all that is known thus far

Will I die like Sylvia Plath?
A victim of my own cold wrath?
Perchance I’ll die so old and grey,
At home, in bed, grandmother’s way.
Or ‘haps the unexpected route –
A poisoned jar of sauerkraut,
A jealous husband’s just revenge,
The tetanus tip of used syringe.

Will the moment race or drag?
Suffocate by paper bag,
A slow live burn or T-boned semi,
Or hunger from an unfilled belly.
Magician’s drowning trick gone wrong,
Malicious ruse with home-made bomb,
The lunch meat of a psychopath,
Or vegetable of hospice staff?

And will I leave my mark when buried,
The fading of my face unhurried,
A ghost the winds and waves will carry,
A New York Times Obituary.
Or will I be a memory lost,
A grave unmarked that time forgot?
Alas the only truth that’s known,
My death, set as my life, in stone.

For all the nights I have not slept

For all the nights I have not slept,
Each waking hour my body wept,
Skeleton hangs willow-tree,
These bones hopelessly weary.

Night I

My feet touch black marble sand.
Distant sounds of beating drums to match our beating hearts.
I breathe in smoke, I breathe in you, I breathe in careless youth.
Our darkened silhouettes edged with red hot liquid amber against midnight skies.
We become fearless featureless shapes moving through the night.

I can’t do without you,

I can’t do without you,

I can’t do without you.  

As we climb to the top of our world, careless chemical joy begins to flow through me and
I take my first breath, it is so complete and I feel so full.
I shiver and we run the beach, away from our solitude and towards warmer bodies.  All eyes on us you take me home and we walk the city streets because we both know I won’t sleep until my mind is eased.
Night II

Bourbon. Boots.  Vodka, wine, beer, beer, tequila, beer.

It doesn’t matter where we are because it is us and we are here.
We can be anywhere in the world.  I can’t do without you.
A flirtatious kiss to the cheek.  We dance because there is no option to stop.  A sidewalk conversation.  I take your beer. We dance because there is no option to stop. You spill your drink.  You take my beer. Hey, hey, hey, I can’t do without you.
And you, and you, and you, and you, and you.

We wake up fully-clothed between the two of us.

Night III

We leave the city.

I remember beauty and joy in simplicity.  I sleep easy before a fireplace.  I experience the wealth of the Earth and intellectual conversation. I remember what it means to be truly at rest. I am myself, I am me – nearly.

Night IV

I look at the stars that I never really saw.

Night V

I am back to concrete jungle and my hands are shaking and my mind is weak and I am afraid again.

I wake once, twice, three times, until I abandon effort and

Empty eyes stare at empty ceiling.

There is nothing written there.

I worry about things that don’t matter and I feel like throwing up and I nearly do because the mind can do powerful things.

Night VI

We break two more hearts tonight, one for the second time.  I watch you play.  I wonder if I am complacent or cautious or if I care too much to understand what to do.  I worry about me, my choices, my body. Guilty, guilty, me oh my.

I ride the streets home, more brave in the night (weaving in) lights drip down my peripherals (weaving out) my emotion my exhaust.

I stare at the geography of your face and wonder if I will come to know these peaks and valleys or I will walk this mountain path just once.

I never want to fall asleep because I am not finished understanding who you are.

I never want to fall asleep because you are not finished understanding who I am.

Don’t you understand?

Do you watch my peaks and valleys, are you writing on my body, are you reading my skin?

I never want to fall asleep.

I dream of broken toes and broken watches.

Each day my heart will falsely start,
A puppet come alive at dark,
And yet this heart holds no regret,
For all the nights I have not slept.

All Beef Juicy Jumbos

NOTE TO SCHNEIDER’S ALL BEEF JUICY JUMBOS:
SEEMS I FELL FOR YOU JUMBO-JUICE SCHEME
ONLY FIVE IN A PACK
THE FUCK KINDA SHIT’S THAT
JUICY TRICK UP YOUR JUMBO BEEF SLEEVE

YOU KNOW DAMN WELL YOUR BUN FRIENDS COME SIX TO A BAG
ARE YOU TRYING TO FUCK ME, DO YOU WANT ME TO BEG?
FOR SIX JUMBOS PER PACK
OR A ONE-BUN-CUT-BACK
YA WELL I MIGHT IN YOUR GODDAMN BEEF DREAMS

IF THERE’S ANY ROOM LEFT IN YOUR JUMBO BEEF HEART
YOU’LL CONSIDER A TRUCE WITH YOUR BUN COUNTERPART
I EAT HOT DOGS FOR DINNER
I EAT HOT DOGS FOR LUNCH
TRUTH IS I EAT JUMBOS FOR BREAKFAST AND BRUNCH

(DON’T YOU EVER THINK THAT THIS MAKES ME LOVE YOU ANY DAMN LESS)

I Am

I am the wind
Transient and powerful
I am a river
I do not stop for anyone
I am a tree
I stand tall and touch the sky
I am a rock
Stable and unwavering
I am the Earth
Made of it and making it

//

She was the Earth
Made of it and making it
She was the wind
Running wild and running free
She was a rock
Only broken by the sea
She was a tree
Forming all the air I breathe
She was a river
She did not stop for me.

