Discounted Poetry

She told me I must visit the soda mountains While I am young enough To breathe the liquid in the air And hear the mermaids cry. "You've heard about universal certainties. Well, baby, this ain't one of those. It's lost between The unbelievable truths you can't express And lies we all hold close. It's truth behind the logic And the knowledge bare, Undressed." She told me And I have never been, She's merely memory today And now, Now I am old. - 5/6/26

The boarded sky bulged down and broke. The night collapsed, Hummed infection green. She swore Just another, Just keep it filled with gasoline. I learned so many years ago To always stay in the corner. I loved her, But she'd grown a part Of opium and greasy gears Enrobed in steam and smoke and hissing. When she rarely was at home, She still was fused inside the fumes, Her breath an engine Jumping rails. In bed, She pounded with the pistons, Cranking oblivious. Dandelions, daffodils, Entwine the flowers. Crown her glorious And make a wish. The machine coughed out sickly smog And finally went off. The world was numb. Nobody even felt the blow. The ones that hold your everything, They gallop over hills And vanish in the golden hours. - 5/1/26

The sky is falling apart On us again today, A subtle ripple mellow overhead. We keep the afternoon together, Never-ending Russian novels, Intricate poetry, Mugfuls steaming fresh with darkest coffee (Yours with hazel chocolate colorings of creamer), Pillows tossed occasionally For a playful stirring Of the quiet atmosphere. Your sweater covers a couple  Of the couch's cushions As your mess of crazy auburn hair Is spilled onto my denim lap. We share the warmest hours, Intimate and lazy, While I pretend I'm unaware You're seeing him. - 4/30/26

There's a rawness On the back side Of his foot. Another cinnamon sunset. The heat fumes ripple the horizon rust Like parachutes in the hands of children playing, Like fitted sheets about to be stretched tight Around the rumpled mattress. The label's peeling from his chilly IPA. Too many evenings He discovers himself here, The beer an introduction To the night Before the rye finds him And puts him sloppily to bed. The gas is over five a gallon, So he's taken to walking himself Across the oven walks and blistered streets To places she has never been. His boots are wearing a bit into his heel. He can forget it most of the time, But some nights, the open ache's impossible To ignore. She preferred wine bars She glided on Prosecco. - 4/29/26

When you heard She stole my Evening, Did I sense A faintness Palpable? A slightest Movement, Hand run down The table, I'd throw a rock And shatter Every red light In this damnable town. - 4/28/26

The turn, The twist, It's all within the wrist. Did you catalogue desires Ordered alphabetically by names And oral preferences? The mystery of mechanisms Declines with time. Does every entry finally Caress the same? When everything is codified As organized results, The magic dissipates Into the cool yet blinding clarity Of science, A kiss, Performance. Passion proves A misremembered myth, A legend lost to youth And bona fide fools Ignorant to life In adult reality. - 4/27/26