Discounted Poetry

The stressful years You raced Around the corners, Tearing knuckles on the granite, Searching for the door unlocked, All cease here Through the backdrop To the hard stop. Your mouth is still unhinged From the walls that fell Revealing warm cicada soundtracks Like the sunset, Fuzzy at the edges. You had never known Tree bark bore muddled tinges green Or evening breezes colored with the scent Of honeysuckle from the south. - 4/30/25

A jagged cut To empty out myself, To pool upon the floor Beyond retrieval, Past repair. I failed. The darkness overcame me. I halfheartedly explored, My hands up only partly, In fear of exit. Plummeting. Despite the lights I poured the water over, Can you see me here? Did I fall down too far For you to reach, To care? My blood's a puddle. I am past repair. - 4/29/25

You see her circling But feel quite safe As always from this height Until her seventh time around. History repeating Is a vicious liar. Truth is ever old, Forever novel. No hollow wooden horse Or ancient Grecian plague's Required. You've yet to realize The bricks already dance And greet the ground. - 4/28/25

From hot and pliant flesh To finely chiseled marble, Chilled, unyielding, Time's an expert artist, Pardoning and smoothing flaws, Arresting ecstasies, The wild mouths of passion Carved and caught Eternally unfeeling, Always in the middle, Never finishing. You wouldn't know How hairy peach his chest, How pink her hardened nipple, Hunger careless of appearances Now finely fashioned For a cultured audience, A reaching craving ever Frozen in the present tense, Imbroglio that now makes a studied sense. History's a calming cold, And memory's a brutal Michelangelo. - 4/24/25

I learned A fair Amount Of caution. Still, I do not Go away From burning Red, Succumbing slow. She swears I am the only Other person In the state Who sings along To Teenage Kicks And asks How often I am at this bar, Her hair, Bonfire red Ascending. She checks  Where I am from, "Because it  Ain't around here." We're sparring Literature And she invites me To her DJ set At Neon Farm This weekend. My cell's calendar Updates My Saturday night. Vigilance. Always check The batteries Inside your old Alarm. - 4/23/25

We pretended to be children Loving playfully on baking sands Aside the starving roar of breaking waves And the approving primal cries  Of distant gulls, Our careless passion, Discarded shovels and empty buckets Upside-down, abandoned On the beach Before the rising midnight tides. We left it. We let it drift away. - 4/22/25

They giggled, Wiggled, Smelling of  A bubblegum sunscreen, Tequila, lime, And weed, A hazy beachside holiday Here deep within a landlocked college city. The left one Said I scored a bonus point Neglecting easy basketball jokes. She's six feet high And falling. April twenty, after all. Yes, I can count. There's two of you. I tallied up the years, as well. I'm older than your ages summed. You two have fathers younger, And no, we won't add them together. 'Sides, I'm no Chalamet. You're both just bored. The three of us Played trivia Involving state geography And listened to The Strokes Until the dormouse neighed And pumpkins snored. A joint awaited them Inside her vehicle. We all must work tomorrow. The week begins And ends the weekend With the dullest blade The Monday after Easter. - 4/21/25

I work my cheek Into the grainy ground And will the noise away Except a quiet tell, A sign or slightest tremor To reveal the healing oil I seek. Somewhere A balm must hide To calm and close these wounds, To melt My bitterness to tenderness, My rage to gentle understanding, My hardened scars  To a forgiving flesh exposed. I feel I'm getting better, But I fear  I'm growing worse, And so I seek Refreshing grease about  The broken bones And powdered bloodshed, The living among the dead. - 4/18/25

I'm old. She might have graduated Back in May, Escaped the local university Degreed and dangerous. She looks at me From under dark sharp bangs As if she knows my mother, Like the elder woman Who believes she knows me well And calls me by another name And hugs me every Sunday At the riverwalk. She slides somehow Onto the stool beside me And starts to talk. The city's full of fools Careening wildly, Unbalanced by their piled hopeful stories Fancied up as holy facts. Some time, Perhaps some night, They tip, A human wreck, A curled up roly poly, Sisyphus determined By the boulder At the bottom of the slope. - 4/17/25

We were only twenty-two. We barely knew. Under the peekaboo moon You dropped your laundry Though your wash day wasn't soon, Your paleness nearly blue. You held my hand, My frailest lover, But you folded Once the cash  That hit the table grew. One by one, The lights fell dark. The loudest quiet Smothered me, Extinguished you. - 4/16/25

