I adore Dostoyevsky.

I also adore rye
and brandy,
bourbon, scotch, amaretto,
‘black’ wine, gin, limoncello
and,
on occasion,
Irish Cream—
though only in strong espresso.
I used to down several cups
of such
each
morning before slouching
my way to the Anthropology
course I took at the Southern college
taught by a Vonnegut imposter;
I’d be tipsy during the first half,
content until Calculus.

I adore French-pressed, freshly-ground Spanish coffee
soaked in kettle-blazed water
to blacken my tongue as it does me—
another shot I don’t require
given the amount of amphetamines
’fore fueling my synaptic fires.

I adore the pills—
O THE PILLS,
prescribed and filled,
divided, stilled
through my system
in
the past decade or so;
should have made me a madman—
and would have
were I not
a woman.

I adore Bukowski.
But I abhor femmes, small talk,
love, and absence of intellect in this country.

Baggage Claim

Well, some times, even amidst the comfort
Of what essence I frequent the recent month
The crimes of my heart—rather, its absence—
Coalesce in the dark and plot further madness

And to no truth or other excuse do I submit
Yet the void of existence
Begs, like vague commitment,
For my personal acknowledgement

Still, I have much practice
In dismissing such tasks
So I pursue my own paths
Lacking patience for the placid
Flacking salience of the past

‘Why’?

… Well, if there’s heavy metal in Baghdad
And canaries nesting in Stalingrad

If there’s Excellencies in exile
And Lords working the turnstiles

If there’s mis-matched socks in Paris
Supposed vices as ‘life demerits’

If there’s honesty in hum bug
And insects who expect love
If there’s chocolate tea in coffee mugs

Then tell me, please:



Why not?

Incubus, Part II

His eyes were just flat static,
Not the fragile abyss
Most humans’ pupils harness.
His lips—pursed, as if to kiss
Or to instrument some sick bargain—
Are charred crimson, thick, cracked, crisp, and
Christened with criticism given on whim.
Skin akin to asphalt
Scrawled upon by black chalk
In cryptic script he laughs off
Until those words fall to the carpet,
Bevel the walls with tessellated print:


LOVE

LILITH

Abruptly

I’d just a vision of you loitering in my kitchen
Twirling a single silver Sterling ’tween your fingers
That the dusk’s drawn dusk caught, fought to glisten
While the metal would not, cool as your demeanor

That is,
Until

You spat, “Silence is for the weak—
Those without a mind to speak!”

I claimed to disagree,
That the art’s not ‘tongue-in-cheek’
But for the patient, for the potent, for the wise—

“Ah, just vocal chords exchanged for gored eyes!”


Well, what would you have to say
If you could not see?


“No!—What would you have to see
If you could not say?”

One Of Those

Alone on a rooftop, laying next to some woman

My neck slips back at slope

To scope the domain we have claimed our own

But the terrain doesn’t shape to hold

Much save a wavering field of solar-geared panels

And a metal hatch bearing levers at its center

Now the horizon, without a plane to ascertain latitude,

Opens its eyes upon our vulnerable altitude

Stirs—just to slur of incoherent mutter—

The lady at my left who remains unfamiliar

Though I can only guess what secrets were exchanged

In hours where I bet we'd been intimately engaged

But the details don't matter

As I steal toward a ladder

And reel down the fire escape

To welcome another one of those days