Please

“Shut up, my dear,” I gently disapprove 

the record of squabbles of my fighting
champions. That I never would say, aloof
as I am. Yet a referee siding

the wronged parent of the day, musical
fist-fight displays; I deftly sand off those
abrasive words. An almost farcical
restraint, I discreetly strive to compose

exacting essays in a library
Of expectations. I hear that quarrel
on loop. Dash quick; go forth in liberty!
Raucous retch, my spirit like a feral

child in the basin. Convulsive quivers.
For all to end, I quietly whisper:
(“Please.”)

Sweetest Smoke II

I like the word –
Cigarette.
It draws out sweet and hushed
The slow burn
Of smoke within, without;
Rolling forth between tongue and tooth
Sip, un-sip
I daren’t draw that sound
From out the depths of your bitters –
That glow a damnation –
Lest they wink out sweet and high
Irretrievably into the nigh-tte.

Sweetest Smoke

I remember when
We collided
How you bruised me then
Beautiful flower
Indelibly indigo
Upon my white-throated youth
A plea snatched from my mouth
To feel the slow burn
Twisting into my skin

Branding the pillow of my thighs
In acrid smoke
Sweet and bitterhigh
Ash into the sky
Gasping and watery
Cigarette burns behind my eyes.

Discourse II (Aftermath)

I remember your hands upon my neck
The only time it felt real
As we splintered the final pieces
Everything in pieces
At our bare feet
Again and again
Until the sweat was finally salt enough
For the wounds
And finally we swallowed that ocean
Finding the salt that christened it
Still nothing extending beyond the wall
Of lungs and skinBut courage enough
To rail against that penultimate concrete
Not in anger
Not in hope
Only a tribute offered up

To a futility finally acknowledged
The last of what remained
Left in that empty stairwell
Something intoxicatingly sweet
In that nihilistic abandon
And a final freedom to realize
That sad poems do not rhyme.