snapshots
picture of a man
walking in the sudden
morning sunlight
long green coat,
cigarette in hand
mischief has drifted
from his subtle,
sated mind

can you categorize the crazy?
sitting here in the slow apocalypse
lustful and tired
sipping stale wine,
smoking merciful cigarettes,
and listening to bukowski
i’m reminded of
fatal flashes of passion
jumping like cats
in the jupiter night

some men are hopeless,
in love with a single moment
while others dance
with the condition of compromise

forgive and forget these carnival sorrors
now is a time for
private decadence
balancing two anxious stars
and caught in a beautiful rendition
of delicate disaster
the fingers are cold
reaching for tattooed skin
like thirteen thieves
seeking some measure of
tactile mastery
anxiously embracing
this blue midnight
as fate deals
another ironic hand

cold and
sold out
into an urban wilderness
alone we scream with the spider
remembering how jesus died
for such petty sins
as the secret whore
engages in a backyard war
and yellow frogs leap
from domesticated toad stools
in search of black enchantments

do you remember how
fire frequently freed
festive moods
of antiquated anarchy
as obscure instruction
lead to obsolete insurrection

the guns are forever loaded
but unfortunately,
sanitation has killed
the eminent orgasm of dawn

waiting for
echoes of regeneration
inherited from hearts
of the living dead
we consume
and consider
dusty foreplay
and the exhaustion of tomorrow

the music is
slow and heavy
delayed
and tempered by rain
underneath a green guillotine
connections fade
within passions delayed

what leafy beast
waits to rise
from these intricate,
archaic ashes
and
what do we do
when rusty words
are all we have left?