Femme Fatale II

Part I

 

Part II 

It’s too late,

her allure has lured you in

your reflection,

now forever fixed in her eyes;

a prisonly prism

that will not look away,

and while she sways

Every touch, evidence,

fingerprints

she will lift with her powder brush

Those bombshell bosoms

close enough, you hear the ticking

and you know it is not her black heart

When your hand reaches the top

of that satin slit

and her garter clicks,

you will know

“This is it”.

Bad Investments

Your liabilities outweigh your assets
But I still invested
In us.
Your name in red parenthesis,
Inked with blood from my overdrawn heart
Our deficit, a grim report
Charts dipping into great depressions
Negativity on every telling page
Bouncing reality checks 

You spend everything on nothing to show

forgotten unclaimed bonds

now rendered unpayable

made some risky trades that did not pay off

and perhaps diversified a little too much

on shady start-ups

and now your crippling debt to love

has you pawning prized possessions

maybe you should have put everything in mutual funds

I hear they’re safe

and stashed away some love for those rainy days

and invested in real estate

(if you keep it for a long, long time, it appreciates)

but it’s too late now

and very sad your heart went bankrupt

 

The Search

There’s a needle in the haystack
And a man in the moon
I’m forever finding
Pain in pricks,
from grabbing at straw
Distant smiles in cold blue stones
I cannot reach

Femme Fatale

Her beauty is imminent danger:

Ringlets tailspin from her head

dive bomb and crash into her shoulders

Dagger sharp nails soaked in victim red

Her tsunami sway hips’ destructive tides

Quicksand lips

Lead pipe legs that blind with their glisten

Piercing eyes that break skin

drawing blood from your heart

to the surface by tiny pinpricks

Lampshade fringe eyelashes

luring the moths

Cannonball breasts ready to ignite

And the hourglass figure that warned you

Your time is almost up!

Half Handed Hope

Half handed hope

leaves room

to grope fantasies

palm wide,

for reality

to collide in loose grasps

pawing warm laps,

to dog ear chapters of chaps

summoned from the past.

.

Half handed grace

a space for

honest evaluation

given to temptation

Mistakes in the making

Roads untaken

Uncharted stumbles

brought by

Empty hands who’ve caught on

To devour and shake bare

The covered skin left there

.

Half handed love

Ventricles spurting through

Gloves, fingerprints at crimes

And apprehensive minds

Stealing a glance taking a

chance with sordid fates

Mismatched mates’ scarlet spectrums,

Electrons, fusing with dopamine fools

bartering with ropes and pulleys  pulled

fully engaged in nothing much

but transitory transactions

with traction and such

 

Half Handed faith

surrender displaced,

proof displayed in vile

cages of contagious spite, delight

in firm beliefs

yet still bereaved

clapped away in shoddy locks

but perps will

walk free and believe

in themselves but ask for help

nevermind, I’m doing well

enough to tell tales of 

broken wings and my dreams

crushed by the escaping  

 

The illusionist

You said the magic was gone.

I was wrong

To sit wide-eyed and entertained, awed

For so long

.

No mystical charm exists.

It’s only tricks,

Illusions I insisted on believing

Bereaving supernatural fancies

So exquisitely performed

Watching you pull helpless animals from hats

And this fool dared clap?!

.

Snot soaked hankies turned to carnations,

levitation,

pick a card any card but hearts.

And I knew when you,

Pulling silver dollars from my ear,

How clear, my dear, it was a fraud

but I was wrong

.

The final act:

Saw the woman in half

Punishment

There is only punishing when one allows it
There is cruelty, yes, and discipline
But thoughts cannot be controlled.
It is a choice to suffer;
An invitation to pain and perhaps contrition
That must be accepted.
Destruction and assault are tangible, sensed
Though the power is lost
When cheeks are turned.
Licks and shocks may not coerce
Confessions sought
Enemies kept close yield disclosure
Caring begets hope for real change

Punishment is only for the punisher.

House of Cards

Sweet dreams

to all the kings

and queens

in my house of cards.

.

Sounds of shuffling dulled,

Jokers fooled into discard piles,

Fanned hands face down,

Spades scooping for ground,

Wagers surrendered in whole.

.

Draw pile pillows 

stocked with diamonds

I’m in

ceilings of hearts

tempting a tumble.

 

The hand dealt:

bent aces and one-eyed jacks,

cracks too wide to balance

Kingdoms long abandoned

and gambled

for greener felt

poker table pastures,

Masters,

asking for hits just past 21.

.

