Truth & Consequences

CATHARSIS

I talk...
you watch the clock

I agonize...
you doodle

Memories flood
and psyche twist,
while you buff your nails
on a tweed sleeve

The hour's up...
I am refreshed - unburdened
I get up, and write you a check

and stab you with the pen

TOMATO, TOMATOE?

Like a Vegas slot,
you lure me to you...
With your glitz
and glamour,
you tempt me.

Like a slot,
all fancy bells and whistles,
your eyes spin glassily
as you reflect
my greed...
my need.

Like some slot
you say,
"Feed me, caress me,
stroke me...
hit the right spots
and I'll gush forth

the answer to your prayers."

But, unlike the one-armed bandit,
that has only taken my money,
your guilt is greater...
you are a two-armed bandit,
and you have stolen my soul.

---

THE NUMBER YOU HAVE REACHED IS NO LONGER IN SERVICE

I called
and
called
and called.
The message I received
was cold -
"The number you have reached ..."

Pain,
like an intravenous transfusion
of ground glass,
swept through my psyche...
leaving raw, jagged edges.

I stopped dialing.

Some long while later,
someone
said
you called -

"We're sorry...
the
person
you have reached
is no longer in service."

---

HUES

Under a stone gray moon,
in a slate blue sky,
the night
is iron black cold.

The vermillion cash, that is your mouth,
spews
hot green venom,
that scalds, like yellow-orange lava.

Tears, of glacial silver ice,
cascade
from cow brown eyes,
and old, purple passions
fade
into violet shadowed corners.

Soon, they decay, into bone white
dust
and, in time, are blown into
infinity,
by a sad, tan wind.

---

A STITCH IN TIME, SAVES ...

Shall I co quietly
mad . . . ?
who would know?
who would care?

Shall I climb a
tower
and spray random
Death
from a smoking barrel...?

All would know...
All would care -

Would they say
'He was so quiet?'
'He was nice to animals?'
'He loved his mother?"
'Why didn't somebody notice?'
They would say
all the above...
in hindsight -

But, while I went quietly
mad
would they say
'Hello?'

---

PLAY TIME

When
I was small I
danced with rain
and sang with wind.

Some days I
soared with gulls
or sprinted with the light.

Now,
I ride
the adrenaline tiger
and chase the dogs of greed.

My dancing
singing~
soaring
days are over...
and the light
doesn't want to play.

---

ONE SEASON

There used to be
four (Vivaldi knew)
now there is
one...
and it's
white
and miser's heart
cold.

I stand
as tall as I can
and sniff
the air
trying to catch
any whiff
of warm buttercups
or toast
or sunday mornings
or you,
that might blow
in from some
hidden
place, where others
more knowing than
I
might have hoarded
them,
as squirrels, nuts,
for a harsher time.

It is now,
that time...
nothing lives here --
white supports nothing.

I need
your scent
of Spring.

---

JUST ANOTHER LOVE SONG

'I grow old...I grow old...
I shall wear the bottoms of
My trousers rolled."

'The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock'
T.S. Eliot

I am weak, I am weak,
but I must force myself
to speak

Speak of things both
far and near -
talk to air
and pray you'll hear;
tell you that
my time was wasted
yet with all that
I have tasted,
no time so sweet
in my long life
as when I had you
for my wife

And now,
When my poor tale
is told
I ache for you, as
I grow old

---

MAKING

There were days
when my son would come to me
with tears in his eyes
and a broken toy
in his hand.

I would wipe his tears
and fix his toy.
I was good at
'Making better'.

There were nights
when my wife would come to me
with passion in her eyes
and need in her voice.

I would stroke her passions
and fire her needs.
I was good at
'Making nice'.

There are times
now
when someone else
is
'Making better'
and
'Making nice'
and all I can make
is
Pain.

---

HARBINGER **

Hawk...
soaring
twisting, turning
so admired --
envied,
for his
passionate pirouettes,
his arcing arpeggios.

We watch, in open mouthed
wonder,
but,
the crows know!

His patience,
a mere illusion.
They mob him
and scold him;
they will give him no peace.

They drive him
from the air.

They know that he is
Death
and will swoop on
young or old,
uncaring.

We should heed
the crows.

Published in "US 1: Postings"

---

DIALOGUE

Why?
Why not?

How?
I don't know.

When?
Soon.

Where?
Here.

Who?
Not you.

Oh!

---

RECYCLE

I don't want them any more . . .
so,
separate your glass promises,
by color -
sort your plastic feelings,
by size --
wrap your paper words
in neat piles -
and take them
to the dump . . .

Where,
if you are lucky,
you might get
thirty silver coins.

---

CLICK/BANG

CLICK. . .
Another empty cylinder
of my so called life'
is hammered,
and fails to respond.

How sad, that
my being is so useless,
even fate refuses
the gift I offer. . .
my life on a splatter!

Click,
again -
one more moment for reflection.

Is this meant to be?
Is "someone" trying to tell me
that "life is worth living" . . .
that "there is a silver lining' . . .
"that it's always darkest before the dawn". . .?

Trite phrases, offered many times before,
but, with no palliative effects.
Don't you understand -?
I'm h-u-r-t-i-n-g !

Click.
BANG
thank you

---

EVAPORATION

Our story was written
not in ink
but i water --
water that would turn
to steam
in the heat of our passions --
water that would turn
to ice
when stony silences
slipped between us.

But, ultimately
water,
the source of all life
returns to the clouds,
taking our dreams along . . .
only later
to fall back,
on dark and dreary days
as tears in the shape
of rain

---

HOT-BED MOTEL

The room reeked
of musk
and the drab, dreary
walls
watched,
as they always did,
in awe.

My mouth was dry,
and my knees
wobbly,
because it was a first
foray
into the world of fornication.

My partner --
seasoned, sanguine
secure --
tolerated my greenhorn
gyrations
with a jaundiced eye.

The working
clock
ticked off the
sensual seconds, as
soon my puerile
lust
was sated.

With nothing left
to do
bills were paid,
the door was closed,
and jaded walls wrote
'fini'
on another
sordid story.

---

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