No romantic swill 

just a straight shot of rotgut

and a hat tip bye 

Pauvre bête, ground down 

over time, potential turned 

to couche-couche, consumed  

In the distance a

saxophone plays as the sun

sets on a dead town

Some days an inner 

fire rages and asks rather

rudely for release 

A calliope

plays a haunting tune, echos 

through psychic cloisters 

Gone so long you've been 

but in every corner 

there you are again 

A trace of perfume 

on the air, but no one in 

sight — ghostly ascent? 

Towards the end of the

 passage, Charon suddenly 

spoke: "I despise Styx." 

In the light there is

still a shadow that haunts, taunts,

howls eternally 

I once knew a girl 

with a pet tarantula 

she loved more than me 

Diverged I did from

the highway to the rutted 

road looking for truth 

The four-leaf clover

wilted long ago and with 

it all of our luck 

Water the dead rose  

you keep in a broken booze 

bottle with your tears 

  

Leashed, led astray, then

left to our own devices 

to learn how to lie  

Gruesome, ghoulish, they

smile as the weak fall prey

to the gods of war 

 

Sometimes all you need 

is a slick, sexy sentence 

soulless but snappy 

Pirouette past the 

people, arms defiantly 

in the air, and smile 

Tears (torrents of) tear

holes in the collective or 

wear slowly away 

Now tattered and wind

weary, once it was a proud 

flag snapping smartly 

Rattle the cage and

wake the tiger for it's time 

to break the lock off 

The scarred and weathered 

hands tell the unspoken tale

of toil and trouble 

Fireflies light up 

the night in a summer stock 

unmatched by Broadway

I dream in blue of

and ocean warm and waiting 

to embrace, engulf 

The sheets stripped lays the

bed bare like a lover's harsh

laugh as the door slams 

You, forgotten and 

forlorn, found at the back of 

the closet, crumpled 

The summer sounds of 

children playing, song birds, and

ice cream trucks are here 

Wistful not for a 

fistful of cash but a dream

delayed by the fates 

A murder of crows 

harassed the eagle as it 

attempted to soar

Listen hard and the

joyful echoes of eons 

past may whisper 'yes' 

Absence can become 

an abscess as the bloody

sun decamps again