pay me only in these small, barricaded places_

as we glint like
discarded
             bottle-corpses
along the woody
edge.

pad-traps
      for
perimeter-pointing
   hounds ,
  let loose
  under the

dark-foot gauze of the
     equinox night.


vessel-hearted :
     known to have contained

beloved ghost of
       a land
       before
       fence-land .


yet solid as
              the
          moon .

the rowdy, disorderly, and wicked
at the Black Heart Bar
chatting like neighbors
in the evening...


"...and the toilet don't flush
and the corner boys are singing
and the window don't shut"

"so move,
do you have family?"

"no
dead
all dead
all *******
anyway. "...


...L.A. Woman
comes on the jukebox
and soon the bartender's
grandma begins
singing along

the woman across the bar
is shaking her head
and the guy in the corner

is tapping his fingers on the bar

and the barmaid is smiling

and reborn are the memories
that save us for a few hours
and for the length of a song
we are not the ghosts
we have become

we are the lotus flower
rising from dark, muddy waters

the night moves in time
with your hips
and the rhyme on your lips
is my reason to tip

let me taste it
I won't waste it
exhaling your soul on these pages

can you fake it
while I make it
put a show on
forget where the stage is

you're now alive
thanks to me
shedding skin
so I can feel

the way the night moves
under a dark moon
the cost to put out
the light in a back room

I know you taste it
bittersweet
anathemic
lust worth the fee

just come with me
and don't forget to breathe

you're not alive
thanks to who?
shedding skin among the darkness

and I'll survive
thanks to you
worshipping a godless goddess

we worship the same open sky
some of us asking why
some think of how
some wonder who
but me
my thoughts are clouded by you

some of us manage
to be vulnerable as naked
in private

some need holding up
in sight from my window