bernie the cheese
collapsed at the side
of the road
his measured response depleted
he watches as she folds up
her neat and meticulously spelled words
plied on silver tongue into her rucksack
and through such ******* ******* of kings english
she entices him ever onward where
faint lines can be sought
and yet to be found
that echo the face of true madness
its laughing sweating continence
painted with watercolours and
can only be seen in the reflection of
a mirror reflecting another mirrors image

her face slowly releases its dire grip
and her eye looses it screaming aspect
as she finds herself alone on the ***** alleys cobblestones
the battered dumpsters spilling treasures for the divers to find
she begins to hum a beatles tune from '63
and fingers the lace shawl hiding her deformed mind
trying once more to capture that vast lost feeling from
girlhood that dances a
dubious little jig on her headstone of the heart
singing 'lookie here....look at whats buried here'
she remembers his face but not his name
he drove a silver buick with a skull painted on the hood
his blond features engraved in the notions
his words mixed with foul smelling chicken soup
he was a soup of the day in her salad years

bernie the cheese
chews on the charbroiled taste of his
blowup doll lover's lips and tries to say
the three magic words
'made in china'??
his own words spent he casts about
in terror for a phrase or two to quote from
the masters of deception
who gather round in long grey coats
sinister eyes on the fruits of his labour
their wooden faces warped by rain
their mouths only a dim perceived line of
mumbles written in childlike scrawl
on the backs of closet doors
we hide here because we cannot see
therefore we cannot be seen
you cant touch me because i cannot feel
they gift him at price unnamed some loose parable
naught more that glib reprise of his own perilous straights
his is the beast that labours in their stead
he is their human face
she is but the road they walk today

doves drowning
in the storms wicked air
watch with empathy as they struggle in the
thrashing tides of the rainswept sky
watch as the fall from grace
in the warm tears of rain

bernie was waiting on
doomsdays last train
he kept his lunch in a sack
along with the face he gonna wear
when he comes up fore the good lord
but what worried him was if the other fella
had his ticket
he would toss his coin on
the hand he was dealt
a good man misunderstood
a simple man living a complex life

contortionist of the fable
she wrote her own storied life
on the back of a matchbook cover
after all its the flame of her heart
that set ablaze many a mans inner pervert
she is waiting on that last train too
with a devilish certainty of her destination
but she aint too worried
she knows hell is just like miami in july

doves nestled in the hands of time
make a soft sound that stirs the heart
sounds like a love affair
sounds like free flight on a summer breeze
feels like home

the clouds have a rift
that bleeds sunlight
down on the thought machine
that grinds a steady pace
of meat upon which the bearded wisemen must chew
only they can interpret the bones cast
like oracles of old
only they can see the fates
so i rise and step carefully through the empty door
thinking that it once held such promise
the morning is rampant with people
and id rather not speak till
i have a grasp on what im not thinking
so i retreat to the filthy carpet of her hole

the muttering continues into the night
and no matter how many times i step to the hall
he just stands there and speaks to  the window
open and blowing soft
he tells the night
that hes not frightened anymore
he will do that till dawn
then he will crawl to his screaming bed and try to sleep
nothing prepared him for the slow torture test that hes been dealt
keep on keeping on till you cant keep on no more

she walks in and shakes off the rain
scattering droplets of her passing
she looks at me with open questions
but the closed fist of her mouth speaks louder
than any words she could muster
they strike my mind with painful reality's that
have never seen the light of day
she just made them up to justify
and i make it clear that i wont stand for it
as i lay here and absorb her verbal fantasy's
wish sometimes i could be like him
and just whisper the world away
dream away the words

in the hallway of the building
on the vast ***** white tiles
she absorbs the nights festivity's
with the jaundiced casual hand of a lifelong soul thief
with the barrenness of a wasteland for a heart
i look upon her with growing need to
simply let loose and walk away
this is no place for me
for i am alone

the dark ice cream man
floats up and down the empty streets
his truck weakly cranking out a warped sounding song
that leaves a trail of dogs objecting
the truck has the word pestilence painted on it
instead of ice cream
his dark form hunched over the steering wheel
his cheshire grin has aspects of his delirium
imprinted on its clean toothy shine
he only comes out at three am
and glides the cool pavement in search
of Delilah's phone number
she promised him that she would be his one true
and he meant to hold her to it
he would do anything to have her all to himself

Delilah walks barefoot along the train track
with one ear nailed acutely to the train whistle approaching
the other ear in her pocket
where she hums a **** version of
the battle hymn of the republic
all good girls love horses and shotgun weddings
she wants her shotgun wedding on the saddle
with the ice cream mans brother
who she thinks is just too nifty to be anything but heavenly
she always pictured him with angel wings
carrying a sword and riding a pale horse named death

there are echoes in the concrete parkland
the neatly trimmed grass glistens wetly in the darkness
a dew touched tree stands on a narrow hill
its leaves thrashed slowly by a whisper of wind
the sound of running feet
laughter
its an illusion
she is an illusion
i make matchstick men
watch them march in precision lines
i am a matchstick man
watch me scribble in precision lines

the ice cream man now sleeping
away the humid hot afternoon
stashed away in the back of his pestilence truck
while Delilah learns how to knit and make candles
that ice cream mans brother sells at flea markets
we all settle for what we think we want
and in the end we all get what we deserve
Delilah marries the brother and they live happily
while ice cream man spends his mid-life crisis as a
politician who leads a double life
making ice cream sandwichs out of his basement
and i am discovered 'neith the truck making
matchstick men out of twigs
from the tree of life

babe sweet makes a hasty get away
in her 57 Chevy
after robbing the bank
of its pen and pencil sets
someday she's gonna be a writer
and she don't want to run outa ink
not while the words can run like
fine wine from her stumbling fingertips
her drunkard style staggers through the clean vision
with a brush stroke that wanders between the lines
and sometimes wanders out of em
and straight to the borders of insanity
she pauses and thinks to her left behind lover
that the last ship of my life
may indeed have sailed but your not among my regrets
and that's enough for her
so she commits her pilfering of the salesclerk's pocket
and flees with relief pasted falsely on her face
babe sweet drives fast fast to the southern town
and picks up a smile she saw standing by the
side of the dirt road
but little did she realize that
some dirt don't wash off
and her new comfy smile had baggage
of his own in the form of a colt revolver
with a few spent shells
spilling outa his pocket
so they run into the night trying to escape their
separate desperate pasts
she looked at him with a lonely yearning
but he openly saw only that he wanted to get straight
with god and his mamma
if he could only work up the courage to abandon
this trail of tears
they both collapsed into a small  hotel
down in floridas treasure coast
and spent days waiting and watching the evening news
for sings that the world had even noticed them
they are there still
babe sweet and her regretful smile
look to everybody like mona lisa recovering from a ******
someday he will get the courage to get right
someday she will go home to her bed and breakfast
but for now they gather suntans and scrape a living
out of cast off bottle caps
happy enough together and sometimes that's enough