Lights of Life

I know I’m growing old, my youth detached
and shed from me some time ago, and so
I mumble to myself and light a match.
I find myself dwelling in little, scratch
my scalp and take off where the wind may blow.
I sense I’m growing old. I felt detached
today, I saw what dreams of mine could catch
the ends of threads from time’s forgotten glow,
the mumbles of life’s twilight, which parts match.
Denial drifts along like trash cast
beside the highways of my mind—but lo!
I am aware I’m growing old. Detached
from this and that, I am, from time elapsed.
And my prayers, unto heavenly ears, go.
My mumbles travel out. I light a match.
I heard it spoke that, somewhere, all things last,
but my doubts linger just like swirling smoke.
I know I’m growing old. My youth detached,
I mumble to myself, and light a match.

the ebb and flow of squandered beauty

Your body is like a cheap-thrill pagan idol
demanding of sacrifices to a God
who is not appeased by the heart, or the pencil,
instead, he craves a much more secular blood.
Inside your kind voice there is an acute oddness
that gnaws on my patience like a broken promise.
Salvation, I understand, just won’t suffice.
You’re perfecting the art of the destructive life.

From nothing you came to this Earth from your mother
and father, who left you for cocaine, then jail.
Encasing yourself in your own kind of cell
now you guzzle down whiskey shots, one then another.
Like a powerful wave that will crash to the shore
you will someday recede and be nothing once more.

how about that!

i am the new jersey sunrise all over again
with words as tired as a yawn
two eggs for breakfast, i do the dishes
and wait for them to dry.
i read the paper and whistle Hallelujah
wink at some force unknown,
and get a little carried away by nothing much
at all.
and the next thing you know, i was a person,
i had done it all over again!