Discounted Poetry

The world's behaving Strangely in reverse. It spins, Our bodies fling Centrifugally To the center. We have work tomorrow. The canary sun Is yet invisible But coming, Hot and rude. Your sweat, Erotic air, Infuses cotton physically With strength I can't refuse. Sleep is at arm's length, Refusing movement in Toward the sinners. - 3/31/25

You exit your apartment Underneath the flattest periwinkle Ceiling of your current city, The heavens too exhausted to muster Brilliant blue. Another structure Fallen to the pavement, Scattered playing cards Without an ace. You find Your former love, A poem scorched In burning verse inside your chest, Is now the driest footnote Far less relevant Than Gibbon ever wrote. Everybody's just a template, Every step forward A backspace, Mass monotony With minor variations. You climb into your auto Praying your faith is not Another empty hope, That there's a wild violet Behind the sky Awaiting opening. - 3/28/25

You stayed high and out of reach, Allowing gliding forests, Clouds of leafy canopies Massaging your stationary feet, To flow beneath. The noon unleashed   Served as your bright corsage, So near the rising sun, You glowed poetic glory. I, amazed, could hardly manage speech. You dropped your toes Upon the earth And let it whirl Away with you, Another in the crowd Once shining down the sky, The epic wondrous story  Stopped forever. Goodbye. - 3/27/25

My female friends elated Heard of tallest husbands, Longest lives, And plush careers. She looked at cards and whispered gravely. I would die in Istanbul Before the age of twenty-five. I never trusted fortune tellers, Traveling prognosticators Under dangling jewels and exotic headwraps Over shaky foreign accents, But I always knew I wouldn't make it long, Until I did. I nearly went ten years ago. As always, I was stubborn. Lived, I did. I walked away unbent, Unaffected. So now, I visit doctors, Faced a dentist after thirty years. No flaring out in brilliance, I'm adjusting to a subtle fade, The settling, The rust. We make our peace With our survival unexpected And reluctantly embraced. - 3/26/25

I stagger through your room, A man too drunk On what I thought was water. You are wrapping darkness Like a robe About your body, Never speaking truth And never telling lies Exactly. The blackly cotton sky  Removes its cloudy clothing For a moment, The full and naked moon Now truth enough For everything. - 3/25/25

The purring rain Influences So much, Persuasive pattering Enticing. Her kisses, Purple lips Igniting me. I've nothing Left for my Confession, The salty water On her mouth My lone apology. - 3/24/25

Laura Whispered low, The way he loved Was once a sacrament, Now just Continual ritual, A habit forced And distransfigured, Skin and fluids, Memorized services - Take, my body, given - Nothing more, Eucharist received Profaned. Although her skin And thoughts and spirit, Miracles divine. A blasphemy, A sin To numb Epiphany, Incarnation I believe. - 3/21/25

Some old sayings are foolishness. Some small snakes are venomous. Some threats are imminent. You cannot always raise your feet Above all obvious tripwiring. She smiled underneath her blonde fringe. "I like them cuter than you Most nights and evenings." I felt the tension Taut beneath my shoe, The cringe. I knew the blast awaiting Once I stepped away Toward her. - 3/20/25

You weren't a ration or supply Requiring replenishment. I needed no doorstop, No paperweight, No albatross, Although The broken pattern of lamplight Creating constellations In your eyes Disarmed everything. An unlit assembly of women Once informed me Kisses are unspoken promises. What did you cross Besides me? - 3/19/25

The fever, Heavy over aching eyes, Invokes the strongest declarations, Surging passions rising, Tides beneath the furnace moon. I’ll harness my tired tongue. The clergy’s on vacation, Readers have enough to eat From poets published, paid, And every lover’s lost to younger days. - 3/18/25

You've been dying here for twenty years. I remember When the city worked Holding up onto the sink My once thick cat To streaming faucet water. Thirsty, she wouldn't drink . It seemed the war would never end. I promised not to suffer lost causes again. May god have mercy. - 3/17/25

