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AND they drink.
The wine meets her upper lip taking some of the lipstick with it,
Down her throat,
Into the bottomless pit that is her stomach
Leaving a smear that would never be cleaned off.

He has drunk almost an entire bottle by himself.
He hasn’t changed,
She comments on it.

You haven’t changed .

I have.
His blunt response halts conversation.

Still the same refusal,
Always right never wrong.

That is what he’s like.

He raises his glass again.
The red liquid stirring from its sleep.
And then the harder landing,
That comes from slight misjudgement,
When in a drunken state.

MORE wine, another bottle.
Thank God she left him.
He apologises.

Always so critical,

It’s improved.

Good. Excellent. If you say so.

She knows why he retreats behind his menu,
He embarrassed himself.
One of the few things he does well.

Come on, no sulks, be nice.

She knows that only by talking will he come out of his shell.

THEY shake hands.
His hands, sweaty, clammy,
Omitting the alcoholic odour.
His, firm then light,

then firm again, in hers,
then slowly withdrawn, wanting longer contact.

Better?

A grunt, in response.

It’s getting there,
It’s always a slow resumption.

SO. Who’s to start?

You.

Short and sharp,
Still embarrassed, he needs more cajoling.
Still in is impenetrable cocoon.

Right.

His glass, always drained,
Hers hardly touched.
She is drinking in moderate quantities,
He is drinking by the bottle.

Next it will be a Magnum,
Followed by a Jeroboam.

Judiciously, he brings the levels level.
Of course, she notices, despite what he thinks.

Right: I’ll tell you everything I can.
The wife, struggling to force him out of bad habits,
And a loving mother battling with two wild children.
I’m busy, with no complaints.
And then work,
Authoring my books, reeling out the pages.
And Paris.

Now it is her turn to be wistful.
She could be in a lovely boulangerie.
Wistful thinking, another thing he is good at.
Will he ever change?

Every trip I looked
In the window of
Diesels that passed by
Neck craned and sanguine

Every commute I hoped
To see them on the road
My last memory was
The convoy

Every drive I tried
For years, to find the one
That didn’t want
To be found

Every trek I scanned
For any sign, thinking
If they saw me
It’d change their mind

Every ride I reflect
Breaking the cycle to
Be the parent that mine needs
And not the one I had

Oh, Death!
Life’s twin brother,
Two states of the same,
You could vanquish it all.
Bring my beloved
From the valleys of shadows
Where you hide his light.
My soul agonizes
without its better part.
We’re divided, apart –
Two star-crossed lovers,
split by abysmal deception
Of vengeful gods.
Time is a pitiless river,
And I’m nearing the shore
Where no mercy exists
And near bridging the gap.
So, claim me as yours, Death.
I’ll ask you for only one favour –
To fall gently asleep.
Give me a peaceful, short end –
Just closing my eyes
And forgetting it all.
Come to me,
Unexpected and uninvited,
Stealthy and quiet,
Like a deadly dancer,
Take my hand,
With your withered fingers,
And bring me to the land of my beloved.
Chase away the anguish,
Of hope and desire,
resentment of lost chances
And unfulfilled expectations.
My soul would sing,
Freed from its mortal shroud.
My soul would dance,
Free and unbothered,
By human disappointment.
And my spirit would flee happy,
In the land of eternal youth,
where dreams and fairies dwell.
My Anam Cara awaits me.
Smiling and impatient,
Bright and resplendent,
Like the morning sun,
He’d take my hand
Leading me to Heaven.
And our souls would entwine,
Until the end of time,
No longer divided by fate and time

The sophist can’t escape himself.
He’s tried women, dogs, cats, drugs, gin,
But in the end the mirror ends up
His only friend.

He’s getting old. Bags under the eyes
like a racetrack. Gray beyond the sides now.
He gives out a laugh, a very small laugh.
The doctors think it’s beyond a cure.

Fate, the universe, death, are nothing
Compared to the callous on his right big toe.
It really hurts. He’s too old for a change.
Ah, to start over now, with what he knows,

That could have been an interesting life.

The knife gleamed
his hand, catching
the faint flicker

of the streetlight overhead.

Blood
pooled at his feet,
dark and viscous,

the scent of iron
sharp in the damp air.

He swiped the blade
clean against the coat
of the body

slumped
against the alley wall.

The chest no longer rose
and fell,

the arrogance

that once filled
the face had drained

away, leaving
behind nothing

but slack, empty

features.

Blood seeped
around the man,
no drop was out of place.

He didn’t flinch.
He never did.

Through you, the eyes of a puppet:

1. You’ve sat at their tables, on stacked,
dusty books. You lean against a desk’s shadow.

Darkness remains in the room where they thumped us
with rapid finger flicks. Weightier decisions were taught
with the back of a hand.

2. Their oppressed light brightens to hope
planted with carved limbs and painted face.

Light was brighter without their secrets. Winding roads
walk on clouds that circle fields where grass is greener.

3. A child cuts your strings:

hands first raising your head to a blessed sky,
before their voices were raised to perfect you
when the first light of Christmas faded in the room.

