apocalypse (20170302)

he wandered for a year
among corpses and deserted buildings
one morning everyone had gone mad
and each body he found was
riddled with bullets
every cartridge emptied, every magazine spent

he hoped that, now,
since he really was the last man on earth
if he could find a woman,
he might finally get some action
but that seemed less likely
with each new sunset

animals avoided him
he thought, not out of fear
but out of some kind of pity

the supermarkets were still stocked
even though the fresh food had rotted
cans and boxes were plentiful
the food had expiration dates
years in advance
cereal bars and beef jerky

he never spotted another person
man or woman
and after a while
he stopped talking even to himself
he knew he’d never be able to bury the dead
not all of them
not even all of the ones
in his small hometown

guns were as plentiful as cans
of tuna and jars of peanut butter
but there wasn’t a single bullet left

memento mori (20170228)

focus on the pain originating in your molar
floating heavenward like an angel
made of nerves wrapped around broken stained glass
up through your hard palate
lodging between your ear and jaw

wonder for ten seconds if it’s cancer or an abscess
then opt for tmj because you’re tired and you
need to sleep

this is a memento that death leaves in your crib
to remind you every single day that you are not
in fact, going to live forever

or maybe he colluded with the tooth fairy
when you lost your first tooth
touched that soft bloody spot
in your gums

you obsessively kept
your children’s teeth
even the dog’s

——

for
dVerse ~ Poets Pub
Poetics: One Memento

giggles and hits (20170227)

taking up pen, preparing a page
sober, serious–really quite sage–
i wrestled a wriggle
a jiggly smudge–no more than a giggle

struggling to make it behave
ultimately, i was the slave
discovering, to my chagrin
taming a word is a terrible sin

——

for
dVerse ~ Poets Pub
Quadrille #27: giggle

words that can’t be spoken or spelled (20170225)

i am less an open book to you
than a blank page

you write on me with your fingers
your words sink into my skin

like your teeth
and i am tattooed by your multicolor voice

you do not erase
only write over the soft, pink scars

replacing old
with new

the touch of your fingertips
like a singing water glass

untitled (20170223)

little new in the news
(little love lost between late lovers)

i thought i was a cynic
defined once as a failed, frustrated romantic

but

that’s a digression
that’s a depression
that’s a diversion

everyone wants to be
a snowflake these days
perfect
unique
fragile
as ephemeral as a cherry blossom
and so so cold
so cold you can’t expect
any warmth
just a glint of light
reflected and refracted
an impermanent diamond

no one is a snowflake
you’re all just raindrops
and you’re not even making
me wet

do i contradict your worldview?
very well then, i contradict it

what we have here is a (failure)
to communicate
but it’s only because my mirror
has darkened and cracked
on a different xy coordinate
than your own one dimensional glass

——

for
dVerse ~ Poets Pub
OpenLinkNight #190