BEAUTIFUL NIGHTMARE

 

Beautiful nightmare

Sink your bone-dagger fangs into my throat

Drink

And know my every thought

My every emotion

Sink your claws into my mind

And rip

Spill my secrets upon the floor

Wallow in my dreams

‘Til each deviant thought

Coats you in scarlet

Wear my sightless orbs

As bobbles

The pale hues

As fine as gems

Strip my flesh

For your hearth rug

place me

One step closer to hell

And yourself one step

Closer to me

Gather my bones to your bosom

And hold them close

Rock them as you would a child

And from your tender mercies

I will arise

Remade and renewed

In the image you create for me

Lover or slave

It matters not

As long as some slim chain

Tethers me

To you               

 

***

OF DREAMS AND RUINED FIREFLIES

 

Chain smoking dreams on the hood of my car

We paint dragons in smoke against an azure sky

Waiting for the stars to chase the sun from too bright heavens

Everything sparkles a little different after dark

Tattered wings hide the fray in swirling neon

We feign amusement in face of scorn

Crawl home and puke our sins in porcelain bowls

The dregs of last night’s misery oozing from our pores

There’s no escaping the long shadows that creep across our lives

Shadowing the fall of all we once held dear

Is there no end to the pantomime

This silent, black and white movie

that makes us laugh at the broken clown?

ashes fall like ruined fireflies

A rain of white against tanned skin

What careful disassembly of life fire brings

Reducing form to ash, like our dreams

The whispers of them still echo on nights like there

When we lay beneath ancient moons

remembering all we’d hoped to be

 

 

***

PAST TENSE

 

Matchbox cars in faded colors
Dented rows of childhood memories
Matchbox houses in battered rows
One hue slightly different from the others
Sameness bleeds from manicured lawns
From four door wagons in tiny carports
Where last generations station wagons sit
Old woman rocks in terrycloth robe and pink slippers