You were dating that girl from heaven
So angelic yet mind so brittle
You took her to better places
And gave her things you couldn’t give me.

She’s polite, all tender hand shakes and smiles
And she’s even nice to me to be on your side
She’s not the stereotype of perfect
Cos she’s got a dark side but it’s worth it
Cos I bet you want to see her naked
And I bet she looks better than me
And if you do something wrong
She’ll never tell you.
Nearly perfect.

So why

You were dating that girl from heaven
You were dating even when you didn’t know it
Your walks were romantic and flirtatious
But oh so gracious
And so ungraciously you fell for her
And bought her better perfume
But I wasn’t in competition
Now I don’t want to be involved -
With a silly girl from such a tragic, lethargic world.

So why

I hope you and your girl from heaven dance in woods
And run on hot coal together
I hope your love isn’t based on words
I hope she offers you things I never knew
And I hope you get her name tattooed
Girl from heaven, thank you.

The leeching color from my eyes
My parched mouth puckered
My joints are stiff, stubborn and brittle
Creaking like exhausted floorboards
Wringing my fists, white ands shriveled
Twisting my hands, skinned and raw
I'm ill with desperate thriving
Too weak to carry on, don't have the choice
Veins laden with liqueur, thinning hopes and regret
Pulsing pulsing pulsing
Bones fluttering with birds of bad omen
Scalp rid of hair to make place for the thorny crown of vanquishment
Blood diluted with bitter disappointment,
Sloshing, smearing through my mucked-up system
Aching from the deadly drone of existence
From small victories, large defeats
I'm the mortar, they're the pestle
Clobbering into my hollowed life.

The hammer of that thing
Routine so dull and tedious
Pounding and pounding and pounding
When you can't even scream or weep
Thud thud thud
My temples scream with dank submission
My brain is reeling, hurling from the vertigo of it all.

Morning, noon & night
The dead avenues, the empty buzzing
Beats hammers in my brain
Throb throb throb
I'm quivering with numbness.

I'm mature now, I'm ripe
So ripened and rotten
Adult things, adult preoccupations pulsing around me
It seems like person really only has two choices
Get in on the aimless hustle or be forsaken
I've taken it all up
Rent, coffee, wine, cigarettes and newspaper
Forgotten pills
Unpaid bills
Thump thump thump
Anguish, pain, woe and misery
Turbulence and stress, the banging hammer.

I'm a drunkard, a wanderer
With a beaten, battered suitcase
Days like these, weeks like these, when all the weapons are pointed at me
I'm a ***, an outcast
A pigeon in the pummeling rain
Dribble dribble splash
The ache is a relentless thing.

My job, my rent, my house
My walls limp with memories stuck with rotting glue
Wallpaper torn, curling at the edges
The cold hard floor radiates and screams
The couch, cold & hollow
Incrusted with bits of filthy grime
The dead radiator hisses like an angry snake
The shades down, no sunlight
No life seeping through the venetian blinds
And my clothing sits in the chairs
Like the dead emptied out
The blankets are thin, frayed and tattered
As hope is
The moths, on the other hand, are alive and well
They weave webs of moribund rot
Interlacing me into their strands of decay.

Surrounded by the coldhearted, they snarl
And their laughs abash, dishearten the pure
Bruising me relentlessly
They are so tired, mutilated
either by love or no love
All their bleak and sunken eyes
All their weak and drunken souls
All their meek and shrunken hearts
Vultures with neckties
Weasels in frocks
Collared beasts, that's all they are.

The mournful poet with the shrapnel wound
Was so wrong
I guess he wanted to be lyrical, but his words led astray
Time is not water
It does not flow easy, smooth and transparent
It drags you into dark alleys and batters the hell out of you
Punches you in the ribs, rips your skin,
Jerks you by your hair, stabs you, disfigures you
Leaves you crippled and broken, gasping for air.

Sweating in a rocker
Lanky skeleton hands clasped, praying- for what?
I'm not living, or dying
I'm simply crawling backward
Or no, I'm not crawling, I'm being dragged,
Through nights of lonely perfidy, breathing the beaten dusty air
The dark wind wailing, ebbing through the frail curtains
Laying in bed, too wretched to move
When memories, of heaven and hell,
Droop like broken shades
Across the window of my mind
And ****, I can feel my soul slowly dropping down through the mattress
My stomach is heaving, my teeth clenched and gritted
But not with fear, no, it's too late for dread
And it *****, because we realize we were all so caught up in a life in which we can find no meaning...we end up wrong and graceless and sick
We're born shriveled and alone, we die shriveled and alone
No matter what.

