He called in for a shower after being alone on the streets for a week.

Is that time enough
to get ***** for a shower
   as a man nearly twenty-six
in years.
She could turn him away
like her father’s sister
might have and did.
From time to time.

It all depended on how many times in a week,
month, or year
he would show up without a call.
Without knowing he still existed.

Somehow, his presence and
absence
were a mixed blessing.
His presence was like a merry-go-round
that goes against the earth’s pull.
Like a brazen thorn
stuck into your shoe.
Unpredictable.
Vacuum-like.
******* all the ***** things in.
Taking everything in its sight
and power and making
everything contort
to his reality.
Where he and only he resided.
Would she open the door for him?

What she does know
is that she might risk speaking
in a bright happy voice
of a mother
so gladsome to see her son.
Welcoming him in.
Rather than turning him away
because of his inconvenience.
Grief is inconvenient.
That is one thing she knows.

I often wander past her gallows
And feel a sympathetic twinge
At glints of sun on growing rifts
I long to hear her sing

My fingers itch to hold the mallet
Molded to her brazen form
A tongue, once ripped from quiet lips
It rests, with ears, unworn

If treasured glance is counted higher
Than the purest ringing note
Then may she hang still, gagged in silence
“To Liberty!”, I quote

When spoken by the timid
It evokes anxiety and fear
Ruminating over how to utilize it
And desperately not wanting to hear

The dauntless utter it overtly
Overconfident in prose and strength
Never contemplating the consequences
Keeps everyone at an arm's length

A sentence this precise shouldn't be so confusing
Nor open to the interpretation of its core
"No Means No", as a matter of fact
The brazen should use it sparingly, and the meek demand it more

There's always been something
so Hollywood about her--
and I don't mean
21st Century *******.

I'm talkin'
Judy Garland,
you're the bee's knees
type of Hollywood.

Now, listen'--
this girl--
I'm talkin'
Bombshell-Cutie
(she'll blow your
******'socks off).

I'm talkin'
Cinematic Beauty Queen;
skin freckled with film grain
the same way the night sky
is freckled with constellation,
mouth parted like velvet curtains,
only to reveal the sweetest prose.

She is Mystique-Fatale,
blazon in colour
among dull, sepia tones--
an Oz among all
the dreary Kansases.

She is allure and poeticism,
hair curled grand,
dressed to the nines
in lace and satin
(they wonder
what lies beyond the
half moons of her *******
and the slit in her gown,
if the butterflies
run rampant
between her knees
like everyone says).

Do not underestimate her--
she is both
Shirley-Temple-Sweetheart
(her kindness
does not falter)
and Pinup-Girl-Honey
(one would not think
to challenge--
to break--
a woman
so prolifically brazen,
but they try anyway).

In a world filled
with actresses--
please, darlings,
save the acting for
the stage,
******* it--
she is so ineffably herself.

She does not reserve
her emotion for
the theatre alone;
she is not afraid
to cry, and--
Jesus--
when she cries
the earth shakes
with the very profusions
of an opera singer's vibrato.

And, God,
you should hear
her poetry,
brimmed with images
picturesque and tragic,
straight outta the movies
it would seem.
Yet, her words
ring with something
so inconceivably real.

And that's what
you've always loved
best about her--
she is the truest person
you've ever met.

It's a shame, then,
that you wouldn't stay
for the grand finale.

But,
with or without you,
this show must go on.

(and it has).

In the dark of the night
I go to bed
And feel purgatory drawing me in
Say no more

      In the dark of the night
      I don’t trust myself
      Alone with my hand
      When I should stand up to Him
      Say no more

            In the dark of the night
            The storm drain overflows
            I should really get going
            So I don’t drown
            Say no more

                  In the dark of the night
                  I call all angels
                  Take me closer to Heaven
                  And farther from Him
                  Say no more

            In the dark of the night
                  In the alleyway running
                        Please forgive me
                              For not being brazen
                                    Please forgive me
                                       For not being brazen
                                             I will say no more

Why?
         Why what?
                   Why do you hate the attention?
The truth is, i don't hate the attention. I love it.
But i was told if i even so much as showed that love,
        i was a brazen *****.

Scratch that either way i would be framed as a ****.