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 Feb 2019
Charles Bukowski
drunk again at 3 a.m. at the end of my 2nd bottle
of wine, I have typed from a dozen to 15 pages of
poesy
an old man
maddened for the flesh of young girls in this
dwindling twilight
liver gone
kidneys going
pancrea pooped
top-floor blood pressure
while all the fear of the wasted years
laughs between my toes
no woman will live with me
no Florence Nightingale to watch the
Johnny Carson show with
if I have a stroke I will lay here for six
days, my three cats hungrily ripping the flesh
from my elbows, wrists, head
the radio playing classical music ...
I promised myself never to write old man poems
but this one's funny, you see, excusable, be-
cause I've long gone past using myself and there's
still more left
here at 3 a.m. I am going to take this sheet from
the typer
pour another glass and
insert
make love to the fresh new whiteness
maybe get lucky
again
first for
me
later
for you.
from "All's Normal Here" - 1985
 Nov 2017
eileen
dead skin
useless veins
wandering
In vain
no love
no pain
nighttime
my time
blue skies
blue eyes
blue waves
blue tides

If I could just disconnect my brain
so I can't see you
In my sleep

I keep noticing you in my dreams
 Nov 2017
zero
She's taken your body wash, and used it without permission.
She's used it twice before and
presumed it would be fine to take it again.

You never gave consent.
You even said No.

She's used it twice before so what's a third time,
or a fourth or even a fifth,
she's just hoping you won't snitch and tell someone
she stole something from you...
Your confidence or your peach shampoo?

She lied about the temperature of the bath water,
you were supposed to drown
before you felt the heat,
but you didn't and now you're
tearing your skin to shreds,
Self-destruction on the first date,
how sweet.

She wants you to wash your mouth out,
you said something you shouldn't and now she's mad,
feeling sorry for you is in the past,
the new thing is drowning you in the bath.

Your heads now under water,
feet kicking the floor.
She's doused you with her perfume,
just to see you choke against the wooden frame of the door.
Abuse in calming rooms of peace,
with people you once loved.

Watch out for the screams,
they're muffled underwater.

-Z.xo
 Nov 2017
Paul Hansford
The function of a violet is to grow
out of dead leaves,
turning decay
into itself.
A poem too builds a little sense
from the rubble of life (what branches grow
out of this stony *******?). One and the other
flower according to their nature,
seen by those
who know what they are looking for.

A violet is not a poem,
but the message is the same.
The quotation in brackets is from TS Eliot's "The Waste Land".
 Nov 2017
madison curran
i have nightmares about bridges burning a lot,
probably because the last one i burned killed all my elation
i still think of you everyday,
your face still brings me to my knees,
i can feel your presence in every room,
because the bullets intrude my anatomy every time you even glance at me.
even if I’m not looking back.

love has always been a hollow ribcage for me,
a burned down church,
that I always went back to to pray to,
only to be brought to my knees by it’s absence,
every single time.
all I knew about love was that it was violent,
that it made people into glass,
that it broke people like wrecking ***** against buildings
and there I was for years waiting for you to come and destroy me just like every time my father walked out that door.
but you never did.
instead you planted flowers in a garden that had been barren for years,
you ended the winter that was electrifying throughout me,
you taught me that maybe my insides weren’t so hollow,
because my heartbeat felt like more than just the sound of spoons clinking together to remind me that it was time to eat away at my own insides again.

but you’re gone,
and here I am feeding away at my insides again,
except there is nothing left for me to destroy,
my body is a graveyard.
and maybe love does turn you into glass,
because every time you speak to me,
my insides shatter like fine china in tight palms,
you made me feel like more than just a felon,
that my hands were fluent in something beyond destruction,
but when you kept asking me to come back,
i threw rocks at my own windows,
because it hurt so much to have to walk away,
i painted my own self image against your brain,
so that you wouldn’t see me as that girl that turned your body into melted honey,
you’d see me for the demons chanting in the back of my head.
and I guess it worked,
because you told me you do not love me anymore,
i wonder if you hung that painting in your bedroom.
saw it every morning and finally became too disturbed that you put me to rest.
or maybe you got tired of the girl who cried wolf,
i mean isn’t that why you left in the first place?

you told me you felt lost after i left,
and here I am, I caught your illness.
i would have done anything to try and recreate how you made me feel,
but just like any person who tries to recreate Picasso or Monet
it’s never quite as good the second time
or third,
or fourth,
sure the cigarettes burn like the way the memory of your flesh burns against my mind,
but it hurts less.
so I smoke a pack a day, swallowing the smoke like I’ve learned to swallow my pride,
but then it just reminds me of the puff of smoke I see every time you walk away from my bones.
i become a sad child again,
there is nothing more devastating than doorways for me.
but I want you to know that I woke up this morning,
and there was sunlight slipping through the cracks of the earth,
earth that has been grey for too long,
your ghost did not slip through my walls,
the sound of your voice does not crack at my sidewalks anymore.

my insides are no longer hollow.
there are daisies blooming,
in my ribcage,
where there is also a city i have built around all the bridges i have burned,
including ours,
you told me you do not want me anymore,
you have told the world of my madness,
used my painting as a flag for your newly built town.
just know that i am still standing.
you have not broken me,
she has not broken me,
i was whole before you,
and i am whole now.
do not tell me you have found crystals mining through someone else’s anatomy,
don’t tell me you’re finally healed,
remember,
it’s never quite as good the second time.
or the third,
or the fourth.

your portrait was painted in chalk on the sidewalks of my life,
but it rained yesterday,
and you are gone,
except it did not bring me to my knees,
i am not mourning it's disappearance,
i am mourning your losses,
you have settled for crystals,
and let gold slip through your fingers,
i have used your bones to build myself up,
instead of beating myself down.
they say the first cut is the deepest,
but i am done bleeding.
I do not miss you anymore.
 Nov 2017
Lappel du vide
"you are a character"
that's what he said to me before we fell in love

as I put old beach glass from Anamarie Island against his eyelashes
two infant pieces in front of each eye
and you've got glasses that can see into the past.
a yellow, buttery vision,
soft
blurred
simple
just like I always dreamed the world to be.

on a plane to thailand,
he told me
"thats why I'd like to travel someday--
because of you"
we were pretzels, trying to find a position to sleep
intertwined and drooling,
stared at.

and after brushing sand off of our relatively dry bodies
licking our salty lips with hungry tongues
he told me
"everything about you is special"
and we spent Christmas in the sea
watching as the sun got swallowed by the
relentless tide, feeling the current
push and push us closer
but our heads resist

I remember swearing to myself not to sink into his
arms and feel alright there
but every brush of his hand against
my leg, under the surface of the sea
dissolved my barricades
like a popsicle in July.

and now
I am afraid of the comfort
feeling like
it is pulling the character.
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