Twisted Love Poems
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One
She picked a plot and buried him in it,
her claim of earth rib-rubbing the chains around his chest,
Adam's apple pressed tightly to her lips,
witch of Salem sending innocents to their doom,
able to sink in well-water and survive,
able to bear his fire,
his painted eyes filled with raging lust.
She: forever paying the fee of sipping blood,
He: learning the one and only eternal truth:
when playing with vampires, expect to be bitten.
Two
His mad hands made women
a private joke,
lover,
cause of pain,
a macho rapist
covering his tracks
in flowers and candy,
bearing the mark
of his dubious glory
with scratched out names
on his refrigerator,
A Red Baron of broken hearts
and little shame,
who, when his turn came,
cried foul
the loudest
Three
She came knocking at my door
with nothing more than a towel on,
the hard nipples of her small breasts
poking through the terry cloth
like bullets
"I locked myself out of my room,"
she said, looking me up and down
as if I was for breakfast, she, 18
and on her own, the first woman
in the Montclair rooming house
after its conversation from a two
family Victorian
So young, she trembled, her gaze asking
me to invite her in, knowing only the slimy
landlord had a spare key to her room,
believing she could spend the day
warming herself between my sheets.
My knees trembled.
I was alone in the world.
Only God knows why
I slammed the door
in her face.
Four
He never got sick of beer or women,
sampling a new brand of each whenever he went out on the town,
collecting them like trophies for his finished basement shelf,
photographs of their naked bodies next to each empty can,
and as, the manager of a fast food emporium,
he had his pick fifteen year old girls in short-skirted uniforms
who begged for his approval on hands and knees,
living up to job titles as service industry employees,
heads bobbing, mouths moaning,
while he sat at his desk chair sweating,
one ear pressed to the phone,
swearing perfect fidelity to the woman on the other end,
who had just been admitted to the hospital
for the fifth time in so many babies...
Five
You feel like a cad when you marry them off,
their face imprisoned by lace,
eyes still innocent, intact,
unviolated by the rules of this new social order,
their ex-lovers lined in the pews,
a judge and jury,
while a stranger lifts her left hand,
cuffing the third finger in gold,
promising life and death,
eyes drooling lies,
with you resisting the urge
to find pitch fork and torch
before they take the final vow,
watching instead the specks of dust
rising across the sunlight
as you're set free.
Six
I think of you as a still life photograph,
a glass missing a sip of wine,
a Beaujolais spun so carefully around the inner rim
its stain still distorts the glass,
while at the tables center you sprout a rose
red bud limp over the wide lip of a emerald vase
You of course are nowhere in this picture,
it is all atmosphere,
an empty seat still quivering of where you'd been
your narrow eyes a memory of passion
while I still just this side of the camera's lens
an empty glass, a deflowered rose,
a stained napkin
Seven
She breathes blue
to a three quarter beat,
the wind whirling around her ears
and white colored hair
strands of water rushing
the shore like a string of wild horses
washing up to her feet,
she writing her name in sand dunes
watching the waves wash it away,
over and over
as if she never existed,
she full of the urge to run out and sink
smiling through cracked lips,
fingers twirling pearls,
screaming to the screaming gulls
which beg not for pearls but food
she feeds them,
as if she had given them birth
Eight
Damn them,
I watch their aura take you in
another netted fish
to be sizzled over an open flame
and me,
with my webbed feet
too shaky to follow
up on to land
I stare as the lights burn
scalding in your eyes
reflecting interest
hooked and cooked already,
fascinated by the distorted images
on the bright side of the water
damn them.
Nine
the blizzard came,
after you were gone,
pounding on my back
with his frigid fists
as I made the long walk
from downtown,
turn-of-the-century
brick-faced buildings
grinning at me
through the shroud of snow,
my foot prints marring
the perfection of their walk,
reminding me of the place
uptown where you live,
where servant spy me
as rapist or burglar
instead of your date,
I wanted you to stay
and catch the snow flakes
with me,
exposing our tongues
to the raw lash of winter,
where my small wallet
meaning nothing in
the melting snow,
I wanted you to walk
this way with me,
studying the snow-laden limbs,
the ice-encrusted weeds,
in search of warmth.
But now, I stumbled
along this frozen waste,
my footsteps filling in
behind me,
as if I'd never passed
this way.
Ten
You always were persistent,
your step sure in the shiftless sand,
inches behind my heal,
refusing to fade the way mine do,
the wavering water washing up,
sinking in at the toes,
the deep impression of your life,
always remarked upon,
leaving that satisfied taste
of completeness behind, while I,
in constant struggle within myself,
looking for ways to make my name,
a Wall Street broker,
a notorious book peddler,
a hustling, rustling bandit of the street,
almost ready to wash your feet
or windshield for your secret, me,
the invisible foot on the sand,
my suit, tie and shimmering shoes
meaningless here among the pixies
and gypsies of your imagination,
like a gull's bloated body
in the low hung clouds, grey upon grey,
while you, a stark, white gull
with black head laughing,
even at the waves that crush you....