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 Mar 2013 Redshift
September
My body once was black
with ash and sadness

And I plead
I beg
and now I confine you
To a tattoo.

Shedding slowly off my sin.
 Mar 2013 Redshift
September
Delete.
 Mar 2013 Redshift
September
Hospital bracelet, she owned.
Called from the payphone.


She was all I've ever known and




She scratched her veins out.


Little girls thrown around on a trampoline
We were thirteen year old lovers, in one or two bodies/
I was King and you were Queen


The Monarch, she,
She scratched her veins out
And I was the one who bled.

I sparked a lighter at her grave
Inhaled royal air.

Suicide bracelet, she sent to me
I poured ink onto her headstone.
 Mar 2013 Redshift
September
2007
 Mar 2013 Redshift
September
The only difference between you and I is the lettering.
 Mar 2013 Redshift
Harry J Baxter
Don't let your kids grow up to be poets
because poets are a messy bunch
poets are the worst influences
they live in the thick of things
suspended in their own minds
and they are by a very large percentage
worth less than the clothes on their back
and they are all crazy
they all have to be
these mentally unstable babblers
they'd talk at anybody who'd listen
more like drunken tramps
than artists
so for the love of God
please don't let your kids grow up to be poets
because it's a rough time
you'd be better off keeping them in academia
that being said
upon reflection
would I have done it any differently?
not a ******* chance
Faith is a troubled word in muddy
clothes, walking with the unthinking,
the enraged, the **** tube prophets

Still: I believe a few things, like
that You exist
that You reward the seeker

that the greatest anything is love,
You always did say that:
'Love each other, love Me'

Faith reveals the invisible
hope which lifts sunken eyes to
Love

which is the only redemption
in the burning streets
of a condemned world.

Choosing a love ethic means knowing
you are connected
to every other life

and even to eternity
which Tagore describes
as the place where nothing can vanish:

no hope
no happiness
no vision of a face seen through tears
There he go again
Making it weird
Embarrassing himself
Or so he heard

Hes drinking again
Mixing his verbs
Burning oils
And being a perv

Hes singing again
Spinning a tale
Writing apologies
The best he knows how

Hes on the prowl again
Watching the crowds
Choosing his targets
And punching the scowls

Off their faces
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