Thursday, April 22, 2021

Poem: Red Light

 

Red Light

 

night’s degenerate eye, 

stalker above undercarriages of dirty thoughts.

do you see the worms stranded on the tar by rain?

those nightcrawlers that could have been lips?


in the vodkas of passenger seats,

in the lipstick smeared jugular tantrums,

amid the necking, sucking sex,

 do you see it,

 

the sort of street drug 

that tears the shell off a crab in the hiding heart;

pulls out its claws as if removing a splinter?

do you see 


the intersection of satin on denim, crotches obvious,

the seduced, bitten lust, hostage to the daily mask,

as it feigns fakery as well?

 

do you hear the asphalt-burnt groans

that boil up off the urban griddle, at last, as last sighs? 


yes, they wave farewell, 

crooked fingers clung to warped floorboards,

 

and

 

those gutted prom roses on wilted chests,

and the sadness of teenage char.


maybe there, do you see it, half alive

for just a moment, is death itself,

there, that outline of a skull,

pressed up under once-happy ovals,

to mock the failed expression, breaking through

to test the lie.





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