Gods of a Comic Relief

Our smoke and mirrors lifestyle
cloaks all our lies
smothers my trailer trash tales back into my womb
I get all knotted and gooey
when I try to regurgitate some truth
especially martini after martini
I just want to feel safe and now so simple
with a little pink pill

Feel like a sloth and too foggy to think
about steak dinners
hemming and hawing at your day’s events
with your misshapen eyeglass frames
you refuse to fix
I need to angle my head to see you straight on
is it me or are you crooked with a crooked tooth

It’s late now I’m slurring through
the divine ascension of our conversation
from lamenting honey bees in Israel
to your mother hoarding napkins and sugars
from Dunkin Donuts
bores me so much I sit up straight
to examine my own teeth

Well dear we all have our problems
mine included
even though the filth of my past sleeps with us
dirties our Porthault sheets
a coating I cannot peel myself from
we layer more of it than I can take
it’s called a nightcap—love them don’t you

You lower me down
I roll around like a dog in a bed of leaves
offer up a canticle to grease myself
for the slow mute of hell’s sleep

I Can Break My Own Heart

I met you before
perhaps on a dying star
hard to wade through eternity and finally land here
to seek out a soul
keen to my senses
I’m interested but……
lack the charge from my heart
its limp and light beats
slowed down by dormancy
hibernation
slow decay
and near death

I see we have the prospective chance
to swallow each other’s aches

I once found a sand dollar buried in with the sea shells
from that point on I could easily spot a sand dollar
            you can’t un-see such things
            you can’t un-beat what quickens the pulse
Yet, I prefer to nestle down into the storm within my chest

Rather crack my own heart in half
squeeze it in my fist
thank you for the offer though

Gods of a Bonehead 12

Remember when
my brain rolled like
a ball
to settle under my rib cage
I wondered absently if I could ride this next wave of disaster
like we all have our problems and we get
what we can handle they say
            Maybe this is true……………
I’m talking to you now and
you tell me you have chlamydia
I don’t even know what that is
            Not my worry
neighbor next door fell thirteen feet from a ladder
onto his back
paralyzed from the neck down
holds a slow gaze into nothingness
because his head cracked open
like eggs broken onto a skittle
            Not mine to bare
this hovel
with a drip in the sink
this vacuum of
empty
that we whittled out of
something good
it wrecks us slowly
            through silence
my heart a cinder block
holds me down in one place
always too heavy
to speak
I stare into those somethings
we formed from nothings
            you know we also create
our personal hells
to revel in………….

When We Were Homeless in St. Patrick’s

She pulled out her dead teeth
one by one
smiled
with dribbles of blood
running down
her chin

She wanted a mother
she rolled in blood
calling sweet Jesus
to her rescue

She waited for a halo
of butterflies
begged for a crucifixion as she
cradled the cross

Pleading mercy
she laid down
on a pew
in front of Mother Mary
and settled in for the night.

Gods of a Bonehead 10

I want to write
about the blood moon over
the oiled water
I want to write about the ghouls
that breathe on me
heavily press against me
I can say in an hour the birds
will cheerily chirp
the sunrise into morning
I can say I’m not a sinner
nor a drunk
or liar
I can write my pained
heart throughout these pages
but if I pass tonight
if I float out
into the moon
dark and luxurious
or drift into that slick ocean
while the ghouls
tear at my skin
my one regret:
            Messing everything up to
            the point
            of no return