Discounted Poetry

The files, Endless tides of files Surfacing, She dodges bodies, Lines of sight, Emerging from her cubicle And entering hostile halls. Once, She wasn't buried Like a vital key Inside herself. The day The cramps And blood And screams her own And not... They broke her. She has no idea How to fit her Back together. - 7/31/25

You flash your lively eyes Briefly to the other room. I almost agree. The storms increase, Roaring louder, Tapdancing on the window. Lightning slashes across cheeks Every time your bright wit Strikes. Lily, I'm agnostic But I'm near belief Tonight. - 7/30/25

The coal is layered, Blanketed in shingled rows Across the sky. A saturated sheet Has lowered over Everybody working, Tamping down the soil, Leaving graves unmarked. Outside on break, I settle on a bench, Studying the heavy cover high above, Noticing a sliver shaking Like a trapped and frightened moth. A little rain begins. A droplet knocks the flickering small scale From out of place, Releasing purple light that flutters Down, Unlike a ray that plummets quick, But turning, twirling, swaying As butterflies on thermals. I run to find its landing, Basking in the slick and violet delight. - 7/29/25

Blossomtoes Above my head, And ponderfish Below the surface, Everyday Just dropped Like fruit too ripe To pluck. When a finger writes Upon the wall, You read the poetry Aloud, Awestruck. - 7/28/25

The air is whitest gauze. It's dry as salt And stretches to exhausted wisps Of bone white strands. Blood across the sand, It's all a washed out sorrel, My skin in pieces shredded, Caught upon the rocks. A man of many sorrows Also met a liar In a wilderness Deceased. I pull my body on and over. She has the longest arms. - 7/25/25

So, all the conferences And seminars enlightened you. No, I do not want to buy a pen, But sure, you close your eyes and see yourself Resplendent in twenty years. Be quiet on the reasons why You are untrue now. O, were all adults Unfair to you? (You didn't even like your broccoli?) I'll save your bank account A million, Your pretty ass So many hours In hotel convention rooms And dirty lobby chairs. You're just in love With you And all the other tall and handsome Boys who give a second Or attention Like me.  - 7/24/25

Under stainless steel and spongy clouds, Beside the waves on hushing highway shorelines, I heard every word you said. The days are simply Wait and wonder. Work arises in thin bubbles From my stagnant swamp, And night's a shaken cotton parachute That floats and lags in air So slowly down. I live within your speech that instant, Die on crawling out from under. Promised answers Hardly rush. My arms are lifted Open to the sky As heavy hours Scrape so loudly, Like a body bag Dragging by. - 7/23/25

Some people make it to my age And never been shot at. Some people never been To rural Texas. Sour sweat And salt so thick inside her breath, The soaked and baked midnight air Proved too heavy for her cotton shirt With slashes black and grey. We left the lights To see the stars And moons of Saturn, Grandest Jupiter. She showed me heaven Far above And down below. The strictest Christian girl I'd ever know Moaned, "Goddamn." We eventually heard the cracks. Somebody thought they owned the earth. We stayed so low that all the bullets Hummed a mocking buzz  Above our heads and naked backs. We sprinted, dodged, And reached the car to find my window Shattered. Sitting on the broken glass That caught and lodged inside my skin, I drove us back To city concrete, Constant clouds of glow, Her parents' home. We hardly felt we nearly died, At least by gunshot. - 7/22/25

The edge of town Will always water  Living down. The pills will keep you  Leveled out. You'll look at photos, Wonder why you Thought that hair looked good. It never did, That silly trend. It's just The fashion of the rocket ships Enjoying launch pad cocoons, Refusing to take off, Despite the two-car garage. Your house Is like a lukewarm bath. You float for hours, Never going anywhere. You're safe and still Forever, Dreaming of adventure In the mirage of distant stars. The glowing screens Release in steady streams The nights you flared, The days you dared. - 7/21/25

It's been a couple years. I'm shocked you recognize me still Beneath the lines and shrapnel scars. You used to stand A little straighter. I can see you're dressing sharper. I can tell you're living larger. You allow your weighted finger  To linger slightly. You arrive a little later When you come at all. I hardly see The quiet woman Staring down  The kindled demons, Riding on the crystal breezes, Any longer. You upgraded, Disappeared Inside your fast success. I do admire all you've acquired, And I do confess It's really wonderful to bump Into your new expensive stole. However, In this lonely night, Remembering our passionate Rebellious past, I want to set  This whole entire filthy world On fire. - 7/18/25

