Discounted Poetry

You grab the edges, Shaking out the world Like dusty cotton sheets. The women once you loved Are fading fast, Newspaper features From another year Forgotten. Open your arms And face the freshness You have hidden off. Embrace the waiting ones. The days are far too few To mold with folded bedding, Yellowing cloth. - 6/30/25

Beige. My years are smoking. Future days are hazy, choking On the lifeless flames. I'm a hitchhiking lover Trapped forever on these fading highways. When you said you loved me, You forgot to mention It was only for a season, Only till the clouds crept in, The rest stop closed. It wasn't really love at all, But just another bright  Roadside attraction, Just another pretty boy Who made you feel alive, Exciting, Something. I know you didn't mean to lie. The words seemed right As you undressed, Before the tears, Protests. You had no choice, Intentionally useless. Beige. I leave the bodies where they lay. I pray this jagged concrete Leads some place Some day. - 6/27/25

My heart's a blinded Tightrope walker Twenty feet above concrete. Your smile over coffee Is the sugar And the cream, Your mouth a ruby opening Immersed inside  The rising silver steam. My love's a speeding car Without a steering wheel. I'm sipping deeply, Wallowing within your stare. You are a talker, Weaving golden woven meshes Folding tightly round my chest. I swallow it all. I'm still so thirsty. My life's a broken fist, My desire is Exploding in the air. - 6/26/25

Everything Is changing. Voices Melt And run Into a pool Of muddled Memory. She is an earthy being, Keeps her head among The dirty grass And flowing streams And scattered pebbles, Ever out of the sky. She never blushes, Even round the curvy edges Of her wicked smile. You can't save the starry one. She never learned to tread the ground. She only drifts in lifeless dreams And fantasies, The rebels and the devils high, Absorbed inside the constellations. Everything Is changing. Let the dead remain To serve the dead. The road not taken Is a frosted phantom, Nothing more. - 6/25/25

You cannot see The sights enjoyed By those who love. You will look longer, Study closely. Colors still won't shine as bright Or as delicious. Nature's songs Will lack the harmonies, And breeze will simply blow And not caress your flesh. The showers just annoy. They don't release The fragrance of the flowers. Air will have no peppery taste. When every day Is ordinary  It's time for you To trip into Another hopeless romance. - 6/24/25

My mango Plucked and stolen from my tree Refuses rot, Remaining ever ripe Without her feeding soil. Already I regret And remember Knowing anger At the theft. I feel what is my heart And what is not. My world one day will spoil, Fallen fruit corrupted, Mold. My life will cease. The hurt is fleeting, But the hollow loss Still grows, Increasing. Moral: Considering endings Develops certain clarity About your needs And deep desires, Your love. - 6/23/25

She wore purple Soaked throughout her sleeveless dress, Above her full-tide eyes, Beneath her bangs so straight, Behind her glasses severe In front of eyes which stared in folded layers Like tossed bed sheets Or frosting on a raspberry cake. She spoke of lovers past And sighed in violet. Her hands danced upon the table As she emphasized her love of anime, Her fingers thin, Her skin vanilla laced  With faintest salvia. Her butterknife voice Was rolling over gentle waves Of wine-stained ocean Pulling, bobbing soft. Her hair was dark As endless Friday midnights. She unlocked a door Inside the dull and overcast clouds, Her rushing breathing calmed her slender arms Now smoothing the tablecloth between us. She was smiling, Her breath the tender shore, Her cheeks a bloom of lilac,  Hyacinth and lavender. She was purple. - 6/20/25

The wreckage vomits Blacker clouds into the smog. The wind still spins The motors, now gigantic Metal pinwheels. Prying wounded From the instant grave, They haven't started Numbering the dead. But this is not the end. The empty evening Smothered every clock Until the seconds Stopped entirely. She didn't leave. She's always leaving. You only see her for a flash And sketched in every Overstretched elastic night. You'll likely never Hear a word again, But this is not the end. - 6/19/25

Mirror shades And eighties hair. The disco beats Won't take him there. The skinny woman In the red lipstick And scarlet dress With quarter sleeves, Within the jean jacket, Underneath the woven White mesh hat Will never notice him. She is sipping at Her strawberry daiquiri And wishing for the DJ To play some New Order. He smiles, Lifts his brows, But she is looking to the sign Behind him. She returns to browsing  Her glowing screen. Pastel shirts And thick mustache. He's never coming back. - 6/18/25

