recurring

My friend Sahm King has compiled a collection of drunks who moonlight as poets, of whom I am humbled to be included in this free smashwords anthology.

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/352911

Here is one of my selections highlighted in the book, “First Round’s On Us”.

 

recurring

And once again,
I jolt to awaken,
awash in the sheer terror
of this recurring nightmare.

I wash this cold sweat from my face,
scrub this scum from my teeth,
the scum that only seems to come
with too much drink the night before.

I brew a pot of pitch black coffee
and have another smoke,
piecing together the puzzle
that is last night’s activities.

She’s still asleep,
auburn hair covering
what I hope
is a beautiful face.

I go back to bed,
and touch her leg,
trying in vain
to warm these frozen toes.

Now she jolts to awaken,
but her nightmare
is out here,
in this room,
in this bed,
lying next to her
with frozen toes.

She dresses in haste,
and runs back
to him, praying to never
lay eyes on me again.

She’ll call me back
by Thursday,
this nightmare I,
anointed once again,
recurring.

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sunset-gmc.jpg

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zero down, zero a.p.r.

Think of religion as a used car.

It serves a useful purpose,

if you use as intended.

You know it had several previous owners,

and you have no idea how they really drove it.

The preachers are your salesmen,

trying to get you to believe

that it was treated with kid gloves,

only driven to church and back on Sunday.

All of the truly horrible accidents

have been bondo-ed, J.B. Welded,

and erased from the records.

Every time you run into someone

who drove the same car,

they loved it, although they now drive

something entirely different.

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shadows on the wrong side of everything

It’s early. Four, maybe five.

These hours are usually lost to me.

I’m up earlier than this when I work,

When not, the first light I see is the afternoon sun.

I should make productive activity from these hours

that God saw fit to bestow,

four to five extra hours in the day.

A pot of coffee brews,

as the thoughts of the adventures to come percolate in my head.

I could go for a wander, catch photographs of the morning sun

casting shadows on the wrong side of everything.

Any number of actions could I take.

As I Irish up the coffee,

I know I’ll be back to bed soon,

and the shadows and all wrongs

will be righted.

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god screens your calls

 

She takes a sip

of her blood red wine,

and tells me that

we have it all wrong,

that we pray in vain

to jilted gods,

tantamount to asking favors

of an ex girlfriend,

That we

should know

we ran out of favors

long ago.

She says she

knows from experience that

God screens my calls,

that God tells her friends

that she wishes

I would just

give up.

She tells me I should

take the hint,

“God has moved on,

and so should you.”

I nod in a feigned agreeance,

and pull her back to me.

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second heaven

I want to run fast through this burning city,
in the middle of this dying world
Let me take flight, and break free,
achieve escape velocity
Let me break out and away,
Leap far beyond this Springboard Earth,
Past the second heaven that the angels get to go to
when they finally die

I would place mine ear to God’s lips,
I would hear God whisper
to the children of the dead and dying angels
that they have gone on to a better place,
reassure them that it’s all for the best,
and that it is all part of God’s plan.

But not even God himself knows
of the second Heaven
Where the angels go
when they die.

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the experiment goes on

We fractured and fragile beasts,
imperfection in her purest form,
placed here in a large scale experiment
to find all ways to die.
We die of disease,
we die of broken hearts,
we die of loneliness,
we die if we fuck too hard. 
We die if we eat too well,
we die if we starve too long.
We die, and it’s the only thing
we will ever do that we will
ultimately do right.
We draw up Gods without fault,
and give them our attributes,
both paradox and folly.
I pull a number,
and await my turn,
pretending not to notice
the receptionist,
asking I step
forward.

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