There is really no way around this..
A pile of bile
in the back of my throat.
A bleeding ulcer.
How dare the sun come up!
Don’t you know my life is over?
Don’t you know that nothing will ever be the same?
How can a new day begin
when the night has swallowed me whole.
The daisies
I slit their throats
and made a
necklace out of
them and I
stuck them through
each other
I made a
ring for you
‘He loves me
he loves me not
he loves me
he loves me not’
last petal
plucked like
strangers on
the street falling
dead from
looking in each
others eyes
they die
she dies
cut a
hole between my lips
for you to spit inside
let it reside in there
my leaky cold cauldron
I’ll bathe in my
mouth
and touch myself
where you’d never
expect
like the nape of your
neck and anywhere
soft
could I find the soft
place on you
or have you
hidden it so well
that you’ve swallowed
it up
well spit it back
and into the
cracks my jaw makes
and I’ll shake with
pleasure while
you ignore me
I’ll adore you
like bone bone
shake
take me
with you
when you
go
I await you
like twilight
waiting for sun
everyone wants
your rays
spray them out
like spit
raining on only me
my black rain
cloud sounds like
still borns crying
from their mothers
mouths. KISS
ME. KISS ME
like mouths have
no other job
like lips came in
4’s split apart
then stuck back
together with
secret spit
from my mouth to yours
sit in my ear
and listen to
the daisies swinging
inside my head
heavy heads like
lead. all dead.
Lips together
nothing in between.
I taste your sorrow
you swallowed it in.
Won't forget
the chills I get
and the pain
that made me stay.
Eyes are closed
You tucked me in.
It was the last.
I have ink where my skin should be.
You trace it with your finger tips
every time you kiss me.
There are planes and sky scrapers
where the stars should be
in this cluttered city.
I pulled over at four in the morning
Lit a flare & lied down in the middle of the road.
I watched the sky fade
from black to gray and back again.
I counted the long faded, white scars on my wrists & my thighs until the morning sun swallowed me.
You counted unread text
messages as you sent them.
One
Hey where are you
Two
Please I'm worried
Three
Not this again
Four
I can't do this tonight
Five
Please don't
Six
Please don't kill yourself
Seven
I love you
Eight
I'm calling the police
Nine
Just make it through this night
Ten
Call me in the morning
Dammit sweetheart,
I did it again.
I'm sorry.
I fell off of the planet.
I melted into the night.
Please believe me angel
when I say,
I'm not going away from here.
I'm just going fucking crazy.
Stress builds in my head and thickens my blood
swarming my imagination with failures
hope is being swallowed in an abyss of endless apathy
success was only a short lived dream anyway
Silent killers swim through my veins
pushing through and attacking my mind
the conductor of my actions already aims at my submission
if only I had a different situation and a different frame of mind
that were both better suited for life
then I'd probably want to keep trying.
Action turns will to reality.
When one lives to watch,
the will is snuffed out.
Conjurers of nothing breed apathy
and those with no purpose, rot.
They let themselves be consumed,
to be fuel for those with inspiration.
The wounded gazelle is eaten
and the lion is fed.
Later the lion fades as well,
but not without eating many gazelle.
Progress is purpose and purpose brings the advancement of all.
Hell is a place downtown.
Poverty lines the streets and no one takes action.
This is where inspiration goes to die
and those debilitated gazelle are swallowed whole.
Their sacrifice pushes the cogs onward
toward oblivion and the unquenchable void
of
SELF
INTEREST.
Inspired by the 1991 film "Slacker"
.............................................................................................
I still recall how late it was,
In the dark other days of July,
After Mom's Birthday,
After all the fireworks,
After the Sparklers and Piccolo Petes
And Thundering Crushers had done their damage -
There was a storm that shuffled
In over Northeastern Nebraska,
That wet the streets
And brought wind and lightning,
And a booming sort of thunder
That whipped up the wind
And dropped golf-ball sized hail.
That sent tree branches
Into power lines,
That shredded house siding,
And tore at the veranda.
Yes, I remember...
But that wasn't how it happened.
Those were such humid, hot, windless days,
Where the minute threat of rain
Egged on that old mid-western fatigue
That moved from my tired, aching feet,
With their tiny hairline fractures that gnawed
And nagged at me with a jutting pain
That hopscotched up my back,
Then bounced off my right hand.
It was a piercing, sharp, angry pain
That made it hard to write,
Sometimes forcing me to do anything but rifle
Through Kitchen drawers
For pain pills,
As Garth Brooks crooned Thunder Road
At 2:38 am...
And me sleepless again.
Still, I'd try to fill in the vacant darkness
Of my night
With silly words
Scribbled on a yellow pad
With a fine point
Bic pen as
The Wind-Machine tossed waves of hot air
In my direction, and I would hear it
Sprinkle outside,
With a tap tap tap
The stars could not see.
Sprinkles dusted on
Steaming sidewalks,
And my body ached,
My head toying with
A lazy throb that
Moved from one side
Of my forehead
To the other,
Playing tag
With my thoughts.
Snapping at me
With a vicious
Sort of glee,
And Shania Twain started singing
A 'honey I'm home' song.
And I heard a boom that rattled
My little part
Of the world.
No,
It wasn't that.
Now it was warm,
And once again humid,
A Friday morning,
Lots of fireflies
And shooting stars
And mosquitoes.
Andrew was working the night shift
Up at the Liquor Store
And said it'd be a busy night again,
After the game let out.
And he wasn't interested
In the Strawberry Cheesecake
I had made.
And Shadow,
The black cat from outside
Brought her kittens over
For the first time,
And demanded food.
