It lay heavily on my tongue,
syrupy with a cloying sweetness,
before I swallowed, feeling the burn
of Napalm.
"That was the only alcohol in the place,"
you observed, dryly
but not without
amusement.
"Did you want a taste?"
the words were too
mature for me
but you knew that,
and perhaps
that was the appeal for you.
Tag: Poem
What It Is | Poems that Suck
The darkness slipped inside me
at the end of a knotted winter scarf
slung over the dilapidated door of a
hotel room.
There swung the jerking feet of my
hopes for faith, love, brotherhood and
a well adjusted childhood.
It took me decades to understand
that you can't change the shifting
hands of Fate, much less the accidental
slip of the foot.
Rolex | Poems that Suck
The sky is grey, pressing down on me, always pressing down into that hollow cavity where my heart should be. The muscle and sinew still there, of course, useful only to keep time. It does that well, at least, better than a Rolex.
X Marks the Spot | Poems that Suck
The worst part
is
when I lie in bed
at night,
and I have to stop myself
from thinking about
a (our)
future.
I catch myself,
then
cross my wrists
over my chest,
like a corpse,
to
protect
my
heart.
Void | Poems that Suck
There's a void at the center of my being.
I don't mean my heart.
I mean a pillar, as if God drilled out the
core of me,
Some glorified test tube surrounded by flesh.
It's not comfortable,
But I admit it's a good place to store baggage.
Sisyphus | Poems that Suck
I am assembling a chain, you see. No matter if its fine and as insubstantial as air. Each moment builds on the next, a determined effort to move forward, to forget you. This link? I'll forget the exact blue of your eyes, the next the smell of your skin. With each link you'll fade into a hazy recollection until you become just another number, another face in the crowd of the countless who have gone to die in the crowded room (of my heart). The irony, of course is that each loop is crafted with the very thing I wish to forget. And as I try to forget you I inevitably remember you; the blue fire of your kiss. It's then that the chain shatters in my hands, forcing me to rebuild it over and over again only to rupture in my hands once more, tormenting me to madness.
The Weight of Words | Poems that Suck
I take this dilapidated notebook
everywhere, even the bathtub.
I like to let the hot water open
my pores, my mind, my heart.
Between the furious scribbling
I set it on my chest, waiting
for the next verse.
The weight of my words presses
me deep into the basin, the
gravity of 10,000 nights, and
I'm thankful the water is shallow,
so I don't succumb to the burden.
Octo-Kitty | Poems that Suck
I'd joke and call you
my octopus because you'd
engulf me in a flurry of
limbs whenever I came near,
pulling me seductively toward
your mouth.
I was happy to be your
prey, to get lost in the
tangle of your tentacles - another
love blinded fool - I had no idea that
you'd feast on my soft innards, then
spit out
the bones
when you were through.
Episode | Poems that Suck
Time crawls during an episode, the days and nights extending before you; a vanishing horizon. You begin to take notice of little things; the exact rhythm of your heart, the way a water droplet holds light. But mostly I sit in the stillness of apathy, stagnate as everything around me grows and changes while I molder. It's happened enough times for me to know that it's all a matter of time before it passes. So I sit, and smoke, and drink black coffee and wait until the light returns.
Scars | Poems that Suck
Buried beneath the
raw flesh of every scar
there lies a story, a veiled
truth manifested in the physical form.
If you listen
close enough they will
whisper, confessing our sins,
our triumphs, our follies and, even,
our secrets.
