Poem: Red Light

 

Red Light

 

degenerate eye, 

stalker over undercarriages,

do you see the nighcrawlers 

stranded on the tar by rain?

how they wriggle like drunken lips?  

in the vodkas of the passenger seats,

in the lipstick-smeared jugular tantrums,

the necking and sucking,

 do you see

 

the mind-blasting drugs 

which tear the armor off a hidden heart?

how the forbidden neurochemicals 

tear the shell off a human crab?

do you see

the intersection of satin on denim, 

the fakery of lusts,

hostage, even in passion, 

to the rituals and masks?

do you hear 

the asphalt-burnt groans 

as they boil off the urban griddle,  

thsoe last sighs of the fallen?

do they wave farewell, 

fingers crooked on crashed floorboards? 

and the gutted prom roses 

on wilted cheeks of teenage char?

do you see, half alive

for just a moment, death itself,

there, the outline of a skull,

peeking from beneath a once-happy face,

breaking through to mock whatever's left,

testing the lie?

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7/30/25 ... an abominable fraught poem ... 

8/15/24 ...