4. The dirt scatters and is covered again:

small cakes churn beneath a tractor’s plow;
small souls lean against a hardwood forest—dark,
thinly spaced and leafless trees wait to be cut;
and wait for stars to spin spring back to life
that becomes abundant again.

But now, the land chats with its sinking gospel,
an underground closing its eyes beneath
gossamer shadows.

5. As the land dries and winds uncover me:

my glossy limbs crumble in the sun returning gifts
to your children. Knotted purchase lines are gone.
The weight of tangled strings no longer a burden.
6. And the moon disappears quickly in the light:
my body crumples in a world of retail food
on store shelves that feed hungry puppets.

Rise, Fall, Rise, Fall
Touch, blink, song, prayer
Rise, touch, silence.
Tears shed, goodbyes whispered
Corpse left, the end is over.
The Centurion takes its place
By warm corpse, cooling corpse
Await the undertaker
Guarding empty, gone, important
Angels, ghosts, and souls departed
Look after indelicate meat
Relinquish your charge, Centurion.
Don’t Look.

I am loathe to forget that grey stone on the banks of River Rui.
How can I? You and and I sit there every evening after all.
The memory always starts with us getting lost in stories of a past we misplaced.
But something feels different now.
Unlike yesterday, the sentence of your laughter fails to mature into a roar.
You see the grey clouds demanding the start of the morning
and you climb down from the perch along with the flowing waters.
You walk the other way, and the water slides into the fire.
The yellow fire turns into soup, red soup, sticky and angry.
It approaches my feet with a steady hiss, and I clamber to the edge of
the ledge from which you dove.
From a distance, your chapped lips coil into a sentence.
but I am grabbed by the collars of my shirt before you can whisper,
and I wake up in pieces.
The bedside mirror reveals all the broken parts.
You slip from me every time,
You never live long enough for me to believe
that you are already dead.

Whispers of Resilience

Beneath the moon’s soft glow, a soul reveals,
With a shard of pain, his spirit conceals.
A lone warrior amidst shadows deep,
A beacon of strength, his scars he’ll keep.

Just the two of us

In twilight’s tender grasp, our souls entwine,
Yearning hearts in a celestial ballet.
Chasing love’s glow through the darkest night,
Our essences merge, a flame takes flight.

Dear Jabari

In the afterlife, my dear son, I watch over you with love so true,
Though we never met, my guidance and love will see you through.
Stay strong, be kind, and always believe,
For in your heart, my spirit will never leave.

Awakening in the night

In the wreckage of my shattered dreams,
Where hope once bloomed, now silence screams.
Amidst the ruins, a whispering light,
Guides me from the depths of endless night.

From broken pieces, a phoenix arises,
Embracing scars, a soul reprises.
Through the ashes, a new fire burns,
In pain and beauty, my spirit learns.

In the reflection of the feces infested watering dish,
My appetite waned as I saw who I was
A plump, wide belly squealer half witted
Roaming rooms and ridges righteously
Screeching insufferable afterfore mentions of secular thought with a sopping mouth
Slack jaw exposes a foul gullet
Putrid scent engulfed all pristine sterile rooms

Newly minted farmers begrudgingly accommodate my feeding schedule
Branded another inoperative rodent-like swine ramming into doors
Chalked up emotional dysregulation and cognitive dissidence
Show no mercy, just pure pity for the easy meat
Personalized personality perilous hellian I was inside

Rioting inside a slop filled stomach,
With sharpened canines and tired claws, out I ate.
I ate from the inside out with a madcap deliriousness
Birthed of bloody shame made a too-late coming

Out spurred from my sheddings, vengeful rumbles led me to eat
Devoured greedily all the prison memories
Mass consumption to swallow it all, digesting the unconscious gutsy parts
Purged what even I couldn’t stomach of myself
Lurched all over a nondescript bar bathroom
Leaving acidic paste to the maggots that wait for mere morsels of human mistakes

Chopped off my dried out ears to leave the dogs to bicker over my nativity
Ground my feet into tasteless chum
Lick with a tiger’s tongue down the center gouge–lapping at it
Satanic chanting of bile pushes up in my throat

A hysterical excitement of greediness, it is, to feed on flesh!
My one-stop bacchanal is fervent
Constantly fending off of judgmental patrons
Vivacious self-cannibalism as I demonstrate the benefits of such meals
Infinitive dismemberment for the search of something meatier

I swear there is something within all these plastic primal cuts
Someone worth saving and NOT EATING
Sacrifice my pale impressionable slimy casing
Clean plate club

No longer is the wild boar.
I ate her, I ate all of her.
Let me show you my fatten well fed stomach
Proud predator I’ve become with a carnivore’s killing

Among the blood and inedible parts of that gluttonous creature
I lay better
When those farmers come back to the pen hopefully they won’t see
The dried blood and cartilage stuck in my hair
Encrusted demons under my proper clipped fingernails

No one remembers right?
You don’t remember right?
Right?
I was never a pig.
Don’t look at the ground around me or breathe in too much
I’m not a pig.
Please, I’m not a pig. You know that.

Notice the difference yet?
It’s not impossible to say which is which.