I forget so much Can mean so little, Taking touch so seriously. I am far too old to be a novice At the politics of kissing. Stella pauses by the window Looking at the lipsticks. You can study her and see She knows far more than I, The reckless one who's known To clutch another in the rain Directly in the middle of the street. She scrolls her phone, Pretending not to notice My reflection in the summer pane. She turns away and walks As if she's never smelled my sheets Before. - 7/17/25

There’s just a heavy sable hardback  Inside your fingers.  Are you reading Middlemarch or me? The coffee’s from some musical comedy. The tables are so far.  I should go home and eat.  I see you stare in snatches At me, And I can’t leave. There’s violence on the sidewalk right outside.  The summer’s getting hotter. Night will soon tiptoe in.  One more water Then I’ll venture to my car, Although your curly hair’s so scarlet.  - 7/16/26

Your  Inserted charms Could not Outweigh Your splintered Promise After all.  Do not Return. I won’t Let down A bridge Or share A stare Below the walls Or answer Your uncertain Liquid call Across the moat Again.  Though at night When unpredicted rain Escapes the silver sky And breezes rake their gentle claws Against my pressured window, Waters lower deep into the trench's floor. I break in fissures.  You could walk right in. - 7/15/25

Wicked one, The day is done. You've carried hours Heavy, ripe. Lay down your burden. Sing with me a saucy story. The day is long, But night will swipe away If we don't grasp, Entrap its body, Wipe it well, Make it ours. - 7/14/25

You enter orbit Spinning close, Considering a landing. I'm a planet of deception, Coolest crust supporting thriving life, But magma deep inside the middle. You Beneath your SPF of forty And your genre novel And your cone of orange sherbet Never would survive. - 7/11/25

My hands are gently Climbing down your sides Into your torso. It's the playlist With all our songs, Although it seems They meant something Greater, much more Earlier. We made our twentieth. I thought we cleared the course. The closer I slide toward your waist, The more aware I am so far gone from you. - 7/10/25

Saturday,  We ran the kids to soccer Forty minutes late And put the SUV into the shop For oil and some water. Waiting at the stop inside the car, I paused to scan my phone. A lonely post on media  From a new uncertain author promised Jesus is in Gaza. On Sunday As we always do, We bowed our heads on top our pew And prayed and heard  Another sermon on the parable Of robbery on the empty road, And afterward we went  For pizza with the teens. I noticed on my screen some strange reporting. Jesus is in Gaza Breaking open cans of blessed garbanzo beans And putting them in open empty hands. "Take, my body." Evening I was thinking of the rumors While getting in my steps. I of course regret Unfortunate young children starving, Guns and rubble, Dying infants and the newly lame, But the President swears terrorists Are hiding everywhere, And so, we give the guns and bombs And watch the homes explode To fight the trouble Israel is always going through. If Jesus is in Gaza, It's a...

A comet blazes From the zenith Down the depths of night To smash and scar the ground. You are gentle slopes And prairie valley Under avalanche Of morning star. As if between conveyor belt And pounding piston, I can spy a glimpse Of glistening, A violent split revealing Darkest paradise. Your eyes glow hot, The wettest slits of warmest blue, The ocean sizzling round a fallen fire. You breathe, The shaking of a tarp Within the mounting breeze, Your rain flings streaks Beneath you. Take me down below Your wild cosmic storm. You sling the devil in me. - 7/8/25

Your scent Is sewn Into the fabric Of the dirty sheets. Inhale, You're nearly here Alive in all your breathless Bursts of glory exploding Leaving lonely hours Tangled in the languid folds, Your presence Heavy in Its absence. Outside, A dusty funnel spins Across the plain, A sinful ghost Now staggering away Without a promise Or regret. - 7/7/25

The moon's my nightly lover, Only absent when she's new For I remain so old. The stars are then much brighter In the darker sky, All vying for my eye. They flirt and glow at me, Completely blind To all my years. Unmoved, I find their youthful burning white Banal against the dusty yellow Knowing visage of their elder. I politely shake my greying head And look for my entrancing Lunar lover to return So slowly. - 7/3/25

The humidity Is dripping off my stubbled face In slightest arcs encouraged By the breeze between My open windows. I kill the engine And wait.  Some years are darkest tears, And some are brightest comedy.  I ruled you out completely Till your fingers found me Yesterday.  - 7/2/25

The bloom of fire On the sand horizon Reminds me of your tenderness. That life is memory As fantasy, A million years And lands from blood And guns and targets Speaking gibberish And likely hiding death. They shot my friend A week ago. He screamed until his agony Became the ambience, The scrapping constant. I am not convinced You ever crawl, Escape, Return from this. - 7/1/25