paper cuts

[rastas edible]

a time for waste and bad taste...
long lines of white and fiends and friends
and absolutely no difference along
these spotted roads and black-tar dream-aways...

she said i had alot of class, but it was all
low and snake-bellied, ragged and worn
with an edge to it...
class that fit into her night and schedule...
if only she didn't have to hold me steady by my hair

with her white-knuckled fist pulling out strands
that were once soft as rain...now only
greased and eased outta my blue tissue paper eyes,
crumpled by thoughts of what comes next...

last call or her appetite or states of grace and free-
falling faster than einstein's laws can predict...

no flight...no fight...no light...

no reason but two thumbs up from the bartender...
i nod and pay the man and he eases a sweating bottle
into my shaking hand...

i could have almost smiled

almost...

hardcore and nothing more...and her mouth was
a frantic "O" of lipstick, an impossible shade of
red somewhere on the spectrum between new blood and sunrise...

her cigarette grew an ash as long as her sigh,
as impressive as my thirst...she turned
away too soon...
didn't see me catch fire, from the eyes first, then
the breath...
then it took care of itself from there...

quickly and all at once...

[Nick Scratch]

i want to hear you read this poem. you know i've always said poems are meant to be read aloud. that's why i always thought it a lame gimmick when dudes would write poems in the shape of something on a page, a chicken or a flower. concrete poetry, is that what it's called? that's not poetry. this is. pure and raw and bleeding.

[teh-horace]

again, i dig the way you avoid anything cookie-cutter-like

i also love how dirty this poem feels (dirty as in dirty, like dirt, not dirty as in naughty - although it kind of has that vibe also)