The citrus sun Is ripening Fiery and hot. My GPS is ancient. Guess I missed the turn And drove too far The wrong direction. I can never seem to find my way To anybody's front door Anymore. Whenever people Scratch some decent poems Saying they no longer care, They're lying. Even middling poems Cost a heap of caring. Coming clear, I think you are the very reason I am still so fucking lost. - 6/17/25

Sunrise. I hear the sound of crunching gravel Creeping closer. I wish I could Be angry. I'm frying eggs to semi-soft And browning toast To nearly burnt As you prefer, Your favorite breakfast dish I make. I helped you load the truck Last week. I'm far too old To beg you not to go. Nobody stays unless they wish. They never do. Besides, this isn't heartbreak. We just wandered near the edge Too often And fell off. When Samuel died, We found We'd nothing left Beneath us. The sun is nearly in the center of the sky. I hear the sound of crunching gravel Slowly moving what remains Away. - 6/16/25

Another.  Summer  Stumbled in Again.  You thought You found  The final One So many times So many years ago, You sweated Even more Back then, And now You smile Charm And fire burning Over coffee Through a screen.  The methods might be new But merely variations.  Her allurements So unique Yet rhyme With others Yesterday.  Another. Summers Ever Return.  - 6/13/25

You wilted in suburbia And left your pretty petals On the lowest shelf. Your daily diet Of your fear And your own heartstrings Rendered you Wasting, Thinner, Skinny. Soon, you'll only Have your bones And your anxiety To feed upon. You melted in hysteria, A glacier lesser every second. I no longer Rouse my sympathies For people Burning down Themselves Into toxic puddles Soaking their tamed front lawns. I will still enjoy Your sweetest savor As I exit swiftly From the middle Of the cul-de-sac Of xeroxed housing. - 6/12/25

I still possess The acid etching Later pressed to off-white paper Covered in the colors Mixed inside your studio. Did you have to paint me grey? The night I left, I waited by the train. I wrote you poems, Set your form aflame, Costumed you in the orange purple Gardens of the divine. You drained me, Left me rinsed  Of hue and tint. I waited in the rain. I never saw you After the hiss And grind And shrinking station Lost to darkness. - 6/11/25

The movie's over. Credits died to darkness. Light unfolds like plants Unfurling and sped up, The curls to slender Crooked green. The janitors are cleaning Aisles all around me, Behind, Before. I should've left here Several minutes ago. The silence dead Between the shows. I sit alone And stare at empty silver, Lost, untethered. I've no idea what you wanted But it wasn't me. - 6/10/25

Glass panes Stained As Bible Stories Shake with  Fury hard, Possessed Inside The wind And the rain. The body, The blood And son of god, That holy ass. The bread Now flesh, The wine, Divine. You kiss The rim Between Your lips, Beneath Your sacred Mass of Tangled Hairy Glory. Spirit swift Descending, Shaking Faster Windows, The sanctuary Walls. I, Silent, Confess. Blessed Art thou Who receives These gifts. - 6/9/25

Cold water cleanse. Defiance over wood Too green, She rests her hand On top my arm Again, Again, And... The heat Is baking, Streaming. Lively words Might never burst. I'm dressing up the altar, Searching in the darkened sky, And waiting for a fire from the heavens. - 6/6/25

The rain is falling for your lines, So you can hardly blame me. This Sunday never shoved the sun Above the hills, The grey as dense As jilted teenage boys So tragically in love. My tension puddles Like the drizzled drops About your tilting smile. Stormy weather Always slows the traffic, Always coaxes off the noise. - 6/5/25

Her speech Evokes the morning, Parting waves of colorless morass To sprinkle brightness Sweet. Massage and stroke The lotion Of her words Made flesh. I know your yesterday Roared rough. You flailed to keep your mouth Above the surface. Now, the ocean's split, Retreating from a pavement Unexpected. Walk the world Refreshed. Today, Her voice will prove enough. - 6/4/25

Her dress, The muted greens And dandelion whites Of fading summer Promising an apple blossom chill Infused my face With fragrant mown lawns At rest in sprinkler lullabies And lightning bugs at twilight And occasionally blinking Slyly at the dawn. A periwinkle  Wintertide Can cause A nocturne To serve As requiem. I still Can close My eyes And smell Her alcoholic Dew underneath Her firmly  Slender arms. - 6/3/25

Plunge your eyes beneath the bubbling water. You feel the thud. You always think you know Until the blood Is on your cheekbone. She is covered thick. You only see so far through all. You see far less than you assume. You are growing old Beside the world. A shocking mystery Is peeling out your sight As ripened raw tomatoes, Filling leaking flattened lungs And hastening Your pulse To lively Lethal tempos. Her lips are saying More than she is speaking. - 6/2/25