For Lack Of Bullets
the Johnny Walker bottle
lays empty & too bad
the .22 that lurks
beneath this cigarette
scarred mattress
does too
tonight death
tongues my ear
like a sickly whore
in need of el curación...
one more taste
to course the veins
& I offer
no more poetical devices,
no more lame attempts
to purge some fresh
hip language
from this rotten core
& this is not
a poem,
this is no syringe
tossed into
the moldy haystack
of drunken macho man
literature
this is last call
in some busted up bar
where cigarette smoke
stifles the air
like cheap perfume
that drowns
a toothless $10 whore
who sits with one eye
cocked in boredom
as you finger
your change
for a cut-rate taxi
each blackened dime
a memory romanticized
through a thin veil
of alcohol
dope and time
a time when
the world was a flirt
that shivered the senses
in slutty whispers
& none of your friends
were dead
Furniture
Bridgette used to be
a model, but then
even I
used to be
something
like used furniture
that has lost its shape
and style, we rot away
the days
collecting dust
in this roach infested
hotel room
to numb the days
that drip slowly
like rusted rain
from this cracked
plaster ceiling,
Bridgette nods
through a heroin daze
while I try to rescue
a fiery teenage soul lost
between the words that
form these lines
but like a junkie rifling
beneath tattered cushions
of a busted up couch
for a few dimes
to cop the next score,
my fingers fill
with absence
|
RC Edrington