3 of a kind,

We’ll find

a full deck

Worth playing with;

Fair games,

glossy new coats.

empty sleeves

and no bluffing.

What makes people tick?

We’re all unique in pulse, pattern
syncopated ticks
in cacophony,
discord,

wild metronomes

pushing blood around

to the sound

of thumps in the night

sighs

to slow the rhythm

we can’t manage,

clocks to give us unreachable regularity

at such a steady pace

that impairs our confident and independent stride.

   

Tame tempos that suit your temperament:

largo, presto, adagio, allegro.

You’ll grow in cadence,

with licks of ocean tides,

join the crickets,

find the choir bellowing

tones in your bpm,

dance with winds

that make barn doors rattle and clap,

laugh until you’re out of sync,

ride the brink of gasps

fluttering and trembling

your throbbing core.

 

That cardiac pause looms,

eternities of pendulums

hanging still like retired drumsticks,

eminent windless dark…

Time does not stop at death.

It endures without a beat

to move with,

a paralysis of pulses,

no sound

to measure

breaths drawn.

 

So at dawn, arise!

March to your drum,

inflect and step 

into your OWN time.

 

 

 

 

 

Vessel

You cannot fuck me dry

 

You may be void of feeling

and feeling me may be

the only time you feel

 

There is no end to my well,

well, you will still

be empty

 

I am full of the juice you want,

but also the blood

that makes my heart pump

 

Teeming with intensity

in emotion, rejected,

erected, you bury apathy

into me as if it is medicine

 

I know you better than

yourself.

Your health

is a fable

and I am racing

to die first

since you thirst

to be alone

on your throne,

the king of oblivion

who can polish

his own damn sceptre

with dry fucking hands.

Venn there done that

Our night sailing ships collided

The bachelor was brided

Two rings exchanged

Two circles overlapping

.

Venn said that sliver shared is slim

If you really love him

Cross over like an eclipse

Into the space

You do not understand

.

And so I am leaving the space I represent

I cannot lie, I do resent

His abesence in my circle left

A cold, black, empty void

.

And maybe someday soon he’ll see

The wonders that were part of me

and explore that abandoned ghost town territory

To resurrect his soul crushed wife

 

Inadmittance

She won’t admit it, but

she wants to be a cause worth pursuing;

To make a man

sprint

trapezius flaring,

jugular bulging,

hands

clenched and pumping

with determination;

tackled to the ground

and ravaged like a battlefield.

.

She won’t admit it,

but she wants to be a territory worth fighting for,

even if she fights back,

she is begging

to be won;

to have a soldier

of desire

conquer her,

to be completely

surrounded

by his might,

to have him launch an attack

so fierce

it will end in

bloody surrender.

.

She won’t admit it,

She will be coy, will put up walls

She wants torn down,

Will wail for her troops

to save her,

But her lusting heart is a defector

Longing to be shackled

And bound, impounded

And pounded into

Succumbed weak yielding torture.

Featherweight

Once I was a spring chicken.

Through time you plucked

Each feather,

One by one

Loves me, loves me not.

 

I’ve been reduced

to a pile of down feathers;

strike me with your fist

over and over

beat me down;

it only makes me fluffier

 

And when you are through,

I will give your head

The comfort that breeds

Conscience steeped dreams, streams

of tar infused guilt

Rolled dry in my downy discipline.

 

And if you beg,

I will pluck you clean again.

Verbal Suicide

My words,

not just falling on deaf ears,

but splattering them

like the concrete

under a suicide jumper

with a resounding thud.

I’ve casted them like leagues of lemmings

hurling towards the ocean

and have spewed the thoughts and drops

siphoned from the bottom of my heart.

Now I am only dry heaving and running the pump dry.

I can’t give enough, change enough, do enough, say enough

I’ve loved enough, served enough, understood enough, had enough

To make lonely men jealous you are mine

Yet I’m a swine, more boorish than boring

My 1st amendments hog-tied

Into telepathic snorts

And now we’re out of sorts

For this vowed eternity

Playing house in front of a live audience

That never laughs

 

 

Mid-Life Carisis

Neglect can kill old love

(If you forget the routine maintenance, that engine will not turn over)
and infatuation’s brand new car feeling
can masquerade as a reliable vehicle for escape.
When it breaks, don’t fix it;
get a new one.

            

I sure wish you would restore this old vintage beauty

and take her for a spin around the block and down the lane into the sunset.

The memories will serve you with more sentiment and cockle warming affection

than the empty reflection while seated behind the wheel of a

freshly factory delivered import that is 90% plastic.

