Mafia

a heavy interloper sitting on
the back staircase dangles
his cigarette, waiting
for me to pass his way

Neighbor

The ivy has grown about your gate.
Although I pass it each morning,
I lack that courage to disturb it
and prefer to think you a lax gardener,
instead of confirming your absence.

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Ice People

An embrace would meld us
Thaw us and bind us
Rough edges would melt and seam together
Forever, we would be unable
To be apart
Forever, we would be unable
To find sole solace
So our frail hearts
Love with caution
So we, who shake
Love in fear

Keeper

Dark hearts dipped in dark ink
Left smoldering, ashy-bitter
In attic corners
Teeth-chatteringly patient
For the pleasured thrust
Of your fanged consumption
Pale before the musky thrill
Of preparing
(For you)
A sumptuous (murderous)
Meal.

Rain

A nebulous cloud
Hangs on the rim of the sky
Future rain threatens

Cages

Waiting for hours
The prisoner of fears paces
Squeezed between walls and plastered posters
Meant to threaten and negate
All the beauty of the world drained into slogans
Monochrome beasts, fanged and sharpened
Any visitor speaks softly like a ghost
A trick of wind
The inmate cannot hear who entreats him
And the friend cannot see his walls

Fear of the Unknown

The light dims behind
Ahead, a road and journey
A stumble, a shiver

Appointment

Letters come in a threat
Reminders that the benign can become malignant
The feelings brushed under the carpet resurface again
I want to stick my head in the sand
But it is not I who will be hurt if I do;
Our voices become loud when we speak for others
More so than when we speak on behalf of ourselves

The Negative Mind

I have not yet crested over the hill
But the longest days have come
And the summer oppresses with a searing heat
I look for signs of withering winter
In every thirsting blade of glass
And find no joy in the hatchlings
With my own nest unlined and uninhabited
The dread of my imaginings hold me immobile
And paint a grotesque hydra beyond the apex
Instead of a pleasant valley of milk and honey

Baring the Soul

Self-evisceration by telling the horrible truths
Of oneself, hoping the listening party
Will understand that the hurtful actions
Do not come out of malice or indulgent pity
Euphoric to let go, outgrow the chains
But at the same time, hollowed out
Punctured into Swiss cheese
Circular tears in the aftermath