TOUCH
Crusty Frothy Scrape Sandy
SEE
Orange
SMELL
Nothing
TASTE
Chemicals Sharp
HEAR
slish

tip tap
you're tapping on the desk
in rhythm to an unknown song
snip snap
you open up in my hands
ready to be used
slish slash
you swing around
leaving a nasty mark
snip snap
you close in my hands
weird substance running down your side
tip tap
you beat on the desk
waiting for the possible snip snap

By one hand the knife made ready,
In the other flips a fish;
Suddenly, the two are steady
In the rhythm of the slish.

And worthy men and worthy craft
Rebuke the jarring waves that lash
Each man starboard, port and aft,
With bitter wet and violent crash.

And carcass after carcass tossed
Lifeless to the ****** hold
Shimmers, though the light is lost,
And the dreary day grows cold.

And vagrants in the trawler’s wake
Bobbing back atop the swells
Flutter up then swoop to take
The sacrament of fish entrails.

Here, wind and rain and haze dilute.
Yellow, green, red, brown converge.
And the gray is absolute,
And time and mind and sense diverge.

Moments roll as waves uncounted.
Thoughts are scattered as debris
On pebbles of perception rounded
By the endless surge of sea.

And rivers rise and passion flows
Inward channeled by belief.
Images drift by then go
To certainty, or doubt so brief.

And certain as the banks concede
To the wash and swirl and spray
So the tide and time recede
Shaping yet another day.

At the corner of 12th & Main
I am reminded of
the night you couldn’t
stand like a newborn
deer with pelvis
resting on broken glass
bottles tightly curled
around your lips
resembling
a girl
in a cocktail dress
the one whose
neck you kissed your mouth
a slot machine
BAR BAR BAR
hacking up
cigarette butts and what’s left
of your dignity

At the corner of 12th & Main
there is the scent
of liquor stained
into the pavement
your skin cells made
impressions
on the pavement
body rag dolled up
like a cadaver
on parade
and I your Grand Marshall…
I’m sorry
for scuffing your boots

At the corner of 12th & Main
your psyche collided
with concrete
sunken
inward to slish and
slosh on a whiskey
tango tidal wave or
was it tequila foxtrot
see now I’m
drunk too

On the corner of 12th & Main
An attempt is made
to fashion
a gurney
out of what’s left of
wasted anatomy
two
fractured carcasses I am
one of them your brother
holding your feet
marching
like funk tossed in a
blender, frapped
Emily is there
She offers you
her couch and me
a bottle of *****
and *******

In Emily’s apartment
I took you
to the bathroom
your fragile
husk
shivering on the
chipped linoleum
dehydration
and a smaller frame
will do that to you
promptly I got you
some water and a blanket
to no avail
so I held you
in my awkward
limbs
till your bones
were silent