Down the hill—

Cue the soldiers with their bugles,

The day is done

Gone is the sun

But it happened in the light of day.

Under the bridge,

My innocence was slain.

The Lord is my shepherd,

And I am the fattest lamb—

My bleats for my mother

Unheard through the wilderness.

Oh, to go where the warmth

Washes me—my salvation

Upon the slippery slope

Of slab and stone.

My Christian name lost in trans...

The sun’s unmarked territory

Begged for me to stake my flag in its coronal holes

And show man that only womankind can go there.

Hell hath no fury—

I’ve scorned & scorched—

And have been the black char leftover after the fire—

Where the green will be green again in time

But memories of the scalding will always leave scars much bigger than the shadows can shield.

Climbing the tree

Is the closes...

My tiny terrorist,

Wreaking havoc upon the neat assortment of squish

That occupies the empty space of my bed.

With a wild look in your eye,

The fires of destruction glow brighter

Than the candle I hold to my lover’s name.

He now reeks of inconvenience;

The prey in the palm of his predator.

I wore my wounds under long sleeves,

Tenderized the meat on my bones with salt—

When I was delirious,

Bla...

Color is divine. Color is passion.

Mine ran into the shadows

At the first sign of illumination.

The waves of gray are an ocean—

I run into the tunnel,

Moth to zapper—

Deer to high beams—

My wide-eyed innocence pulled to opposite ends of the pendulum—

Swinging in the gloam,

Where what they call the greener pastures

Are merely myths of men.

His fingerprints smudged the exterior walls of my glass...

Fireworks, blooming

Like her mother’s spring lilacs—

Didn’t even wait

Until the full moon to pluck

Petals ripe with blood.

And I was the sun

Peeping through the mist of her

Gentle summer rains

Familiar warmth—coming

Home from a long day....

I am the court jester,

Bleeding laughter—calcified eschar

Of despair. I grew weary dancing over the king’s hot coals

And listening to his woes:

Oh, the Queen

Used her teeth

To skin his manhood while it was still pulsating,

Fresh from the slaughter—as we were saving

The best for last.

He’s more sugar than he is cream;

Corrosion blacker than his morning coffee.

She runs herself a bath,

Lights cand...

Titanic and I sit at the poker table,

Faces stoic, with the ghost of smiles upon our lips.

I’ve laid my cards out—

A full house.

Three Ace of Diamonds and two King of Hearts.

Handfuls of new beginnings.

Rebirthing myself as the Phoenix always has—

Rising from the ashes of my former incarnation,

My feathers catch the sunlight

And entice the iceberg, waiting in the water

To pacify the storm rumbli...

The monkey dancing on your back

Clashes his little symbols,

And hands you the trumpet,

You must make your death march a parade—

Judgment Day is around the corner,

They’ve been saying for centuries now.

The hour is out of place upon the clock;

Big hand strikes,

And the bell chimes.

Heed my warning;

The light is anything but warm.

It’s easy to get lost in the underworld—

Swept away by the ripti...

Of all the mundane throughout my days,

I take the words reeking of cliche

And wrap it in a big, flowery bow.

They belong to minds much greater than mine—

A different metaphor for every open door—

Who do I think I am? The next Poe?

The next Plath? Hemingway?

Alls I need is a little copacetic, pathetic swig of liquid courage

To get the gears spinning inside my rotting brain.

Head in the gas chamb...