So they ate a spell.
And I went back inside
And there was a pain,
The kind that takes away
All your strength,
Zaps you,
Drains you...
And I had to sit...
Almost didn't make it to the sofa.
My head ached
And the TV set droned a Medium rerun
And Allison was dealing with
Larry Watt again
And I couldn't breathe.
I swallowed and tried to ease
Away the pain
And Allison was wearing blue and white
For some reason
And the phone was ringing
And I was on the floor.
Not sure how I'd fallen,
Not sure what was causing the
Dizziness or the confusion,
Not sure why my head was
Spinning.
Not sure why...
And then I lost it all.
Every green in the trees,
Every blue that painted the skies,
Every kiss, every hello, every maybe and goodbye.
I then faded out, everything shaded to black
And I was gone.
After all the Piccolo Petes and
Sparklers and Snakes
And Streamers had done their
Damage,
After Mom's Birthday
And Karen's call,
And Aunt Shirley's visit
With her new Taco Bell dog.
It was
An eventful
Evening.
Copyright © 2009 Richard D. Remler
........................................................................
"God pours life into death and death into life
without a drop being spilled."
-Author Unknown
.........................................................................
.
A line to taste,
surely upon an innocent looking ear,
tucked disgrace and its fear;
never to pervert and waste
that first little taste.
The heart can tell,
making tracks to poetic wells,
where truths fall upon a lovely tongue.
Take away with me
in words unspoken,
forty years till our next farewell.
Before these days
my mind kept pace
with a heart swallowed in dark; entombed.
My tears took stage
down my face clearing way,
falling to my emptied chest
that allowed her words to roam.
I am but a mere apprentice
to such sweet the voice
that guides the giving hands.
Emotions and random sighs
were no ventures in easy luxury,
but a mind and heart, on restart,
could play for something greater
getting you through those days and nights
where an ear is all you needed.
-Mark Lach
Dressed in the night the women gather
Riding the wakes across the waves of the sea
Kiss the ghost lips of those who lie lovely
Running their hands along the scalps of their sons
They have come to break worry
Silence an orbiting fear
Seal up the sliver in the sky
Where the nights slips through
See the old men in their taverns still trying to name all the stars
After those who tread dirt in the stillness of a tombstone sea
Trading eulogies with the last ministers of light
In the funereal home of the sun we have come to call sky
And still the women whispers secrets to their sisters
Lay down lullabies on the heads of their sleeping sons
And hang hymns on the hopes that their boys might return
From their pilgrimage into the paths of bullets
Through the blooming fields of mortar shells
And down into the tunnel throat of the dead
To meet the waiting darkness, run their thumbs
Along such casket skin until they cannot tell the difference
Between hells heavy requiems and the faint symphonies
Of their wives across the sea, singing as if it could save them
Singing as if their songs could rewind the hoc spit seconds
Between the open door to heaven and the bullets kicking in back windows
Harmonizing as if it could resurrect these boys as men
And though some may be swallowed
Learned to lie lifeless in swift lessons of lead
Their brothers will one day name stars after them
They’ll sit in those taverns, learn to call creation by a better name
A bastion of light for their buried boys
A crucible into which lives are poured
That burns down to widows and heroes alike
As old men they will trade eulogies in the early hours of light
And cry when they think of their sons in the same fields
As red rose pestles bloom from bullets
As the caskets get delivered home
And the women the wives will continue wait for them
As sea foam along a shore longing for the lights of their ships
As if they shined brighter then the sun
As if they had held back the night
Counting their blessings as the children
Who cling to their skirts like a song to their lips
Too tired to stand but they are waiting, waiting still
Singing out over the water to bear their men home
You like all the others
Was moth minded
Searching for flames
To incinerate the wick between your legs,
But I was more Aurora
Than bonfire,
And though you tried to slip yourself
Between these shimmering curtains
My window was softly opened as you slept
And I had slipped away before dawns fingers ever stroked your face awake.
For you see that I will no long burn
Down the forest to chase you from their depths.
Instead I will unfold myself as an orchid
In the swamp of your misplaced memories
And let you creep though the man eating mangroves
To pluck my waiting grin
You see there are fields of tongues
Waiting for lips to snatch them
But they are all speaking in thrusts and moans,
In hidden glances and the unbearable weight of seductions
Below the belly of a girl whose gasps are unseen serenades
In the rolling flush of night
We lock our hands together,
Because the key to release them has been
Swallowed by youth and our hours till morning
Are fading like your slipping resistance,
To letting love land its fragile feathers upon the inside of your thigh,
And then taking wing on the thermals
That rise from the friction of fantasies collision with skin.
In sin I’ll reclaim you
And consecrate our communion
In the cathedrals of your eyes.
Even the way you hold your breath is holy
And though lips are sealed
I like the stammer of your speech
Are slipping secrets into the cavern of an ear,
Where we wait out the weather
Of a thousand spit lovers lost
Trying to douse the bon fire that burns between the legs
Of each and every human that has ever spent the night
Making love to the moon,
Cause she never shows her dark side
Only grins a crescent promise
And laughs as if the stars were suitors
Trying to out sing her cratered mouths.
In a thousand voices she
Whispers hope to this conflicting
River of blood and bone
That make up all I have to sell
To the window shoppers who peak
Their heads into my bedroom to find me
Shaping love out of a pocket full of missed calls and shadows
Who can never drown my thirst
For a straight answer to the timeless question
Of will you still kiss me
In the morning
She rides the winds like a whisper
But can never reach my borealis
And instead burns so sweetly
With lips of ash
