my head,
dripping sweat,
often tears,
rarely blood but hot and unforgiving!
What to do?
Where to go?
So…
I went by your work.
That little kingdom where the self-entitled go
to spite themselves in the golden shine of nature
and skip coins across the sea
to some wicked end
as pentane to ancient gods,
dark and unseen.
Blood from throats and cows for cream.
The kings of us sleep but rarely dream.
I could see you through the window.
A marvel…costly, yet priceless.
I wanted to come in and
say things you already know but
instead,
I just watched you.
It was at that moment that I realized
I had lied to the both of us.
I had lied with the fear and the uncertainty in my mind.
I had been selfish with your body…greedy with your heart.
I was reflected in the pane translucent between us
and
I could see it…I was monstrous and the viscera
of my chest
loose and stained was a self-sacrifice.
I was ugly and self-centered and the only way
I would ever again capture your desire would be in my dreams.
I waited for a stiff wind and un-corked that bottle,
trying not to get shocked as I let you escape.
Not that I didn’t want you to touch me…
just not hurt me.
I hid the bottle
with a hand full of dimes.
I’m waiting for a dream and a rainstorm.
© 2011
(Artwork by Amber Lewis)
The last day.
His feet fell heavy
when the scent assailed him.
Leaves don’t fall
but are pushed
and collected in piles
where an old man in a wool hat
sends them on
their fiery way.
The last day.
When the flames have taken
those little amber soldiers
branches will confess
they had planed this
all along
and
had patiently waited
to start anew.
Standing naked
in the light
of a cold winter moon
her hands are a warmth
forgotten too soon.
© 2010
(Photographic art Alexander Shahabalov)
Wishing on mornings final star
or some little lost satellite,
that in darkness
asked me where you are.
In a bed of last nights kisses
with tomorrows broken heart
will lay a man or boy
for her pull his love apart.
© 2010
(Artwork of Saturno Butto)
When the stones are stacked
in the ol’ boneyard
and the coachman rides away.
Grey, moist stillness
drips the mornings way.
I will come by and
kick up little mounds of earth.
That gibbet in the wind
creeks…
but not for me.
It was not your deeds
or what you said
as your carriage passed me by.
It was your hair in
the lanterns glow and
the pinkness on your cheek.
It was my power.
Now I write these still stolen rhymes
of lecherous darkened crimes
and lay the ligatures wreath
at your feet.
It is a pity to be divine
at the wrong place
and wrong time.
© 2010
He wanted her
to love him
as much as she
loved secrets but
secret sorrows
send softer blows
to callow souls.
© 2010
(Photo from pinupcafe.com)
I will to you follow
through the still and the hollow
the tiny pieces of your love
as constellations above
remain silent.
Lonesome and violent.
Stars as distant
as your arms.
When heaven sounds it’s alarms
like thunderclaps
or super-novas
the universe wails aloud and
casts a darkened cloud
to hide her tears
like a shroud.
Tears
she will not spend on me.
Still,
I will to you follow.
© 2010
(Photo by Christina One @ deviantart.com)
