Counting Sheepish
Dreams so cruel
their exile invites
waking tyrants
Alarm-time torments
no rest for restless
legs lock protest
resist tear’d solution
crimson and calm
Meditate medicated busy-brain
halogen hallucination tempers glass
nerves fray ego fragile
lucky strikes immolation
douse down and out
Words sting surrender
refusing to scar
paper tissues over
cracked voice violence
Tag: MFA
Poem
Jet plane packed, she has no name. No use for one. Lost bags and regrets. Fly fast so past can’t catch her. Seat mate strangers give salvation. Flotation device confessions absolve clouded conscience. Mercy offers a cocktail with vomit bag. Divine intervention. Peanut shells rent napkin space to reluctant tears waiting for a better offer. The pilot’s voice sounds military like voice beating her body with precision. Her scars stand at attention. Bruises call attention to themselves. In-flight film has its tongue cut out. Speaking up only causes trouble. As landing approaches, window goes dark.
Poem
Idle Worship
Am I a believer?
Not worth praying for
Low-rent revelator
prophets for change
Sell body holy
mass opiate grave
Grows garden forbidden
Goddam this junky soul
Strung out
pope-sick
Shoot pious needle
Tithe failing generous
Spill wine, pour decisions
soaked glass stains
Piss Christ moderns
stake inferno’s Dante
Inquisition washes zeal Spanish
Drown in crucifix—
Poem
Quiet arrows quiver lonely.
Famine starves to fit rebellious dress.
Lose herself in mirror,
imagine solving God.
Aim left-handed,
obscured from presenting
jackboot debutant.
Bury virtue too mundane
to mourn.
Split-lip smirk snags threads in thought.
Catch her attention like thief
wanting to be caught.
Pious sex disrobes,
making peace with
damnation.
Guests pour gossip over
crushed dreams.
Champaign chills shoulder,
dulled expectations.
The gentleman deposits himself quiet.
Stop shaking.
Poem
Strange body bruised cold.
Feel past promise broken full.
Blood laments bones’ sturdy
wall tumbles and tears itself.
Face stares blank,
Words flee
Thoughts strangle
Attempt to think what’s happened
Results spill pamphlets
hopeful.
Steps walk as courages
defeat the inevitable.
Others mouth silence.
Excusing themselves while
Polite cuts through surfaced
smiles.
Your body stirs.
Poem
Torn punches pulling body’s
Pages
Read smile soured by circumstance
Look envíes coma fervor
Steeling resolve fit for
regret covering pretty
Ash scars remembered
Jubilee murdered by hand
Bury your ego into me as I hold onto what we were
The worry feigns silent comfort
Muting what can’t be said
Do you know me?
I’m lost in what I should’ve said
It won’t come out
But you’re waiting with captive expectations
I stare with quiet anguish dancing like flames watching us kiss this last time
The taste is wrong. Your lips taste of regret. But I want that taste more than any other sweetness escaping it’s captor.
Your scent sustains the worst of me. This is a broken body dying to be useful as it’s cover peels off.
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