Closing Arguments

Some days you're ready to die

Defeat smells different than fear

It is the perfume of hopelessness

Where the ride ends safely

But you wonder what else it could be

A poppy plant?

Festive log?

A damaged fence or rusty caliper?

Talking to you is punishment enough

In the long-winded sewer of sentences

Where one could serve life in earshot

We have the scars to prove -

Battery terminals at both ends

And Halloween masks

Resembling the common errors

Stepping down is slanted

When you can roll

Roll

Barring any discrepancy

I will leave when I am supposed to

Shutting books and shudders loudly

Locking windows

Paying respects

With zero fucks

In monk fashion

With a barrel of beer

Swinging from my neck

What's next?

Is it any matter?

We frigidly say there is space

And fire in the cauldron

But we know better 

Than to test plasma

At closer than 600 light years

Corn Cob Pipe

Each week

on Saturday

I land

the shell of a man

Performing my duty

as an upright piano

constricts with no real event

the turmoil begs;

a constant attempt 

to stay in tune

Warp speed!

for any small seed

to figuratively spit

the dreggy remnants

of whatever shavings

have come through

the corn cob pipe