An Honest Memoire

Measure your days by the bottles,
And your weeks by the lovers,
Success by the lies that have gone undiscovered,
Weigh fame by the fans that you think that you have,
And why not include all your shitty song covers?

Count up all the tears that you’ve watched hit the floor,
This number will tell you your heart-breaker score.
If your fear of the truth hasn’t halted you yet,
If you’re brave and you haven’t yet put down your pen,
Then write down the times that you’ve turned on the door,
That held opportunities you chose to ignore.

Add up all your cheating, your deception and flaws,
And now, there you have it; an honest memoire.

Stripped

I may not remember the majority of the night, but I sure as hell remember your deafening silence. I don’t blame you – really – there was simply nothing left to say.  There we were, standing on opposite ends of the “plaza”, as it was called, our group of shit-faced so-called friends filling the gap between us, and a heavily tattooed twenty-something girl who may have once been pretty doing upside-down splits on the pole in front of us.

Everything, which was now nothing, was out in the open, splayed on stage with everyone watching, their eyes wide and unblinking. Dogs.  Our love, stripped down to its core.  Bare, white, exposed, alone.  Cold under the lights, shaking in its nakedness, with no arms left to wrap around it, no hand to stroke its hollowed cheek and tell it everything would be okay.

It was a stranger, dancing for tips between us.  It smiled at me – viciously, spitefully.  It crawled to you, parting its lips, close enough for you to feel its ragged, empty breath.  Averting our eyes would mean looking at each other.  And so we stared, sensing the other’s desperate desire for ignorance in our peripherals.

Oh my once-darling love, how? How did fate bring us here? Such a dirty, tasteless end to something that I had once compared to a star.

Last call, last drink, last dance.

I could have sworn I felt it brush past me as I stood outside the club, waiting for my drunken company to collect themselves.  I turned, and watched it wrap its long, dark coat around its worn out body and walk away from us, head down, defeated, into the yellow-lit streets, damp with a fresh late-November snow.

Girls On Fire

Girl’s on fire
She’s ready, sun!
Itching, burning, just begun

Next to nothing
Holds her back
Don’t touch this one – you just might crack

Like cold-hot glass, or do, and dance.
I would, would you?
Gold coal, one chance.

Just don’t (make sure)
Breathe in her smoke
You just might, just will, surely choke.

This girl’s on fire
She is on fire
Hair’s on fire, hands on fire, fingers and her feet on fire

Girl’s on fire
so,
world’s on fire.

The start of something

She sat perched on the ruined stone wall, overlooking the expanse of dew covered grass, speckled with graves still dark with the wetness of last night’s rain.  Eyes closed, she imagined the light breeze to be souls softly brushing past her pale skin as they made their way back home.  It was early in the morning, but there would be no sun today, as the grey remnants of the storm still hung in the sky.

Decisions

With decisions we make
As a product of time
When we face what we choose
We’d prefer to be blind

But if time were eternal
Would decisions be made
Or would we be fixed in a permanent state

State of fear, state of love, state of pride or of hate
Regardless of what, with no power to change

But my friend, here we are
As each hourglass runs out
With our fate in our hands,
And our words in our mouths.

The Cleaning Lady

An entry from my book “642 Things to Write About” that my dad gave me last year.  My brain’s answer to the prompt, “The Cleaning Lady”.  Could make for an interesting short story if I decided to continue with it.

— The Cleaning Lady —

Her name was Dolores, but she preferred to go by Dot.  She was a quiet lady – kept mostly to herself.  Every morning she would return to her modest apartment on the 26th floor, drawing the blinds before the sun peeked over the neighbouring building.  It was a tough job, getting the blood out of her crisp, white blouse, but if anyone could do it, it was Dot.  That, perhaps, was why the local papers had dubbed her “The Cleaning Lady” when referring to the notorious and impeccable serial killer terrorizing the streets of Manhattan.