Blood filling the sternum
Of the work horse grown old
The rusty iron of an old train yard
Stagnate pools of ancient prosperity
Fill the scene of yesterday's tomorrow

Instead of futuristic gizmos
Zapping up our daily needs
We worship a silly piece of paper
Watching the ruins around us fade away

Instead of helping one another
Stand from a nasty fall
We fill our pockets with jingling candies
Trying to sweeten our sour lives

Instead of being the beacon of hope
The self proclaimed city on a hill
We watch the struggles around our walls
And laugh at the ones within

A day of reckoning is soon to come
With it we all fade to dust
A rebirth is in store
But it will not bring new life

Only more death and struggle
Because Lady Liberty only holds her torch
Shines upon her own achievements
And leaves others in the dark

Wheezing, she stumbles upon a notebook
Coughing the blood of her own horse
Rusting away like her prosperity
She reads of what she learned a day ago
But forgot for today

She awakes in a cold sweat
Still torch in hand
Will she have learned to shine towards others
Or will she only brighten herself?

he tickled me with love
i imagine
behind his merciless
IBM grin
sadistic chuckle

my grandfather loved me
built me a swing
a wooden airplane
gave me a bicycle
a cape to wear
he taught me pong and pitfall

wielding a brush-broom
handlebar-moustache
a favorite game of his was giving raspberries
testing limits
his iron fingers
wringing squeals of laughter sour
under breathless ribs
tear-eyed begging fits

his old white t-shirt
too small to hide his plump
hairy belly,
i'd tickled him there once
poked him where my cousins pointed
giggling

when the kick came
i felt it in the heart
more than the back of my knee
bent from the sudden
sneering force

when i asked him
years later
for a book from his dying bookshelf
he joked with a growl
the last emphysemic sentence i remember
he said to me
you gonna bring it back when you're done?

i remember
the rules of the tickle game
and love him back
for his sarcasm
firecrack generosity




.

the putrid smell of cigarette smoke and cheap whiskey breath feels like home.
           His arms felt like home, too.
      I knew him as the boy who’d party all night and make plans with me the next day only to sleep the whole time.
              I knew him as ****** noses from ******* and the young emphysemic cough that would **** a small part of me every time I heard it.
     I knew him as that big, stupid ******* smile.
I knew him as the boy who’d ride his bike to my house but would always be too worn out to ride his bike with me.
          I knew him as far too charming for his own good.
I knew him as perfectly imperfect.
       I know him as cold and unempathetic.
I know him as the boy who refused to get on the phone with me for closure.
     I know him as unstable.
I know him as manipulative.
      I know myself as someone who will never be more important than *******.
I know myself as someone who will never be more important than cigarettes.
     I know myself as just another doll who was tossed to the side by a child who got bored.
     The fetor of a coffin nail and the acidic aroma of Highlands Red still reminds me of him—
                 but only the version of him that I knew.

I wrote your name on a cigarette.
And smoked it on my balcony.
Each lungful, thus ingested,
lets you reside in me.

Across the water
Allhallows gleams, unknowing.
Where, at some previous point
we were separated by simple geography.

If cigarettes were wishes
I'd have died soon death,
in rattling, emphysemic pursuit
of long-lost love.

Simple geography
can never trump
the complicated, honest reality
of time and place.

The cigarette glows in my hand
reminding me that, as love,
time veils promises
however potent.

There are only eight cigarettes left
in the whole world.
Perhaps I'll leave them, growing stale
in their hidden box.

Or, maybe, I'll smoke them all
today.
Then forget
what I ought to have forgot.

For sake of placid honesty
and goodwill, told in truth.
Time is a lying healer
and I'm on a liar's oath.

He enters. A stiff morning jowl
can be heard clicking.
And, in early grievance,
the second man’s clock speeds its ticking.
He lies lulling himself (lamenting)
while lockjaw bends down,
knees cracking.
Behind the fold that blinds the floored man
a “D” engrained from cigarette ads,
After smell of the first’s wafts over.
An emphysemic growl is left ringing
on the ground; tumultuous hacking
kicks in like the cops that reside down in Brixton.  
Wheeze, hack, and cough, and cough. And cough.
(Silence) bearing down from the **** erectus
leads Remington to the Clark of the floored man’s
pounding chest.
Rest, rest; he tries to protest, but the cavalry
can’t hear his signs of duress.
And now slitting wrists, from inside the veins;
the invisible smoker never could be restrained.

My father's life ended twice:
First, on the day my mom passed away;
Next, when he took his last breath of air
Three months later to the day.

The year was 1998.
How long ago it seems! And yet
So many vivid memories
Make it a year I'll never forget.

Tangled up in straps and tubes
In ICU, my dad spent
His final month lying supine
While monitors beeped and tracked his descent.

Pneumonia for an emphysemic
Is not a kind and welcome friend.
A ventilator served as lungs
And breathed for Dad until the end.

A man who'd always loved ideas
And words, the poor guy had no choice:
Unable to speak because of equipment,
A pad of paper became his voice.

"You've got a strong heart," I said,
Trying to make his spirits rise.
"Too strong," he wrote. I looked away
So he wouldn't see the tears in my eyes.

While standing there, all I could see
Was a man who'd devoted many years
To serving others, challenging our brains,
Making us laugh, assuaging our fears.

I heard him reading us bedtime stories,
Correcting our grammar, playing word games,
Arguing politics with his friends,
Discussing Dickens, Hardy, and James.

I saw a man alone in a car,
Within the glow of a theater marquee,
Patiently waiting late at night
To pick up my friends and me.

I saw him working multiple jobs,
Fixing the plumbing, knocking down walls,
Remodeling the bathroom, and on the courts
Smacking the hell out of tennis *****.

Now in his deep blue eyes I could see
A question impossible to dismiss:
"Why after a life so full
Do we THEN have to end up like this?"

Any inkling of an answer
Was stifled with a grimace and frown
As death was tugging at his sleeve
And his body was slowly shutting down.

Life has bitter ironies
That we often bemoan or bewail.
We want to explain the inexplicable.
Our efforts are to no avail.

- by Bob B