Drip drop drown

Oh, the rain pitter patters to the beat of my heart

I fear the pattern drumming as the drip drops start

the devils got me in a wet grip leaking love from my parts

this storm is welling up

   

I try to quell it with my quill but I’m splashing around

the gutters filling to the point I think I’m gonna drown

floating up I feel my feet leaving the ground

I get the giving up

    

Out of control in this hole, I impart

the grief of gallon buckets filling till they’re falling apart

a soul can only tread the floods

with makeshift boats on the blood

until it all dries up and you’re stuck in the mud

     

The clouds gather and I crouch like a battered wife

It’s still shallow sheets of sprinkles but it’s taking my life

this condensation’s condescension cuts like a knife

it just a bloody mess

 

My lips touch the ceiling siphoning air too thin 

I’d call for help, but I’ve already given in

If this downpour has a drain, it’s damned in sin

time to acquiesce 

   

Pull the plug let it swirl

sewage slurping circle to hell

The first beat,

when I first loved,

it was easy to tell

I was marked in red

and I already fell

That sinister sump pump

Thump thumping

Sucking the swell

Of leaking hearts and skies

Far too late to be wise

It’s been 40 days and nights of being baptized

Whirlpools and undertows have their prize

Priming for the kill

“The New Year is more than a fresh start; instead it is rather a gradual conditioning of ends, preparing us for the eventuality of our own death.”

A lot had gone through my mind when I wrote the quote above.

Why January 1st? Other cultures have other dates to celebrate a new year.

The actual day seems so superfluous. How is one new day newer than the new day you were just given the day before?

The beginning of a new year is not about starting over. Anyone who has made a resolution can attest to the attempt at a fresh start that only results in abject failure and the return to usual habits. We need endings just as much as we need beginnings. This is why the ball DROPS. And because most fail to see opportunity in ending and beginning every morning when the sun rises and our feet hit the ground, it has to be done in a lavish and attention grabbing way such as wearing sparkly clothes, getting wasted with your friends and for the rednecks in my area, maybe blowing something up. We aren’t celebrating an uncertain future. We’re burying the past and sending it off with a bang. Auld Lang Syne is the funeral dirge for Father Time.

Government and business need to close their books. We need a sense of finality in small increments. Otherwise life seems like one big run on sentence. In fact, life’s way of getting women to quit talking so much is called a period. (I kid, but it is funny, you gotta admit). All these cycles in life… it’s just dead eggs down the toilet.

A new year is the obvious result of what must be done: Ending.

It doesn’t matter when. It just has to happen sometime.

Call me morbid, call me Debbie Downer, I don’t care. It’s the truth and we all know it.

We’re all gonna die and we need to rehearse one year at a time.

.

Boarding up my windows

To prepare myself for winter

I am boarding up my windows,

filling my pantry,

compacting my bones

so moisture cannot

penetrate the joints.

The world will forget me more

but I am resolved to

avert the chill

with hunkered down loneliness,

oceans of tea,

fleece swathed solidarity.

Removed from frigidity

I am stone

alone

with my CB radio and scanner

leaning close

listening for chatter

flares and afghans at hand

in case the roof caves

If you find me in the thaw

Put a can opener to my lips

To hear the hiss and murmur

Of  secrets lonely women hold

In their ever sliding glacial hearts

There are storms no one can endure

And measures that are never enough

To save a home without love.

Abducted

The moon is for lovers and loners

to be washed in the blue-gray light

With shivering awe

of goosebumps, like craters,

Ruminations abound in

stone hearts’ illuminations

And in the darkness, the sky

is the visage of campfires

ablaze in a valley below

In red and blue twinkles

stars flicker and echo

light years of stories of folks

These distant lights impel

a soul hopeful

Consolation in constellations

flash glowing eons of wonders beheld

Inspiration and romance

creep softly into every

fold of feeling exposed

Doppelgänger

I have been clear
I have been direct
I don’t insinuate
still you reject
all the ways I care
now I don’t dare
to talk.

I’m beside myself
but still alone
you’ve checked out
so has my clone
the lack of change
is still the same
but I’m not to blame

I’ve played the game
Of Stepford wives and bedroom whores
The thanks I get is a Cold War
Shoulder over ice in cocktail cups
I’ve had enough
I’ve given up.

But the lioness deep down roars
To fight for the man you once were
Regardless of fruitless scars
I’ve earned
I suppose I’m still willing to be burned

…for a cause worth fighting for.