Night 136 Slipping Into Morning — Four New Poems (Between, His Best Customer, Licks Her Fur, In This Stillness)

I have been revising all of my old poetry, the almost 150 pages of loose first drafts that I found in my storage space from the past 20 odd years, and the writing is going well with a precise and finished feel. It is a pleasure to know that John Lavitt is singing the song he was put here on this earth to sing. 

The Puzzle of a Man - Let Me Show You What Can Be Found Within...

Here are four new poems...

between

between the first step taken

and lying down on a leather couch,

between the opening of a door

and the turning of the bedroom lock,

between putting pen to paper

and checking out what’s in the fridge

fall the sunken eyes of ennui.

between the biting of a nail

and the opening of a fist,

between the twitching of a palm

and the raising of a thumb,

between the flapping of tongues

and the calmness of silence

stands the bright shadow of courage.

his best customer

when the crack dealer

told me late one night

i was his best customer,

maybe, just maybe

it was time to stop.

he hides salvation

under his tongue;

sweet bitter ivory flakes.

perfect hunger answered,

in a transubstantiation

as the product is spit

into my quivering palm.

the best have dry mouths.

new boys all spittle and slobber,

the sacred reduced to sticky icky

and the eucharist wiped away.

i never learned his name

but he always took my money.

as i drove away drowning,

he hid the silver in his jowls.

licks her fur

with a royal languor,

the persian licks her fur,

clean as only a cat can be.

hairless apes waste so much water,

washing away the wondrous dirt,

ignorant to the story in the earth.

barely recall what the pet looked like,

all those years ago on that velvet couch

in an expensive paris apartment.

i search today for the feline soul,

but the cat's eye infected by invention;

there is nothing to find beyond myself.

in this stillness

my fingers grazed across the shallow of your back,

you spoke so softly, licking the inside of my ear.

each fleeting headstand worth ten thousand words.

you were there and i wasn’t. reality long gone.

i sang songs so sweet the emptiness disappeared,

i sang of a wooden puppet on the strings of desire.

you left me leaning on the crutches of bones,

my proclamations knocked over the ashtray.

did i make a mess when the rose failed to flower?

after the awkward hours of that night,

the first and last departure came and went.

did you pass the shallows, a sunken ship?

i always manage to stumble in a passionate fog,

my eyes forever blind to the obvious signs.

as the door closed, the boy still believed.

in the stillness of the darkest hour,

i still watch your car, behold one more vanishing,

the darkest car of the darkest night.

beyond the wailing of city lights,

you faded amid such glorified memories.

i would have forgiven you if you had returned.

the myth of the return everlasting,

fireworks under my skin, explosive beating;

frustrated, i cannot be still in this stillness.

my emptiness was never about you.

an impoverished tongue speaking in tongues.

every night, the fetish is born anew.

i do not even remember what you looked like.

who you really are lost in the drowning tides.

i craft this straw ballad to be, a dream solitary.

if you dream of love and you are alone,

do you betray the goddess of the heart?

i don’t know. i nod off in a vacant bed.