The young should never have to see The winnowing of years, The withering of stately trees To crooked bent-back twigs Returning broken to the earth, All time will leave behind With quiet certainty. You were strong and green. We rested safe inside your shade. We never saw a sign, Too blind to autumn winds And flaking bark. The scars will cover much, Enough, Aside the twisted twine By scattered branches, Thin and mutilated from disease And cruelty The elderly should never have to see. - 3/14/25

We don't look, We cannot see The blood moon We're underneath. We spin, We wobble, Then we topple over. Fetch a priest And study methods Of forgetting. - 3/13/25

The funnel tore. The hours pour and spill Across our countertop Too fast, A mess That drips onto the tile floor. Your gleaming eyes, Blue pools by wintertide snow drifts, Your liquid skin refusing to freeze To ice. How do we slow down This cascading of daystreams When we fall in love again? - 3/12/25

I cut the backpack straps. The trail uphill is somehow level. Eleven's gone before I check the clock. I used to close my eyes at night To block away the ceiling, Thinking over and again I have to work tomorrow. I flung it down And shoved And let it tumble to the bottom. Love arrives and love sets sail. I always swim above the drowning sea And open arms so wide on shore Defiant, Summoning a buoyant hope As if my world was never underneath. I close the door And walk to work, A whipping boy and dead-set fool. The chilly air Unfolds the warmest tongue. - 3/11/25

I thought I was your Sauvignon And not your lukewarm Perrier. You left me with no cap Screwed on, Unbubbled, Flat. The breathless promises, The written letter, Soften under rainfall, Shredded by the splinters, Tender knuckles Slid across the windowsill. I saw your picture From a time you cared for me, Maybe believed you loved. You dared to kiss the air Since I was absent. I've never seen your eyes So wickedly consuming since. I wasn't even there. I crawled from under, Free among the dead And never to return. Despite your cruelly Constant echo, But still, When midnight breezes blow my hair Like slender fingers tousling, I stare at certain moons And remember And relent. - 3/10/25

Her knock after dark, Her sole defiant trait Belying her slow uncertain touch, An unexpected donut Glazed and oozing Warm vanilla cream. - 3/7/25

You will die. You will return to sift Into the thoughtless dirt. The room is sweating cinnamon and sugar. I almost wait upon the flood of children, Laughing waves that don't exist. The chill is pinching cheeks. My days have disappointed deeply, But often shocked with joy. The years are fast and heavy. I await yet more, And I will die. I've died before, A few deleted hours, And I will die again Forever. I will burden No time in mourning All that time will pocket. I will burn it bright And breathe it in Until I'm disconnected, Until I simply cease. No peace. No thing. So smear the ashes on my brow. I'm wash the blurry cross away Once I fly free. I know the truth. I'll store it in the unlit basement. I will glory the electric lie, The scent of cinnamon and sugar. - 3/6/25

The drenching of the moon As midnight drips. Your auburn cotton sweater, Never fleece, Finely knitted. Your tender neck Powder-scented. Peppered Zinfandel in glasses Toasted dangerously over Off-white sheets. The sunny hours yesterday Betrayed no sign, No whisperings of glory. Fleeting tannins Staining open lips. Your heated breath Fermented. - 3/5/23

My former lovers I don't remember often, Every one more beautiful than I. I'm not certain There will be another Who ever can compare. All recollection  Merely feeling shorn of intensity, An operatic aria You haven't heard in years By someone gone, The memories of burning feelings Faded into intellectual records -  I know she kissed of fire, Her voice was coolest vodka, Her neck smelled of hyacinth - Nights of thunder, Jarring bones, Then deepest loss Now entries in your mental diary. My, didn't we glide the surface, Diving like newborn tadpoles Soon to blow and bloom And die, The wild glowing present Now the cold forsaken former, The wandered past. I'm not certain There will be another. - 3/4/25