Twisted Love Poems

 

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One

 

She picked a plot and buried him in it,

her claim of earth rib-rubbing the chains around his chest,

Adam's apple pressed tightly to her lips,

witch of Salem sending innocents to their doom,

able to sink in well-water and survive,

able to bear his fire,

his painted eyes filled with raging lust.

She: forever paying the fee of sipping blood,

He: learning the one and only eternal truth:

when playing with vampires, expect to be bitten.

 

 

Two

 

His mad hands made women

a private joke,

lover,

cause of pain,

a macho rapist

covering his tracks

in flowers and candy,

bearing the mark

of his dubious glory

with scratched out names

on his refrigerator,

A Red Baron of broken hearts

and little shame,

who, when his turn came,

cried foul

the loudest

 

 

Three

 

She came knocking at my door

with nothing more than a towel on,

the hard nipples of her small breasts

poking through the terry cloth

like bullets

 

"I locked myself out of my room,"

she said, looking me up and down

as if I was for breakfast, she, 18

and on her own, the first woman

in the Montclair rooming house

after its conversation from a two

family Victorian

 

So young, she trembled, her gaze asking

me to invite her in, knowing only the slimy

landlord had a spare key to her room,

believing she could spend the day

warming herself between my sheets.

 

My knees trembled.

I was alone in the world.

Only God knows why

I slammed the door

in her face.

 

 

Four

 

He never got sick of beer or women,

sampling a new brand of each whenever he went out on the town,

collecting them like trophies for his finished basement shelf,

photographs of their naked bodies next to each empty can,

and as, the manager of a fast food emporium,

he had his pick fifteen year old girls in short-skirted uniforms

who begged for his approval on hands and knees,

living up to job titles as service industry employees,

heads bobbing, mouths moaning,

while he sat at his desk chair sweating,

one ear pressed to the phone,

swearing perfect fidelity to the woman on the other end,

who had just been admitted to the hospital

for the fifth time in so many babies...

 

 

Five

 

You feel like a cad when you marry them off,

their face imprisoned by lace,

eyes still innocent, intact,

unviolated by the rules of this new social order,

their ex-lovers lined in the pews,

a judge and jury,

while a stranger lifts her left hand,

cuffing the third finger in gold,

promising life and death,

eyes drooling lies,

with you resisting the urge

to find pitch fork and torch

before they take the final vow,

watching instead the specks of dust

rising across the sunlight

as you're set free.

 

 

Six

 

I think of you as a still life photograph,

a glass missing a sip of wine,

a Beaujolais spun so carefully around the inner rim

its stain still distorts the glass,

while at the tables center you sprout a rose

red bud limp over the wide lip of a emerald vase

 

You of course are nowhere in this picture,

it is all atmosphere,

an empty seat still quivering of where you'd been

your narrow eyes a memory of passion

while I still just this side of the camera's lens

an empty glass, a deflowered rose,

a stained napkin

 

 

Seven

 

She breathes blue

to a three quarter beat,

the wind whirling around her ears

and white colored hair

strands of water rushing

the shore like a string of wild horses

washing up to her feet,

 

she writing her name in sand dunes

watching the waves wash it away,

over and over

as if she never existed,

she full of the urge to run out and sink

smiling through cracked lips,

fingers twirling pearls,

screaming to the screaming gulls

which beg not for pearls but food

she feeds them,

as if she had given them birth

 

 

Eight

 

Damn them,

I watch their aura take you in

another netted fish

to be sizzled over an open flame

 

and me,

with my webbed feet

too shaky to follow

up on to land

 

I stare as the lights burn

scalding in your eyes

reflecting interest

 

hooked and cooked already,

fascinated by the distorted images

on the bright side of the water

 

damn them.

 

 

Nine

 

the blizzard came,

after you were gone,

pounding on my back

with his frigid fists

as I made the long walk

from downtown,

turn-of-the-century

brick-faced buildings

grinning at me

through the shroud of snow,

my foot prints marring

the perfection of their walk,

reminding me of the place

uptown where you live,

where servant spy me

as rapist or burglar

instead of your date,

I wanted you to stay

and catch the snow flakes

with me,

exposing our tongues

to the raw lash of winter,

where my small wallet

meaning nothing in

the melting snow,

I wanted you to walk

this way with me,

studying the snow-laden limbs,

the ice-encrusted weeds,

in search of warmth.

But now, I stumbled

along this frozen waste,

my footsteps filling in

behind me,

as if I'd never passed

this way.

 

 

Ten

 

You always were persistent,

your step sure in the shiftless sand,

inches behind my heal,

refusing to fade the way mine do,

the wavering water washing up,

sinking in at the toes,

the deep impression of your life,

always remarked upon,

leaving that satisfied taste

of completeness behind, while I,

in constant struggle within myself,

looking for ways to make my name,

a Wall Street broker,

a notorious book peddler,

a hustling, rustling bandit of the street,

almost ready to wash your feet

or windshield for your secret, me,

the invisible foot on the sand,

my suit, tie and shimmering shoes

meaningless here among the pixies

and gypsies of your imagination,

like a gull's bloated body

in the low hung clouds, grey upon grey,

while you, a stark, white gull

with black head laughing,

even at the waves that crush you....

 


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