Watch out, the stove is hot.
White iron teeth that will bite your tongue,
split chapped lips,
then eat salt and vinegar crisps.

Sharp streaks of nerves,
grinning with missing incisors
drip in lines down your chin
of green and brown copper.

If I had a fish pond
to throw these dimes into,
I would never have to know
where they came from,
why they didn't fall out of
my coat with the turned up collar.

Unwashed wool wraps and rots
round warped shoulders,
gnarling strained fingers
between ball and socket joints.

Fussy tea cakes and strands of hair
relinquished to the wind
hobble up and down outdoor train stations,
old-fashioned floral prints swept aside,
a puppet show of sickly chicken legs
pocked, potholed and pickpocketed.

Lost in the war, between couch cushions,
baked into blackberry crumble
in go egg whites, out come memories
of snow that tightroped power lines,
good dogs that stayed,
coauthors of the oxford english dictionary.

Badly rolled cigarette smoke in the streets
writes gregorian poetry for darned socks
snagged on shoddy repair jobs,
splintered wooden bones.
Pour yourself a stiffer drink,
it’s going to be a gangrenous winter.

Love-driven on the edge of chance
he took the stairs in his surefooted stride:
Two, four - and one too many.
Happens, sometimes.
He dunked his thumb in the jam ***
And sought for a sentence –
That eluded him.
He rooted, laughed and drank,
Took his scarf,
hat
and thought:
Such a lucky chance –
It happens, now and then,
That you lose time
But grasp your luck
And leave on the dot.

Well then!
Four, two – you know the rest:
One too many.
It was meant to be.
There were flowers by the table –
And the cups were steaming
Invitingly to be stirred.
Hot chocolate and a piece of cake.
You know too well,
It happens now and then:
That you lose time
But grasp your luck
Hot chocolate and a piece of cake.

-
if i wrote a poem for every time
i felt like checking out indefinitely
i'd have six collections published
and the means to build myself
a cabin in a river valley,
tucked away between
two peaks of the andes
that are as lonely
as the singing/screaming
dual facets of the inner mind.
-
and ironically, i'd use the space
to fill the necessity i ran from
anyways, but --
-

I'm sitting in a bar. A place where they all collect. They come together with smiling eyes and open hearts and sit, drink and just shoot the ****. They are all noteworthy people, not a boring or reserved soul among the bunch. And they share stories of their highs, lows and purgatories.

One of them, his name's Jimmy, tells the story he always tells when he's teetering between coherency and slop-talk. He tells of how he died. He hopped in his car one day, and boy did he love his cars. And that particular car, the one his heart stopped beating in, was his favorite. He sped down the road, his hair blowing in the wind and his hand beating the side of the door as he sang "Strangers in the Night" as it blasted through his radio speakers. He wasn't drunk, he never really was fond of drinking when he was still breathing (he says being dead is depressing and alcohol is the only thing that "assures" him). His car swerved sharply, it was raining, and he just couldn't control the hunk of metal. His head hit the windshield before he even knew what happened.

Jimmy looked down at his Jack and Coke and smiled. His eyes, now drowning in salt water, glistened off the cheap fluorescent lights. He told me he never got to tell his mother he loved her. Never got to tell his girlfriend that he thought they were meant to be. Never got to show the world that the man hidden behind so many layers of insecurity and recklessness was a man that was going to span time, generations. And I look back at him, my mouth curling a little and told him that he might not have gotten to talk to his mother or his girlfriend... But he **** well made his mark. After all, he's in a bar filled with dozens of people with stories not unlike his own. And he's talking to me. Me, with my chest inflating and deflating as it filled and emptied itself of sugary oxygen. Me, with my eyes alive and blinking and shining with life. Me, who is alive.

At least, I hope to God I am.

i don't think i'll play
with pleasant words
tonight -- i'd rather
upset you with my
honesty than delight
you with laughably
phony repartee.

excuse the graphic aspect
but i'm not in the business
of acknowledging faux pas.

a reflection on state of mind;
i'd say solid, though somewhat
soft and liquid as well, like
a plate of spaghetti for brains,
i can't figure out which strand
of grey matter is meant for me
and which is supposed to be
slurped up by lady and *****
nor whether it is my pituitary
or my hypothalamus which is
destined to be taken home
in a doggy bag for seconds.

i really am lost.