As I’m standing in the spotlight
I see look-alikes swiftly passing by
But none of them pull off
That red dress like you do

And I follow very thorough
Each and every one in my mind
But all roads lead to home
Where rooms are filled with memories

You’ve always had me caught
Between the fire and your vicious sensuality
Playful debauchery
I’d never would have thought
That everything would end up in this way

As you take me by the hand
And lead me down memory lane
A love in black and white
With hints of perfume in the air

You hold on to the leading role
Despite the fact that you’re long gone
But no-one would be able
To replace this femme fatale anyway

With passion and despair
You always lured me into petty ambiguity
Mental disparity
If only I had said
That life would stop being the same

Last night I chanted your name into darkened
bathroom glass.
3 times, 9 times, 12.

Hearing nothing, I pressed heart and hands into the drywall,
scraped across rough timber studs
broken off nailheads
felt plaster cake across the backside of my eyelids
as the tops of feet slid over the faucet spigot.

In this manner it is laid visible that words only measure their
weight in context of observable actions.
How much skin are three words worth?
When does lack of sleep meet a limit when laid parallel to “best friend”
, and the connotations seeming safest?
What combination of variables finally bludgeons a heart
until it caves from overpopulated one way streets?

During showers, I understand that I don’t know how to be a friend.
I am an attic where things are stored. If you look
closely her face will appear in my windows,
safe amongst the cardboard and baby photos.

I woke up after midnight on three separate occasions
not from sleep. A sort
of dreaming. Your voice pulled taut against my pier.
So I build fires to shine your way back ashore.

Where we linger, smitten and unhurried.

If i still had passion id spend more than a healthy amount of time trying to figure the possibility of us out
but that dream was doused by the water of doubt

If a fire was still in my soul i would throw myself into loving you every second of every day
but sadly the flame has flickered out, my hearts been suffering a long winded. seemingly endless drought.

-Noir

Like moths I’m drawn
To man-made moons
To bathe in its artificial light
While the rain pours down
And the world runs down the drain

And in the end I end up
As a lonely, dancing ghost
Blinded by the fake moon
A worthy spotlight
For a would-be Gene Kelly

"Would you like to know my story?"
I sit across from a man far from boring
Like a noir film, the man was painted by his black silhouette
And tattooed on his arm was "Never Forget"

"I'm a bounty hunter, you see."
He said as the double bass bellowed
"There's not really a destination set out for me."
I could see that the nicotine had turned his nails yellow
And his face distorted as he remembered a past
A far off land where the moments would last

He told me about his life as a cop
And that sometimes he came to this jazz club to make the thoughts stop
He'd let the drums beat out his anger of a partner that left him for dead
And the piano would lift him back up instead

When all was said and done I told him "Good night."
Something felt different about my life
As I walked out the rain would start
It seems everybody can be a piece of art

The corner restaurant is a rendezvous of ghosts:
wholesome weeping wannabes, caricatures of caricature people,
large heads and drooping eyes, haunting cold coffee mugs,
burgers with fries, buzzing waitresses exhausted
has two kids back home and a young guy,
his hands deep in soapy waters and plates,
sweat stained shirt and forever o clock shadow
wishing he was someplace far, he's new but that one's not,
that one flipping canned meats, beer gut hanging low,
been here since 1975, used to play the guitar for a band,
the doors swing open, "Hey man, how long y'all open?",
boasting a cigarette mouth, coughing and yellow,
"I gotta get on the road but what pies you got?",
a 'Nam jacket zipped up, he sits while the jukebox sings
a cancerous voice and narcotic trumpet, and two lovers
are lost in the saturn moons for hours, wandering alien spaces,
the envy of no one, all the clocks crack the midnight bouquet,
the register rings, the phone rings, the manager scowls,
"Someone give her a hand!" mascara caked mystery howls
as her order nearly flips as the struggling waitress loses her tips,
and it never ends, the "help wanted" sign shines beneath the neon fright,
like moths attracted to lights, a newborn waddles inside.

The city sleeps among its incandescence,
however,
she does not.
she watches,
she waits.
Locked in the safety
of her ivory tower,
her pale nakedness
becoming a silky glow in
the dim light of the room.
She is imprisoned
by her beauty,
though she is loved by many
she loves only one.
She waits up for him,
as a stranger
to the sea of sheets
that cling to her bare legs.
She hears footsteps
from down the hall
and questions,
is it her lover?
or is it another
who insists to pay for
her love.
She works the night,
a high end harlot.
Her sorrow wanes
like a wounded cry from
a beaten wolf.
Knuckles wrap against
the hotel door,
and she turns her gaze
from the city outside the window,
her hair moving
like dancing rays of
stolen light.
She reaches for the lipstick
on the night stand,
and walks bare skinned
and beautiful to the door.

She starred with Bogart, Douglas, and Victor Mature.
The Smokey voiced blonde whose motives weren’t all pure,
Lisabeth Scott was the last of her line;
Femme Fatales of film Noir, you know her kind.
In the forties and fifties she was in her prime.
She was the subject of scandal of a ****** nature
When the tabloids discovered that no man would date her.
Like Garbo and Stanwyck, stars in their own stead
Lisabeth preferred a brunette in her bed.
For her men had their uses, Men had their places
But she found herself drawn to soft feminine faces.

Leaning back in my chair to give the crowd a scan
Outside the bar window up pulls a van
He came in with guns drawn, hands in the air!
Wallets and money liberated told not to stare
Gone now, reach into my sock for a 20 to pay for another dram