Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
We play on the corner till the streetlights thin
and stars pinprick a corkboard sky.

Dinner is anytime: bologna on white;
Kool-Aid cut thin with tap.

No hurry home unless for the news -we don’t.
We want what’s coming, not what’s been.

Paper fortune tellers flutter open / close.
She writes the answers first.

Lift one flap: your dog dies. Another: a prince.
Another: best party in town, no dress required.

He lifts a flap: her name-
“meant for you,” her sister whispers.

Then rain- blue-lined paper caves;
ink loosens, futures wash mid-fold.

At This Street & That Road, a drunk witch
swears Saturn and Jupiter will make us rich.

She forgets conjunctions come every twenty years.
Lunch money turns to lottery slips.

Rounding the corner, the futures
sign their names where ours should go.
a whisper of a prayer.
the crescent moon.
the flickering candlelight in her eyes.
the needle and a spoon.

down the hall
a radio plays softly.

her silhouette dances
on the plaster wall
like the waning crescent moon

and the moon holds no light of its own.
it resides in darkness.

(carved into the wall)

epigraph:

the needle in my arm
and the world
can do me no harm.

the needle and the spoon
and the waning crescent moon---benediction,
the night remembers no one.
and still I have to stop and think, is it forwards, backwards, and do they know about Daylight Savings TIme, saving who from what,
I jokingly ask myself, to give my sweet angst, a a better coloration,
though these days, constant comets pass over us daily

but he is savvy smart, and yes, extraordinarily ****, and  knows my routines (he thinks), better than me, so when I drive  to  run in Santa Monica, alternating days, he texts in simultaneous harmony a minute after my too early alarm has me stumbling into semi-Cali-
quake-fulness

we are years apart, not so many that it's remarkable, just big enough gap, to make life problematical; his  career launched, serious guy,, me well, i'm a perpetual student, when not modeling, and my mom, GBH,  and my over pestering, now single parent, demonstrate her mathematical abilities by telling me how closehow close  is 30 is when one subtracts  my "aging pores," & how little sleep she gets because she in in her EST zone

but when he calls, he calls at irregular times, "to better gauge my mood," how he, my day surveils, so he can adjust to my chemical imbalance, an area of his expertise; and its sweet, and it works, and too often, I ramble while listens, for his day is ending, and mine is far from fulfillment

he is European, full of genteel words and english language quips,
especially since he believes he can still sway with his sophisticated
endearments;  but what he doesn't know in the late afternoon, his bedtime, while  he is conducting a sweet nothing roundup of   adoration, my hand slips between my legs, and my envisioning of his lean, broad body being in my interior so tight, for I have crossed my crushing legs behind his back pushing him inside, it nearly makes  breathing impossible

HE LOVES MY SOfT TONES, at this hour, my distracted noises, til he says you sound so tired, I'll let you go; and I willingly, comp-licitly, give him my heated best love notes, and teary gasps, when I mumble
see you soon, thinking in my dreams, for I know his schedule, and exactly when I'll be landing and exactly how long it will be,
till we, are within each other, without any interference, of lairs and
sun flaring interruptions,
from time
and space, those scientific laws of this tiring
annus horribilis
across my face.

I saw spring coming
in the meadow
where the wildflowers
whisper to the wind.

found freedom on a snowcapped mountain top,

smiled to the child offering violets
cradled in her tiny hands

and when she smiles to me

her joy ripples like sunlight
across the sea of love.

the curtain is lifted.

the soul becomes visible

(always in the wild places
in my heart.)
I've walked your floor

sat beside you in candlelight
looking at photos
scattered across the floor.

you remembering names
and people and prayers
I had long forgotten.

you are the dancer
who glides this loner
through sorrows and the stars,
across the mist of moments
most treasured

where in the stillness between kisses
promises are kept
and the warmth of your hand on my cheek
felt in places to real to touch.

your love asks for nothing
and when you smile your quiet gift to me

tender one, every breath I take is loving you.
We lived for the
next drink; the elixir to
erase the memories of
a thousand cruel dawns.
It took work when we
were broken and bedraggled.
Creativity and thirst drove
us through the day.

"Do you have anything to pawn?"

"Hey, why don't we stop by the
old carnival guy's place, he's
always good for a belt."

"Big Brenda will you give you a
10 spot to go down on her,
are you
up for it?"

The **** we did to stay liquid smooth.
We redeemed cans for nickels, It took
hundreds to get a bottle.
In and out of dumpsters filled with
the most vile trash imaginable.
Me and those aluminum cowboys,
knee-deep in the filth just to
get a drink.

Winter was bad, frostbitten hands and
hearts, but summer was worse.
Something about the way the sun
cooked the trash had a hellish putrid
effect on the soul.
That smell was the seed of my
sobriety.
Here is a link to my YouTube channel where I post poetry readings from my latest books, Sleep Always Calls, It's Just a Hop, Skip, and a Jump to the Madhouse and, Seedy Town Blues Collected Poems, they are all available on Amazon.
How distant do you feel from our ideal life,
and how hard are you willing to go, to get there?
You’ve got to pull a big swing sometimes, to get there, you know?
You’ll flourish in the aftermath.
What I’m carrying is joy.

Notes for an American student in Paris..

Be less intense
tone it down
pullback.

Enough scrappiness, hustle,
and intensity on repeat.

Sure, honesty is sanity,
but give them a better version
some ‘church girl’ energy, maybe.
win ‘em with winsome


Don’t welcome them, immediately, into your tense, inner world.
.
.
Songs for this:
Oh Honey! (I Love You) by Peach Tree Rascals
Nothing Breaks Like a Heart (feat. Miley Cyrus) by Mark Ronson
Tear Off Your Own Head (It's A Doll Revolution) by The Bangles
BLT Merriam Webster word of the day challenge 08/08/25:
Winsome : cheerful, pleasant, and appealing.
Human beings trust
The sum of prejudices,
Blunt as rusty blades of limitation
Repeating the same mistakes,
Longing for infallibility,
Losing the last crumbs of trust.

They fell before
Yet wanted the absolute
Of the right version of events.
Sliding under a pile of tangled,
Broken wires,
Which were supposed
To build their impeccability
In judging other beings.

Water changes its state,
How easy to trudge
Further into the blurring
Instead of understanding,
They hurl accusations.

Dust of doubt,
On the empty road,
A rocky path
Perforated by frustration,
And rigid filters.

Drinking the last sip
Of wild screams,
They say goodbye
To gentle humanity,
Selling the heart
to detectors, fallible tools
Of elusive dreams.
Quo vadis domine?
In exitium.
Do not ask a machine what is human.
Trust your sensibility to recognize what aligns with your aesthetic,
and do not attack those who think differently.
Next page