Mekong Delta Blues

Each quickened breath of mine requests
A key to usher furtive poems into your home
Writ in perfect penmanship
To mask my vapid tongue
And be hidden among private possessions

Each illicit tome in its black-on-red envelope
Left to be collected and decoded 
Is in need of eyes to burn through every word
Like the iron pressed into my flesh
Leaves your name in ink indelible and fresh

Secret sentiments pulse through veins
And seek release before they peak
Causing aspiration in my respiration
Words left to drag and lift like kites
Hover over us like night-lit satellites

Silence as the tape hiss heeds
and two stirring heads cease
rotating. The last brittle sliver of daylight
abates. There is nothing to
hold onto. There is no one to keep.

Soothed by a low tone from
across the darkened hall.
Rushed like blood from a gash.
Another unkept promise
has taught me to watch my ass.

I love a sad misfit
A madman in motley
Too fucked up, and depraved 
Too smart for his own good
Who can build a brilliant fire
And then self-immolate
That’s the story I long to tell.

The sizzle of embers as they fade upward.
The orange/white glow of the ghost flame.
Holding up a hand to the light
To see the shadows of veins
The circuitry of you.
Close enough to melt flesh.
How do you not feel it?
Does the smoke not cloud your sight?
Burn your throat and eyes?
Crack your icy exterior?
So I can chip off a piece for keeps?

This system shock is only temporary.
A mistake.
A dose too high.
A fluttered eyelid
A heavy sigh
The world shrinks
The grass waves goodbye.
I should never have raised my glass
Asked to partake
And shrugged abruptly when invited.

Too much to drink tonight
Perilous uphill road home looms
In the not-so-distant distance
It’s easier to roll backwards
An unwinding wristwatch
Waiting for a passenger
To find the brakes for me
Eternal enmity between
Myself and me
Hoping to awaken
Wishfully thinking,
“Today is for sunshine and tranquility.”

Lonesome, awake and restless
This bed is a maze
Of tattered, torn blankets
It was not always so bleak
There were whispers, secrets
Passed beneath these sheets
With a soft lullaby sing-song voice
She was my sedative
With red eyes
We watched smoke rise
And billow in the sky
Clouds that would shift and die
Our end is nigh
My little lie
Her soft cries
Everything ends in strife

There is an incalculable vastness to this immense blanket of cold
That chills us to our cores. And yet we choose wander through
The endless pearly-white expanse in search of space enough
To concentrate on some solitary notion too abstract to catch.
We should hibernate in place of seeking out our fate.

Your rakish mane and painted face
Belie what you keep fettered inside
The market spills into the street
We chase and hide only to deny
What it is we truly crave

The talcum light of late-night city life
Is just enough to guide us to our prize