it’s 12 degrees outside
excluding the breeze, I hide
behind the rising smoke
of the cigarette just lit,
my fingers are falling off,
nails ripping to the marrow
a ****** stutter impairing speech,
a seizured grab to the fleeced pocket
leaves only the other hand to freeze,
such a sacrifice to something
old-me said I didn’t need,
I kick around snow
as my leather boots wear a
coat of white as I shiver
and inspire, throwing a black
coat over my lungs
“hey do you have a lighter?”
“yeah”
the ash sails down
and kisses the filter and a flick
collides the ember to exhale it’s final breath
to the frozen floor,                                                    
I step inside and
suddenly, I’m cold again.
                                                                               MJB

Tra-la-la-la-la-la-laire—nil nisi divinum stabile
   est; caetera fumus—the gondola stopped, the old
   palace was there, how charming its grey and pink—
   goats and monkeys, with such hair too!—so the
   countess passed on until she came through the
   little park, where Niobe presented her with a
   cabinet, and so departed.


Burbank crossed a little bridge
  Descending at a small hotel;
Princess Volupine arrived,
  They were together, and he fell.

Defunctive music under sea
  Passed seaward with the passing bell
Slowly: the God Hercules
  Had left him, that had loved him well.

The horses, under the axletree
  Beat up the dawn from Istria
With even feet. Her shuttered barge
  Burned on the water all the day.

But this or such was Bleistein’s way:
  A saggy bending of the knees
And elbows, with the palms turned out,
  Chicago Semite Viennese.

A lustreless protrusive eye
  Stares from the protozoic slime
At a perspective of Canaletto.
  The smoky candle end of time

Declines. On the Rialto once.
  The rats are underneath the piles.
The jew is underneath the lot.
  Money in furs. The boatman smiles,

Princess Volupine extends
  A meagre, blue-nailed, phthisic hand
To climb the waterstair. Lights, lights,
  She entertains Sir Ferdinand

Klein. Who clipped the lion’s wings
  And flea’d his **** and pared his claws?
Thought Burbank, meditating on
  Time’s ruins, and the seven laws.

Fugit Fumus dived into a basket
of oysters just to make the ***
the underbelly of transformation
bodes unwise for this colloquial soul
Cloistered Lisa lost her circumspection
when she settled for dystopic Dan
from such a wretched family
with pneumatic drills
they'd rather shutter than amend

The witch whirled around her golden cauldron,
Her shoes clacking on the stone floor as she
Chants in a language that's now forgotten;
Perhaps chanting to awake the ancients.
Her voice resonates in tune with the smoke,
As it rises in ever growing wisps
Like the clouds that shift to veil the moon’s face.
“Fumus! specula!” she cries as she stirs,
She’d lift the wooden spoon from the bubbling
Cauldron only to find that it’s melted.
Still, she'd flick through her potions book, searching
As her eyes would flash verdant as glow-worms.
Against the starry night sky—Constellations
In their own right against the cave’s night sky.
She’d cast madly in a fervor as bolts
Of lightning illuminate the night sky.
Knowing what’s good for them, the ravens scatter,
Their shadowy bodies blocking the moon.
Still, the witch would brew, throwing anything,
And everything into that dreaded void.
Outside, the cicadas would hum madly,
While the moon would drip silver in the brew.
Madness is found behind her vibrant eyes,
As she stoppers the potions into vials.
Lining her shelves with the odd colored vials,
She waits, hoping for someone to visit;
Waiting for someone to knock at her door.
And yet, after all this, no one will come,
So the witch sits drinking her tea, alone,
Watching as the ravens fly though the night
Preparing to brew another potion
That will never be shared.