I finally told him,
sitting in
inevitable bar,
noisome with the
ever-present stinks
of spilled beer
and cigarettes,
the stale musky scent
of listless dancing women
thick upon the air.

He sneered at me,
eyes vacant,
mind stained black
by decades
of drink and hate
and said
“You can use her,
you can fuck her,
hell, you can
even love her,
but don’t you ever
bring that nigger
to my home.”

It was out in Venezuela when I ran into this sailor
He was sitting at the bar, right next to me
He was rugged he was mean and he wasn’t very clean
But I listened when he spoke about the sea

There were stories there were tales, of the hunt for killer whales
When his leg was bitten off below the knee
How en route to Senegal they were shipwrecked in squall
He survived for sixteen weeks, tied to a tree

"Shadows Creep"
4th January 2012

Night,
shadows creep,
clocks watching,
still,
breath its strange dance,
currents moving
slow,
window cracks open,
frost dried leaf,
twig,
breezes a lullaby
sleeping head;

when all falls, falling,
deep,
black,
great heaps of earth, mountains,
silent,
speechless,
dead,

no movement
seeming set,
such weight
not sinking, rising up
wedges,
ice on lakes, disturbed;

There I go again
Running like a maniac
Sweating as if
There is real danger

I want to call 911
And beg them
To restrain me

When the cops do arrive
Ill ask them for a Xanax
So I can bury these panics

Shut up already
Now, I start breathing heavy
Great, my date thinks it's her
She screams, check sir

I asked can we talk later
She said no with no excuse
There goes another girl I lose
To my mind the prophylactic