WWBD
(What Would Bukowski Do?)
sunday morning tv
shows French
protesters spray paint
black swastikas
on American flags,
while I scratch
my balls, rub sleep
from hungover eyes,
suddenly aware
liquor stores are closed
for 2 more hours,
the only booze here
a half bottle
of cheap French Merlot
abandoned by
this homely college girl
who promised
to score me cash
if I whored
a few pieces of my shit
to her lame
college journal
of modern american
poetry frauds,
and who has now
abandoned me
to the realization
for the next 2 hours
I can be a good american
or a good drunk
Scarred Canvas
Like a lost car
from a funeral promenade
she drifts against the snow-lit shop fronts,
with the collar of her long black trenchcoat
cocked like a vulture wing
against her pale neck and cheekbones.
As she tosses her golden hair,
wheatfields in Kansas sway.
But she does not smile.
She is tired of men
who liken her hair to wheatfields,
who claim to see mermaids puddling
in the powder blue pools of her eyes.
She does not smile.
She does not want me
to call her teeth pearls
then pluck them away while she sleeps.
Pausing,
she stares through her reflection
on a gallery window,
and into a fresh stained canvas
as though it were the familiar face
of someone she once may have loved.
A face which pulls her into a world
draped in red and purple hues
on nights she feels like shades of gray.
A world where she almost...
but she does not smile.
As she raises her trembling hands
to wipe fresh teardrops from her eyes,
she's reminded of the thin scars
carved up and down her frail wrists.
And she slowly fades
into the unlit alley way...
fades like a much too perfect rose
in the violent hands
of the narcissistic artist,
brushed away by falling snow.
Stay
in absence of my chest ablaze
in a fiery tangle
of your teased red hair,
you sleepily exale
a kaleidoscope of dreams
and promises left unfilled
while this drunken hero
splashes brandy
into a plastic cup,
inhales the butt of night
for its last hit of smoke,
then grinds it away
into the bedpost.
I know you must leave,
but must you leave
the sweat and musk
of my spent body
to linger like the scent
of some exotic douche
between your thighs
as you slip into your panties
to rush home to a husband
who has left unfilled
even more of your dreams
than I?
As She Sleeps
for Camille
Words that touch me
in ways lips,
fingers never will.
Her voice
a caress
that dimples the skin
taught upon my soul.
I want to listen
hour upon hour,
and often do...
while she lays asleep,
while my cigarette burns,
when the whiskey fails
to carry me
to a shelter that exists
only in her dreams.
7 a.m.
you cuddle nude in my bed
snug as a bug between pillows,
as though you belong there,
while I sit
at this kitchen table
choke down bits of bagel
between shots of Jack Daniels
last night
you wanted love,
I just wanted to lose myself
inside the ache of your skin
this morning I sit and stare
at your naked legs and breasts
and wait for you to wake
to decide if
you still will want
what you think
you may have found
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RC Edrington currently prides himself in being a bum, and long ago gave up
the 9 to 5 slave cycle. He currently writes, paints, drinks, and spends long
hours hunched over a pool table. Writing "poetry" for the last 10 years, he
has only recently mustered the stamina required to send his stuff out for
publication. His next chapbook is due out Summer 2003 by Babel Magazine.Sisyphus Press will be releasing my
chapbook, tentatively titled "Exploited Images", as a part of their "Outlaw Series" this summer - 2003 I publish a
monthly 1 page ezine called "Spent Meat" I am always accepting submissions of poetry, short stories, reviews and artwork. |
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