Ghost Relics**

Downtown,
where Main intersects Main
you'll see the last living tissue
of a breathing bazaar.
They weighed down her chest with bricks and girders.
It's a wonder she breathes at all.
-
Wander too far in any direction
and you're sure to see the husks
of once proud and bustling businesses.
Abandoned sanctums of mortar and majesty.
Scars of the Midwest etched as constants in our mind.
Dusty and silent since the cradle.
-
The theaters are bedeviled with dolled up haunts
who just wandered over from Greenwood to catch the matinee.
Management still leaves the lights on for kicks after hours
to throw off their sleep schedules while they wait for the feature to start.
Up all night, sleep all day; they read by neon and slumber under Sol.
Here I am, left lounging in The Devil's Chair. Crickets keep quavering.
-
Underneath the Franklin Street overpass sleeps a family bound by naught.
They watch in dawn's light as the few pedestrian that traverse Cerro Gordo
advert their eyes as some sort of silent symbol of respect for their situation.
It's as if the very stare of a privileged man could drain 'til depleted.
They never ask for anything, they just wade it out and listen to
the cars overhead, the train-clock's trumpet, and the heartbeats in between.
-
Leaks are patched, potholes filled, and yet
we're still loosing blood; becoming beguiled.
So many stray cats in the civilian savanna,
aimlessly seeking names and second chances.
"This premises is under police video surveillance" -
hanging like ornaments from streetlamp poles.
-
Guarding the gates
of a dwindling dominion,
as the armies of Union and Grand
wait in their camps
for the rust to take hold
of her iron veins.

Sometimes I’m afraid of being sick
Afraid that what I am has a name
Afraid that I helped create a term  
 
Sometimes I feel it
Feel the me that decays
Feel the heart that pumps the rot around
 
Sometimes I wonder if my decomposition can slow
Wonder if my blood needs thinning
Wonder if  I need a leech so as not to rot
 
Sometimes I feel
Sometimes I wonder
Then I remember that this sometimes does not matter
 
Because death is certainly permanent

“What is the end”
He said, “we die
Without sacrifice;
Catholicity is
The decay of cathedrals,
of movie houses..."
But these movies are a moral force,
Of Christ and cross
Poems penned in gold,
Words no good, words too old,
Stories, cut deep with a man with a knife,
There is no life in the stuff because it tries to be “like” life.

I CAN FEEL
MY TEETH
BEGIN TO DECAY
WHEN YOUR
ACID NAME
SLIPS THROUGH THEM

We cover illness with flowers
and flowers die

The inside of my mouth tastes like it is decaying
I hope I lose all of my teeth first

Maybe its just the scotch and *****
But there is a burning in my throat

Maybe it is Satan just making his way out

Our sanity cannot be measured by words or colorful amounts of profanity because only we can judge the reflection we see. If this is true then why doesn't my image stare back at me? When I look into my eyes I can see I'm chasing myself away, how can I be normal if everything I do or say is perceived with enormous amounts of disregard and negativity that I see only as decay? Its uncanny but I'm sure with each passing day I'll figure out what is really blocking my way.