She wrote the world On top her wrist And dashed her days Against the rocks Along the ocean shore. Her hair flashed red Like rubies Under tavern fires, Flaring curly down her back. She poured me beer and gimlets, Brought me honey, Whispered liquor pure Into my thirsty ear. The nights came To a little death Yet every day Were born again. She, my protection, My coming end. "You dream too much, And you should dream some more." Nature kills and bashes And burns, Providing still. The chainless sun Will race and run Until the sudden sleeping Evermore. - 4/15/25

The panel walls Are shedding white paint Under buzzing tubes Of sick, unsteady light. I've no idea what the grinning man Is doing here. He doesn't seem to understand my speech But sits and leans into the corner Scratching his ear And seeing all. There are ancient mines For lead and zinc Just out of town They never filled in, Sealing bodies Down at the bottom Of the shafts, Unreachable. They say a quarter of some tribes Were dropped, Forgotten there Forever. Staring sternly At the man behind the folding table, I remember what my friend had said About revealing nothing Yet. He shakes his head Repeating softly Like a quiet swear, "Incredible. Incredible." The constant hum of neon Stutters with a flicker, Darkness extending briefly, Popping through the sweaty room, A instant we can all pretend We're smart enough To not be here. - 4/14/25

From under spider leg Scattered bangs, So darkly Fathoms deep. Every word From silky spinnerets, A warning, An intrigue. The webbing tore As I fell through But clung my body Constant, Consistent. Past the covers, Through the floor, Forever dropping. - 4/11/25

A certain weakness, Meekness, Was expected. The lies were all Surprises. Skin so creamy for the darkness, Frame so skinny for such weighty sins The strays don't fall to flames As once you heard. They're often cast Into a lake Of bland Banality Eternally. - 4/10/25

The promised fire pit is warm, Though weather only lets her use it For a month or two a year At most. He used to squint his eyes As if he couldn't take her in At once. She snuggles evenings With her television And dreams of whisking off, Adventures she will never have. She cannot put The humdrum life She pieced together here At risk. Before they moved together, He would come Like fireworks eternally Exploding solid earth and sky And shaking loose the heavy dark At night. The job provides Twelve holidays Kind of close to the coast. The house is nearly bought. Her husband pays the bills And tolerates Her minor whims At least. - 4/9/25

The dew is mist within the air. I breathe the morning Elevated over The ruined city. Music drifts invigorating From places I can't locate, Untethered spirits Gracing the atmosphere And filling ears and chests, The strident strumming Rushing sleepy pulses. After that last night, Nobody would have thought We'd find a hint of honey Strung throughout today's sunlight. - 4/8/25

When I am only half awake Or when the sky is shelter grey And safely covering, I open And I wince, Allowing loss to course through As I lose my coiled spool. I hear your voice delicious, Burrow in your watered soil eyes, Remember chili pepper kisses Now beneath a buried emptiness. Unwinding I spill out, A moment All released, But never more. My life awaits. My wife's inside. The kids expect me soon. I slowly twist And wrap the slack back up Around the spindle of a broken second Splintered off from the rest of the days. I can't afford To pour me out Any more. - 4/7/25

I’m constantly confounded By our unavoidable  Decease, The vibrant eternal uniqueness, Hot and impossible, To nothing, To one of several  Cold boring urns, A gathered firewood ablaze To uniform and lifeless ashes Just like all the other scattered heaps In every other fucking fireplace. I’m cast to wind like cloud of seed, Bereaved, And disappointed by death’s  Refusal to be more creative. This is the best  The universe or god Could do Or chose to do. I miss you I miss so many.  They never come again.  - 4/5/25

Exhausted With the world  Not yet in focus. Your sunburn breath, Almost words Approaching language. Your body underneath Your robe, A dream in green A dream too soon Departing. I still see Nothing. - 4/4/25

You can forage, Muddy up  Your bruised and bleeding knees. They prove far rarer Than white truffles. You can light Your hand-built stony altars, Singing psalms to summon Them from darkened skies And darker gods. No magic lightning bolts Will answer, On your own again. Some hungry hours, Days, and years, The only love and joy You'll ever find Are deep inside  Your empty folded hands. Sometimes, You must create them both From nothing. - 4/3/25

They are taking Two of my teeth. How rude! Although it's far From cruel Compared to what You stole And threw away. At least I'll be Awake, aware For this extraction, And this pain Should only Last a day, Maybe two. I live With all These spaces Inside me, Deep holes, Dark vacancies. - 4/2/25

You marvel, Silence, Sounds of leaving, Having left, Resigned. I wasn't ready, Child playing In adult outfits. Surrender is not always Loss. My hours don't permit Indulging in the luxury Of grieving Or regret for Silly things Never mine. - 4/1/25