I traveled this life once in search of my treasure
For anything easy which could give me pleasure
My choices were many
A buck or a penny
They all wanted something
My life or my money
Their eyes were all jaded
In faces soon faded
Though now I remember
In early September
The voice in the crowd
The warning out loud
A wizened old crone
Yells: “You’ll be alone.”
The message was wasted, I just could not hear
The din of the music left no room for fear.

I traveled this life then in beauty surrounded
In places where sunshine and nature abounded
The feeling of wonder
Undimmed by the thunder
And flashes of lightning
From clouds to down under
I ran through the rain
Ignoring all pain
My youth was my own
Now soaked to the bone
As if in a play
With nothing to say
The words of a bird
Which I never heard
The colors were muted I felt quite insane
Now heedless and breathless I missed the refrain.

I traveled this life then to see many places
The dull and the dreary with beautiful faces
But if you would dare
To sample the fare
You heeded the warning
To always beware
Of laughter familiar
And manner peculiar
The one who would sleep
Was not yours to keep
Just keep moving on
The show is now gone
No Jack, Jill, or Joan
Once more you’re alone
The bed sheets were wrinkled, and no four-leafed clover—
As aimless I wondered “How could it be over?”

I wandered through life, Pacific, Atlantic
The message I missed oblivious and frantic
I paid no attention
Eschewed all convention
While others still blaming
With dark condescension
Within me the flame
Was seeking to blame
A cadre of gents
With dollars and cents
Whose zero sum game
Of fortune and fame
Had thwarted my laughter
From now ever-after
In vain had I hoped to hear on the phone
The answer I sought while living alone.

I anchored a lifetime in hopes for a cause
And fearlessly battled for years without pause
Great rallies attended
At times apprehended
Thought nothing of giving
The cause I defended
I sought to inspire
Uncover the liar
The world never heeded
What I knew it needed
And yet, to the end
I learned not to bend
So true in my quest
Rejecting the rest
I battled with others till they fell away
As each found a reason why they couldn’t stay.

I traveled a life where my friendships I’d borrow
As happiness faded I turned now to sorrow
But in a reflection
A dream of perfection
Once more I was smiling
Now steeped in affection
The treasure I found
Through reason unbound
Defying all logic
The secret was magick
How could I have known
Why I was alone
Still trying to reach
The star from the beach?
My love bore a flower so radiant and free
It unchained all the hearts who had sought it in me.

J. Sandy

I think it was the spring
before sophomore year in
high school, a prelude to the
best and worst but I missed
that footnote. The previous
night was nice where romance
had intervened if at all possible
for 14 year olds. I should have
understood that devils come
at all ages in all seasons but
the stars beckoned summer
and your parents didn't know
and this was the first time I'd
ever been so secretive. Wasn't
until now I'd realized you have
always been a limit pusher, I
didn't understand then, when
you asked to stick your hand
down my shirt. I cannot call
myself stupid for being young,
but let's call it a lapse in morality.
you frowned, pulled back and
told me there was nothing there.
It has always been the smallest
things said that have injured me
the greatest.

The wilderness

The absolute emptiness.

Where cries are not heard

Prayers not answered.

In that solitude

I mused.

I miss

The orbital turn

And even if not,

I would spurn the helping hand

The kindly smiles.

Yes.

The wilderness was a walk of many miles.

Moses must have known it in a dream

An ending where no ending’s seen

Just the places where we all have been

A silence within the silent scream.

An eternity of pain

Without the rainbows end

No promise of gold

When we grow old.

No lease

When all your life’s been sold.

Just Awesome night

And the wilderness.

I want to feel those feelings,
those indefinable feelings
of hopscotching
towards it,
one foot in front of the other
to experience
the maudlin aqua-eyed
moments in rain,
jeans
and midnight skirts.

Taking every step necessary
to evade black lakes
down your cheeks,
hot blood on my fingertips.

And there'd be a song,
cordial and soft
on the piano,
delicate
like carnation petals,
writing lyrics
on each other's arms
in multi-coloured ink,
letters that hop
up to our elbows.

How to feel what it's like
with another one,
opposite and the same
all at once.

Cheerful dreams,
placid days
on streets, in homes
with brown drinks,
single and un-single friends
who say 'I knew you two would...'
and to show our love
our hands would touch
and our lips would touch
and the lights would rise.