Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 Nov 2021 L B
Acme
AIDS
 Nov 2021 L B
Acme
Coworker on a bus after nightshift
Waltham to Boston. He said he was sick
in a serious way. Doctors baffled and
he feeling worse by the day. I told him
not to worry because he'd be better soon.
They always figure it out. He died. AIDS.
Several years later at an AIDS hospice
I heard the rattled breath at deaths door.
Barely able to hold his cane he stood then
struggled mighty to make it to his grave.
Rod. I wish you had known him.
 Nov 2021 L B
Thomas W Case
Just in case you
couldn't
guess, it's not a
a fair fight
or a level
playing field.

It's you with
boxing gloves
and them with
machine guns.

It's Van Gogh
throwing his paintings
out the window
to stop the hecklers.

It's Janis falling
down
the stairs, lonely
and
broken
looking for love.

It's Morrison seeing
the game for
what it was,
wanting to disappear
in France and
write poetry,
then dying in a
bathtub with a
witch in the wings.

It's morphine dreams
and thorazine days.
It's the tiger
declawed and lobotomized
at the zoo.

It's the lobster
cursed with
precious meat.

It's the statue of liberty,
burning her bra
and impaling
working class men with
her stiletto heels.

It's Gogol
dying after a
prolonged fast,
because a charlatan
told him
it was evil.

It's the elephant
domesticated by
the cage, but
still dreaming of
the Serengeti.

It's the dolphin in
a Hollywood
swimming pool,
a shark in your
coffee cup;
it's the criminality
of releasing the insane
from their cages to
wander the streets of
Santa Barbara.

It's pathetic and putrid,
a setup up;
the perfect tragedy;
a crime that goes beyond
denunciation.

It's what they will continue
to do to
you and me
until someone or something
intervenes.
 Nov 2021 L B
Donall Dempsey
TINY CLINGING CURLS

I remember you
looking almost

Audrey Hepburn-ish.

My big sister
& oh...that smile!

Touching my world
with the wonder of your

love.

We are Christmas-ing
the place

living in the candle's
glow

love
nothing but love

in almost slow motion.

The holly bites
your little finger.

I ****
the drop of blood

that grows
& grows

until it is
kissed better.

You laugh:
'Ah...my little saviour! '

and sigh with an almost
mock Victorian swoon.

Tiny curls cling
to the nape of your neck

like the tiniest
of tiny seahorses.      

We swim
in the sea

of our laughter.

The next Christmas
you were dead

lost to this
world

leaving me
alone

to mourn
you.

I...unable to
save you.

Now...all these years
later

(years you never knew)      

the holly
bites my little finger

& I **** it
quickly

tasting through
my tears

the sweet tang
of your blood

still so alive
in my mouth.
Next page