Tag Archives: poetry

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smoke trails.

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There’s something about the way
a cigarette lights up the dark,
and the smoke trails away,
just drifts away into the night.
You know it’ll kill you,
All the way from that first moment.
The first time you put it to your lips,
and inhale. Inhale. Inhale. Die a little.
Nicotine in your bloodstream,
kind of like a good dream.
Tar in your lungs,
drowning never felt this good.
Red in a black night,
a whisper only you can hear.
It owns you like you’ve never
been owned before.
It’s bondage of the soul;
pleasure they’ll never understand,
exploration of the dark side.
Forty years from now,
Hell, forty minutes from now,
you’ll still be a slave.
And it won’t feel so good
In the long run, probably.
When the emphysema kicks in,
and the cancer comes,
but my God, it was good.
You never looked so cool,
you never felt so calm.
Never felt so much like you
would maybe explode right
out of your skin if you didn’t get
just one more damn drag.
Tricks and trips and bullshit,
just to get you to take a whiff,
It might kill you, but
it’s still a beautiful thing,
watching those cigarillos
swirl and whirl and fade
away into the dead of night.

 

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consequences.

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She goes through the yellow light,
because she’s running two miles
two late on a bad hair day.
He doesn’t make it through,
brakes slam and there goes
his morning coffee; maybe he
should pull over to the shoulder.
He doesn’t. Swerves. Wipes. Drives.
He’s behind a car that swerves
across the yellow line. Once. Twice.
Safe driver, good driver,
four-second rule.
Another stop light, extra space.
Green light, green light go.
Coffee guy hesitates, then goes.
Extra safe, have a good day guy follows.
Young driver right behind,
second day with a license,
doesn’t it feel so good to be young?
Oh, but little one, look.
Please, don’t forget to look.
Here come’s a bad day in an
everyday, average car,
you’ll never remember;
right through a red light,
but there’s brake lights,
too late brake lights.
Twisted metal, twisted steel.
Just a bloody mess.
Too young to be gone,
but gone just the same.
An unintended consequence
of someone else’s bad day.

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bitter apples.

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The things they say will heal you,
sometimes they only kill you.
They’ll give you a rainbow dream,
with letters and numbers and
secret meanings.
They’ll take everything you own,
just so you can keep on keeping on.
No, no. Don’t let them take you.
Don’t go willingly into their dark night.
You are more than their
bottom, bottom line.
You should have more time;
don’t let them take that from you.
It’s degree versus autonomy,
in a battle to the death.
Be free, sweet soul, be free
Don’t eat the fruit from bitter apples.

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everyone’s a poet

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everyone’s a poet these days,
don’t you know it?
charcoal marks on our fingers –
would be if this weren’t a
modern keyboard.
got a thesaurus
got a dictionary –
right at our fingertips.
let’s discuss the politics
of late-term abortion –
but for the love of the God
we sure don’t believe in –
make it pretty.

everyone’s a poet these days,
writing passion, fire, and nonsense.
paper mistakes in the waste
but not really cause we’ve
got a backspace.
notebook’s not a notebook,
not anymore.
guns belong in holsters,
not child hands, but
it’s kind of poetic
(and tragic) how another
kid just blew his brains out.

everyone’s a poet these days,
and they mean it.
don’t you question the authority
they got from who only knows
what kind of backwoods Bible.
history, history is a beautiful thing
when you have pictures of people
you can filter like cheap coffee –
sepia always looks a little better on
low calorie Jewish diet.
only 6 million people died.

everyone’s a poet these days,
damn keyboard warriors.

 

 

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the thing you could be.

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I get it.
I get how you can want to
wrap your hands around his neck
and squeeze until the life
fades from his eyes.
I get it.
How you can have such
a deep seated hatred
that you can lose yourself
in a fantasy of the macabre.
I get it.
The way the alcohol burns
away the bad day like a
match that sterilizes the needle
just before a shot of magic pixie dust.
I get it.
The way that being selfish is
so, so much easier than being
selfless. Yeah, but the guilt –
that will eat you alive.
I get it.
And I have never been so afraid
of myself as that moment,
that I knew I understood.
The moment I knew exactly
what I might be capable of.

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more.

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It’ll consume you.
It’ll burn through you
like a fire you don’t want to
be warmed by.
It’ll control you.
It’ll hold you, steer you
right into the flames of
whatever you’re most afraid of.
It’ll seep through you.
It’ll poison your heart
and your mind and your thoughts
until they’re just black. Real black.
It’ll drown you.
It will hold you underneath
every failure and mistake
that you have every made
until you cannot breathe.
So don’t let it.
Do. Not. Let. It.
Consume you.
Control you.
Poison you.
Drown you.

If you have to burn,
let it be passion.
Let your dreams guide you.
Let love seep through you.
Drown yourself in the happiness
that you deserve no matter
what mistake you made.
You’re not a failure.
You’re more than that.
So. Much. More.

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gun smoke.

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I see you, ready for war
with your gun and your attitude.
I see you there, armed too
with your judicial vigilantism;
your sentence would be swift,
in theory. Painless even.
I am not blind to what you see.
I see the world for what it is;
broken, but beautifully so.
broken, but tragically so.

I hope you never have to see
the aftermath of what I know
you’re capable of. I hope.
So beautiful through the haze
of a gun that’ll never stop smokin’.
Thing is, the thing is,
they were beautiful too.
Broken, but beautifully so.
Broken, but tragically so.

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cracked.

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if you’re takin’ a drag,
on last nights cigarette
watching the ashes
coast into nothing,
thinking about how
you’ve never been nothin’
let me tell you somethin’

you’re not nothin’
you’re a little bit of somethin’
you’re a little bit great
and a little bit maybe
full of grit and grind
and holdin’ on.
you’re perfectly cracked
don’t you see that?

 

 

 

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devil’s choir.

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stained glass and steeples
crucifixion, gold Jesus
holy water in the offering plate.
preacher man prays,
piano man plays,
are you saved?
are you saved?
hard pews and a choir,
homecoming, bible study
welcome all,
come one, come all.

bring us your wounded,
just not too deep.
He bled for you,
but please don’t bleed on the pew.
please keep your rainbow ‘brellas
in the coat closet.
at your house.
it might be raining,
but this Bread’s not for you.
and you’re too dirty
for this holy water.
even Jesus couldn’t wash you clean.

stained with pretenses,
stabbed with a spire.
crucified in the public eye,
not worth as much as gold Jesus.
drowned by holy water
in the offering plate.
preacher man prays,
piano man plays,
are you saved?
are you saved?
hard hearts and a devil’s choir
no home to go to, church sign says
welcome all,
come one, come all.