Snake Oil Salesman

With charisma and shrewdness you can sell nothing to everyone, 

until they finally wise up chase you out of town. 

You are a snake oil salesman.

You could charm the orgone out of a cobra. Not just tranquilize the serpent with your hollow flute-melody, but make it writhe in misled convulsions of ecstasy--

much like what you did to me.

Our love was counterfeit, 

much like the synthetic heroin we sniffed and swallowed. 

You had me, snake oil glistening in your hair, venom oozing from your palms. 

You used to tell me about riding the railways, living the life of El Vagabondo 

and every time I’d hear your song it would stir up 

an orgasm of hope and enthusiasm 

for us and our wayward, unorthodox marriage-mirage. 

After every Une Petite Mort, every little death when my body lay calm and shivering, 

you would bask in a methadone quiver 

coming off the high of a lie 

about the grandiose-what-could-be, 

and every orgasm would be one climax closer to death. 

The dream died, you’ve left town. Gone to push another possibility to some other young undeserving woman who believes in quack doctors, love, and snake oil.

Just Shit

In the morning

I remove creamy panties,

soiled by the night spent alone.

I have a bad case of smokers’ curse,

stepping out into the cold,

chasing air of some sort of substance,

instead

I fill my ribs 

with something fleeting and futile,

coughing up infinite phlegm

and exhaling wisps of nothing.

Sometimes

its satisfying to look back down into the toilet

and confirm that there is 

something that testifies for

your existence,

even when that something is 

Just Shit.

At night

I dress my wounds

unwind my bandages,

tally the aches in my heart,

tend the sores on my skin,

swallow horse pills.

Crawl under the covers, 

knowing that I am already not ready 

to get out of bed.

Wine

Its rare to hear coyotes in the suburbs.

or trains.

or have a nearly fully waxed moon beaming in the sky.

or return home to an empty house that usually breathes seven.

or have a full bottle of wine, for myself and myself only.

I’m tired of happy and sad,

but mostly the debilitating limbo in between.

My muscles ache from the stretch over the canyons.

searching for that green grass,

at the bottom of the bottle.

The cork breathes as deep as I do,

when its uncorked,

undone,

removed from context.

The inside is dark and moist,

perfect to intensify and ferment.

Like I am a grape, 

plump, succulent, fresh,

with so much potential to poison,

wither, secrete;

something so bitter and sweet.

I’m tired of plucking myself from 

sun-ripened branches,

and falling into dark misery.

Casked, and corked.

Contained

in polished sorrow.

Vomit

I can taste the fire spit before I throw up,

and see the love stains still left on our blankets.

Even after the vomit, 

the pit of dread hasn’t left my stomach.

The whole thing feels like the airbag exploded far before the accident,

like driving over a sheet of metal,

that destroys from the under carriage,

and slices within.

Where do you begin to help yourself when sickness isn’t only coming from within?

and the aching isn’t just from the alcohol,

but a weakness of the heart,

and somewhere deep within,

starting from the delta between your legs,

and seeping through to the marrow of what you know,

where do you begin?

Mixtures of Elixirs

Insert [complacency] here.

The quest to contact and connect,

its tough.

With the mixtures of elixirs.

I can find distance and dissonance

in static sounds and smiles,

He says, 

“The only alienation is you,

alienating yourself.”

He means by what I feel, not what I do.

He asks,

“What’s holding you back?”

Insert [distraction] here.

I don’t have an answer, or direction,

utter to myself, “stupid shit.”

Its all just excuses and illusions.

Left-Eye-Lazy-Love

I track my ups and downs,

but not my lefts and rights,

or my rights and wrongs.

I get caught staring at my shadows,

and crawling towards the sun.

On my eyelids are hieroglyphic imprints

from longing for the stars, whether it be something pure

like a dream or a vision,

or a scar from some UV cancer

that feeds on my skin that makes my hair stand erect

and salute.

I’m begging for, desiring for

some warm atmospheric touch.

Staring at shadows, exhaling dirt and secrets

to a doctor or something divine--

Searching for somewhere to cry, whether its appropriate or not.

My shadows cast vast across a barren desert.

The heat. The crust. The dryness. The crackle. The foreboding.

Somewhere so desolate that a shadow stands as an unwelcome stranger;

sometimes we make love here.

Sometimes our love making doesn’t show our love,

but it is in the left-eye lazy-eyed gazes,

and that is where I forget my rights,

and my ups, and my lefts, and my wrongs.

Cigarettes and Bells

She laid in bed and counted,

not sheep,

but how many cigarettes she had smoked that day;

knowing that not only did the surgeon general not approve,

neither did her parents.

She brought what she had promised.

Bells to tie around her ankles,

so that her elders could tell

if she’d missed a step in her ritual dance.

She learned then that

acceptance and approval are two different things.

She promised she wouldn’t be naked anymore--

she wouldn’t victimize herself to scrutiny.

Dances are done for the approval of others,

and she wouldn’t step into those bells again.

But she missed the twinkle that followed her feet

and couldn’t accept herself 

with a silent serenade.

She smoked more cigarettes than ever.

Became less nude, more naked.

Breathed pleas, and wisps, and questions, and

ultimately, just smoke.

She learned that liberation can be lonely.

Her ankles didn’t bleed,

but the cigarettes started to make her choke.