Just Yet

 

She was his shimmering golden red maddening mane
pertinent lips disco ball light tasting the coke on his breath
breathe again, I begged
don't die just yet
inhale the room and me in it and the pulse and the beat
push unaware push-up up against that thin divide
between friday fabric and skin
push those blue tardingale tits in my direction
what weight he must hold
while you shower in your cigarette emotion
above us glide, honey-child
don't die
just yet.

TA

A Cold Rain frm the Threshold Gaze I

 

A wet winter rain settles over the city
pre-December grey milfoil sheets of encroaching evening
thunder explodes like raucous summer cousins
rattles the tiny one-bed house
with the drywall holes and charcoal
fingerprints of five thousand long nights
with the shark jawbone
with the smell of sex
and grass
worn pattern prints on the old carpet
dance of the dark katana
rolodex of twirling tales
the rope's knots that were
that are
that will come
sacrifice to the goddess
(and to the neighbors)
this naked ember-lit iridescent human life
hot heat flash from above in heaven's black throat

to my cypress knees falls an imperfect figurine
to swear
to never shake a beetle
in a jar
again.

TA

Hurricane Season

Love comes ashore in a maw of purple swirling dark
disappearing in black belly center
thick ink mouth blowing down the sugarcane crop
marsh grass madness
bath salts stalks dancing electric wiggle

cumulonimbus love rips the shed roof off
tosses it into that hungry hellscape overhead
   you never see it again
hysteria howling heaven-sent
banging at maw-maw's shutters
ghosts worm willy-nilly through drywall cracks
cackling
coughing
love's relentless slaughter onslaught slavery
salacious same
same
salvation
pull'd the goddamn house apart
the comings and the goings
dead years of forevers
press your fingers into her flesh until the blood bone fingerprints
scream into that downturned gorge
smile like the dried leftover deer carcass
she doesn't care
she KNOWS
love pilfers
love breathes
falls heavy
love drowns lovers

love destroys all
and 
everything in its path

all
and
everything is left broken

eventually.

TA

In Mutual Understanding

 

She with hair like a valkyrie wearing wolfskin
beautiful
but no longer pretty
long misshapen serpent percolating in her gypsy whiskey
perched on the washing machine grinning
ice cubes clink abstract painting fluorescent reflections
a sleeping child
avenues and directions
golden sips lubricating conversation
in and out in and out
in and out
clammy with wet remark and soused tart
fingerprints on the plastic light switch
dishes in piles drizzled with last night's late-night dinner
our bellies warm
but a pinch below
burning.

boy's underwear in the laundry basket.
empty television noise.
the glow.
the smell of a place
I do not recognize.

the knife on the floor.

she looks at me
cursed
sex
knotted
her stolen youth
leviathan of untamed love
colossus
clown
criminality
deep deep abyss
we both know
one of us HAS to go for it.

the knife on the floor.

one of us HAS to die.

TA