Tame Flame

Master fears his hot-headed lackey;
confines it to metal, ceramic, stone.
Watching, waiting, he fears in degrees:
first, second, and finally most feared: third; it exposes bone.

Metrics, however, abound: flash-points and no-smoking signs belie the perverse intimacy
of the user and the used,
owner and the unownable.
Both dance the dance of fiendish intricacy.

Taught to act on aftermath, fallout,
I wonder where prevention is discussed.

A Bill for Love's Lading

I bought your love with a fairy-tale
a functional fiction, fallacious and fantastic.
I weighted each word on a scale
geared for feathers
constructed in bronze.
Burned it with brevity,
impregnated each pause.

I took from you the truth,
and placed it in my mouth,
stabbed it with an incisor,
dared your tongue to take it out.

counting/coveting

Since I have learned to count
I have learned to covet
the coveting and the counting
come together in the numbers
in my wallet
in my waking
in my bed,
in my taking.

I make a mathematic connection
of your birthdate and mine
a crude gematria of our names

October. November. December.

The fall,
the utter fucking waste.

A field lying fallow
a cigarette in the marrow
broken, burnished faith.

Each day, each hour,
a little more sober,
counting inches to suicide
coveting every pause.