Poem: Red Light

 

Red Light

 

degenerate eye, 

stalker over undercarriage of dirty thoughts.

do you see the nighcrawlers 

stranded on the tar by the heavy rain?

how they wriggle 

as if they could have been fast lips?  

in the vodkas of the passenger seats,

and the lipstick-smeared jugular tantrums,

within the necking and the sucking of the sad sex,

 do you see

 

the street drugs 

tearing the armor off a hidden heart?

how the exactly right chemical 

attacks as if tearing a claw off a crab?

do you see,

the intersection of satin on denim, 

how lust feigns fakery as best it can,

hostage, even in passion, to the rituals and masks?

do you hear 

the asphalt-burnt groans boil off the urban griddle,  

last sighs of the fallen 

as they wave farewell, 

hands clung crooked to crashed floorboards, 

gutted prom roses of vehicular manslaughter 

on wilted chests of teenage char?

do you see, half alive

for just a moment, death itself,

there, the outline of a skull,

peeking beneath a once-happy face,

breaking through, mocking whatever's left,

to test the lie?

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8/15/24 ...