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DAEJR Feb 2013
The frigid air catches between her shoulder blades
winding the wings of the key.
She begins to shiver to life as gears are set to motion.
                                                         ­          The wooden bench shrinks,
her lips begin to part and let out
                                                             ­          balmy breath of steam
                                                           ­                                                                 ­    a smog that fogs his glasses.
She’s wound and bound to kiss him.
                                                            ­                                                                 ­                   He wants this, too.
                                                            ­                                                                 ­     His engine begins to putter
                                                          ­                                                                 ­              as he begins to pucker.
                                                         ­              Their cold lips meet,
and while an explosion in her core smolders,
                                                       ­                                                                 ­                 he feels like a machine,
                                                        ­                                                                 ­    running through the motions,
                                                        ­                                                                 ­             trying to produce magic,
                                                          ­                                                                 ­                   but feeling artificial.
                                                     ­                                                                 ­                  A bolt must be *******,
                                                        ­                                                                 ­                       a wire out of place,
                                                          ­                                                               something is jamming his gears,
                                                          ­                                                                 ­                 a rhythm out of beat.
                                                           ­                                                                 ­                  He should feel alive.
                                                          ­                                                                 ­                  He should want this.
                                                           ­                                                                 ­                 He should want this.
                                                           ­             Its just animatronics.
                                                   ­           Aren’t men built to love women?
                                                          ­          He pushes her face off his.
                                                            ­                            Anxiety fills his pipes and dew begins to condensate,
while the fire in her eyes are put out by the black
like oil streaking her face.
                                                           ­                                                                 ­                                  He’s sorry.
                                                          ­                                                                 ­                               He’s so sorry.
                                                          ­                   He hurt her.
                                                            ­                                                                 ­                      He hurt a friend.
                                                    Wind so white fills the distance between them
                                                            ­His wet hands grab her red mittens,
but she flinches and protects them like tiny finches
and puts them back inside her cage,
safe in her black pocket,
and walks away, leaking,
busted and broken.
White erases her.
                                                            ­                       He’s left to be a Tin Man who wants to rust in the snow.
                                                           ­                                                        A dent has shattered his almost love,
                                                           ­                                                        and a first kiss he wished he missed.
Just a work in progress like all my other poems. Experimenting with sides of a poem.
DAEJR Feb 2013
Jesus hangs from my rearview mirror,
forced to sway from side to side to the Devil's music --
Big Brother with His ever watchful, weeping lenses.

Most nights I ignore His chimes as He bashes
other charms and mementos on silver chains,
but from the corner of my eye I pray for forgiveness

as His aura changes from red to green.
Sins and skidmarks are left behind the white line
and ***** palms -- wet and hope streaked -- drive the wheel home.
DAEJR Dec 2012
We broke a child yesterday,
and here we are left to pay.

We broke a child yesterday,
ignorant to warnings, now our dismay.

                                                        ­                                                                 Mommy! Mommy! He is afraid,
                                                         ­                                              from the gum, and spit, and word grenade.

                                                       ­                                                              Friend, Friend! Please raise a hand,
                                                           ­                                                         but not to break blood on the sand.

                                                          ­                                                            Teach­er, Teacher! Do you not hear,
                                                           ­                                                                 ­          or see him cower in fear?

                                                          ­                                                                G­od! God! Where are you now?
                                                            ­                                                  He unloads in a gun to help him avow!

Now what seems like any other day,
is broke by thunder, while they play.

We broke a child yesterday,
and here we are left to pay.

We still break children here today,
for race, and size, and mind, and ‘cause they’re gay.

We break children every day,
yet we blame them when they fray.

So say sorry for all who lay,
under a hospital tray, or wet clay.
DAEJR Dec 2012
Close.
The tea steeps
as you begin to step
from wet concrete
through the rust
screen door.
I’ve been skulking
around my skull
and bare cupboards
shelves.
I know I misplaced
our place,
its here somewhere
dusty.
You stand there,
damp denim, penetrating
my focus –
wet.
Wax trail slugs
slide down
hitting bare wood
gentle but as forceful
as a slug
to the jaw.
The moth dyed
the goo with wings
and scales
and fear when it
died.
                                                                                                                                              "Why are you here?
                                                                                                                                                        I’m not ready!
                                                                                                                                                                  Not yet!
                                                                                                                                                            Please stay!
                                                                                                                                                          One minute!
                                                                                                                                                                     Stay!"
So, that’s where it went.
You stole it back
behind broken ribs,
those wounds
when we fell
back.
The tea is black.
I walk till I’m so close
enough that you could close
your arms, pull me in close,
but you don’t, you pull
you’re salt-crusted heart
close.
DAEJR Nov 2012
I don’t remember
a me before I was birthed
into blood and time.

Maybe we are dreams,
made from clotted memories,
of a dying god.

Manifestation,
through the beautiful decay
will free us, this love.
DAEJR Nov 2012
following the road reflectors
like bread crumbs along asphalt
my tires painting their prints
into the moist skin of the road
mmmmmmm
that hum
the soothing purr of the engine
sometimes it’s all I need to hear
to feel like I’m going somewhere
weaving through the black
following the light
aimlessly
or maybe I’m fleeing
from the gnawing and piercing will
of the demons at my heels
a distance to separate
us between fumes
and fog
it was clear
I needed to leave though
I’ll take this baby as far as she’ll go
till she breaks down along
the shoulder
and I have to turn off the lights
even then my feet will touch pavement
and we’ll walk together in the dark
with my eye  lids closed
so that I know when
I’ve found my
light
because I’ll have wandered off the road
with its distracting signs, guides, and reflectors
I’ll have made a more direct path
I’ll look for that dim glow
a flicker that draws me
from behind the skin
on my eyes
I'll welcome
the thorns and splinters
and I’ll walk straight towards it
till it grows brighter than the sun’s
starry spray of flashing colors
and I’ll open my eyelids
to find home
starring back
in your
pupils
DAEJR Nov 2012
Nothing is a thoughtful word
that we take for granted.

Nothing is everything it’s not.

It is not a word.
Yet we use one to describe it.

It is not a sound.
Yet we say that we hear it.

It is not a place.
Yet we hate when we’re nowhere.

It is not a feeling
Yet we try desperately to feel it.

It is not a person.
Yet there are so many nobodies.

It exists as something it simply isn’t.
Yet I fear it is God and Truth –
Everything.

So why then, in its infinite existing inexistence,
this void that is being without being,
do I exist?
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