Projector rattle
Dusty light

Wallpaper cracks
Fluttering memory

Burning tin
Black timber

A face in the window
Melts

Calm air endures
Scentless

A cracked frame
Broken smiles

The ink runs
Down the alley

Red spills
Into the doorway

I glow

The invisible tattoo
A translucent flame

Rage detonator
Molten eyes

Violence in three steps
Two steps
One

I glow

"Who goes there?"
Cheerless and pitiful

A short cry
Then stillness

*I fade

Jump in
Taste the brine

Art lives
Beyond the wall

Future love songs
Ride the swell

Your makeup runs
In the rain

Back street kisses
Well-rehearsed

Cracked vinyl piles
Like onyx shards
Like impressions
Like fantasies

Water beads
Slide along the grooves

Your spattered lipstick
Your chipped nails

It is cold here

Under the clouds

Zebra static screens
Solo chess

A fallout winter
Quiet ash

Empty cans
Jangle across cement

The image of you
Dissipated

Sealed up
The final request

I am a soldier

I was a soldier

A dream box key
In the captain's desk

The piper's mutiny
A locked door

The lifeboats burn
Orange dots on black velvet

Listing
Listing

Pressure groan
He sits

Door bulge
Spray

In the drawer
In the drawer

Exploding torrent
The dream box opens

as i trudged home
one wintry day
i saw a deck of
playing cards
wilting
in the snow

i took them home
and played them
back to life

that was years ago

now they sit
in a dusty corner
and whisper
never forget

but i do sometimes

the dance hall smelled of chlorine and formaldehyde
as the corpses did the robot
and the music clattered around like
a drunk in the dark

i saw you and wondered why
you ignored me and then I remembered
it was me
who ignored you

then the dead shuffled around
and somebody broke a hip
and you left when I looked away
or because I looked away

but a zombie broke a hip and
who wouldn't look at that