at first invisible
a sudden gleam, revealed in spring:
grain of sugar in the snow
you nourish me when all else melts.

it's a bit cold
I'm sitting by the margin of the river
Fishing
A bit upset
There were too many fish who escaped
my nets

I sigh
throw 'em again

wait

I catch one
pull it out and stomp on its golden head
rip it apart from the body
and drink its blood

...

Yeah, *******
I'm sitting in the office

night shift

supervising casinos through
CCTV cameras

it's 05:53
and I'm ignoring work to write poems
like this one

and something always comes up
and makes me forget my ideas
The phone rings
Some customer causes trouble in some casino
Some other customer is suspected of cheating
A bouncer falls asleep on his
chair due to lack of activity
The game attendant flirts with a customer
There's a bill fallen on the floor and I've to
determine its owner
A bunch of idiots are being too loud
Some other idiot keeps demanding alcohol
but his bets ain't worth ****
and so on
and on
and on

And the goldfish escape through my fingers
and the eyes of my nets are too wide
and that just *****, man
It really does

But I pick myself up
and tell myself what I always tell myself

A writer writes
A writer writes
A writer writes

Just like a fisherman fishes

And you don't stop because the catch
is rickety

You continue because of it

You can still be good
at what you do
without liking
what you do

It’s more common than
you’d imagine

The words reflected his face
in the steamy bathroom mirror

He watched
until he felt cold in his
nakedness
and shivered

reached for the towel
wiped
got out of the bathroom
put on clothes
and returned to his writing
desk

The blank page was ugly

unlike the somewhat encouraging
words on the steamy mirror

He reached into the drawer
pulled out the pen
stuck it into his mouth
clicked it

Reached again into the drawer
pulled out the gun
pointed it at the blank page
fired

He wrote for the remainder of
the day and the next
night around the smokey hole

It was finally
beautiful

you are the white water that softens our skin
or the thick fire that clears the prairie,
always revealing life.

That did it
He was tired of coming home from work
and finding
a ******* book on the table
instead of food

but the book was also on his
pillow when he went to bed

on the toilet tank

in the garage

in the shed behind the house

and on the dashboard of his ******* car

He had enough of it

And one day he told her
he had enough of it and enough of her
It was time to break up
this wasn't going to work

He was not going to quit smoking
and she was not going to quit nagging him
to read her book on quitting smoking

"I won't marry you until you're 101 days clean,"
she'd said

He smoked a pack and a half a day

It was time to break up
and, gods, she didn't take it lightly

In that morning he left her alone to collect
all her stuff from his house and be gone
by the time he returned

She was indeed gone by the time he returned
and took nothing more than what belonged to
her and even left something behind
Her self-published book on how to quit smoking,
what else?

He sighed
picked it up from the coffee table
looked it over
sat on the couch
put a cigarette between his lips and
when he lit it the house blew up

Perhaps a big moral in the book was to
always check the gas after a
breakup

but it was too late now

Here we go
open the beer can
bring it to the lips
have a sip
and...
There it is
that PSA starts running on TV
about a great part of the population
caring for nothing but how to get high
The numbers are alarming
Getting high has become
as much a science as it is an art
and a banal thing
Everyone seeks to escape reality

with desperation

therefore
the strongest drug of all
is suicide

so potent it can get you high
even if you just think about it

I had my share
but managed to change my mind early
I no longer think of suicide
but make others do it
and that still counts as getting high
since they're all characters in my writings

It wasn't looking good at all
the framed picture of Jesus
had cuts all over it
On the face
In the hair
On the hands joined in prayer
And the eyes were crossed out deep
and cut out

why would he
do that?
Why would a five year old do that
to the gift he got from
grandma?
Was the child possessed? Oh, God! Was
the child possessed by the devil?

They took him to church to
find out
and the priest
asked him why did he cut the Jesus
in the framed picture and
the kid said, "I wanted a bike, not a stupid
picture!"

"He is definitely possessed," said the priest
"You'll have to bring him
to church every Thursday and Sunday. And I
will give you further instructions."

Grandma fainted
mother broke down crying

Father got him a bike actually. But mother
and grandma made sure it
won't reach him. Because father left
mother and went
away to live a life of sin with another woman.
All ties had to be cut
with that sinner.
The bike was donated to a foster home where
the nuns pasted a picture of Jesus
on the basket to protect the
rider from accidents
But the first kid who rode it fell off while
climbing a ***** and
the bike slid across the asphalt
leaving deep scratches into the face of Jesus

quelle rêve, pour toi, j’espère:
me voir
      ma visage serene
              la centre de ton univers
tu me touches dans mes cauchemars mais quand je me lève je suis contente
il y a quelque chose de romantique dans la pluie
      elle travers ma fenêtre,
       et tu me chuchotes des mots sublimes
« t’es ma petite fleur...incroyable. »

i can’t picture you i can only
feel your hot touch on my skin
bastardizing your voice in my head
begging myself to carve my heart for you
i know i will, just sleep next to me in the shed
just wake me up for morning honey

The soul must know something
that the mind
can’t comprehend

That’s what they said when
they watched him
from afar

He slept under the bridge
at night

During the day
the poor fool sat
by the river banks
and threw stones into the water

All day long

With obsession

And when he’d see no other stones
he’d start crying

Few things are more disturbing
to the ear than
the cries of an adult

He had a family some years ago,
they said

Had a wife and kids

And a job in the mine yonder

Then a boulder fell on his
head one day and
along with his mind
it took everything away from him