Blood Money

A rumbling, roving
growling lowly sickness
in the very pit of my stomach
That’s how it is
That’s what it feels like

I want to close my eyes
but I’m jacked on caffeine
& I know the only way out
is d
    o
    w
    n

[who’s the professional now?]

I snicker when you yowl to
Watch my language but
Language is the only thing I have left
To drown you [OUT]

                          
                          

                        
  I’m afraid our session has ended
Pay within: the only currency you own

/LM

Here You Come

His jaw is tipped floor-ward
Grazed fingers grip the table

He knows this interrogation
Isn’t going to go well

They’ve been buzzing about the truth
For an hour and a half

Regardless the detective knows
He smells

His car is a shuttle to and from
the dumping ground

And it is so late now
So unimportantly late

Take a look at this, he says
This sweet angel’s face

She didn’t harm a fly,
She couldn’t buy a drink

She had every opportunity
In this world // and here You come

–LM

2 AM on the Dot

Nightmares trickle down the
Thinnest lines from each
Nostril and they’re bombshell red

Moments before/ a stoic man plunged
his termination sign into the snow

[paying no mind to the bumbling creek

                            BE
                            LOW]

I met a man in a coffee shop, I don’t drink
the lot, but the tip I leave is nice and sweet

You have the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen

Our conversation was short lived
because I tend to
              bodge it
Refute it of all logic

You claim to know what I’m hiding
& it’s quite intriguing
You claim to know what I refuse to see

My wily subconscious mind
Are you also my enemy?

you must be_
Waking at 2 AM on the dot
Just to show a death plot, vividly

–LM

Don’t Look

Days and weeks have passed
& you and I__ handsfolded__ are no closer
to the surface

No nearer to warmth, air
Nor sun

I was aching
thriving on despair
yet courage won

& if I could play a lyre
like Orpheus
I’d sink into the underworld
just to save you with my song

–LM

A Muse

Now your back is to me
& you’re snoring
Fluttering away in a dream

I cannot help that I cannot forget
the past

I think of brushing two fingertips
Alo
ng
yo
ur
sp
in
E

I keep having bad dreams
& I wake & they dissolve

Everything I write is crowded
Awful, loud, diseased

So much you don’t even read
What I write anymore

I break off a nail
I’ve peeled the burn from my finger
& it’s a scar now

I am covered in scars
Some you cannot see
Some I will make goddamn sure you do
Especially if I have the slightest sense
You
Are not telling the truth

I don’t hate you
I don’t hate you

–LM

The Truth

I don’t want my mother to visit my grave
& I’ll tell you why
Her bouquet is a narcissus flower
A single daffodil, something plucked
Simply because it bloomed
on her side of the road [on the way]
and her eyes will remain dry

The stone she stares upon
will become the wall l’ve fought against
(All of my life)
& she will hate then.
But how can she blame the stone

For being dramatic
Its stony gaze
Shows not a blink
Or for manipulating her
With my tears
How can a stone talk back
Or form any other opinion nor fact

But one:
That I am dead, and gone,
purely
absentee
She’ll find a way, though

As always, always, to blame it on me.

–LM

A Work of Stoicism

too much
too little
or too late

too fat
too thin
or too bad

laughter or
tears
or immaculate
unconcern

haters
lovers

armies running through streets of pain
waving wine bottles
bayoneting and fucking everyone

or an old guy in a cheap quiet room
with a photograph of Marilyn Monroe.

there is a loneliness in this world so great
that you can see it in the slow movement of
a clock’s hands.

there is a loneliness in this world so great
that you can see it in blinking neon
in Vegas, in Baltimore, in Munich.

people are tired
strafed by life
mutilated either by love or no
love.

we don’t need new governments
new revolutions
we don’t need new men
new women
we don’t need new ways
we just need to care.

people are not good to each other
one on one.
people are just not good to each other.

we are afraid.
we think that hatred signifies
strength.
that punishment is
love.

what we need is less false education
what we need are fewer rules
fewer police
and more good teachers.

we forget the terror of one person
aching in one room
alone
unkissed
untouched
cut off
watering a plant alone
without a telephone that would never
ring
anyway.

people are not good to each other
people are not good to each other
people are not good to each other

and the beads swing and the clouds obscure
and dogs piss upon rose bushes
the killer beheads the child like taking a bite
out of an ice cream cone
while the ocean comes in and goes out
in and out
in the thrall of a senseless moon.

and people are not good to each other.

by Charles Bukowski

The Dagger

I am laughing
but inside
there’s devastation

I’m trying desperately to hide
my
ragged breathing &
utter disappointment
of realizing whomever
I thought you were
is not the case anymore

[HOW MANY TIMES
DO I HAVE TO DO THIS?]

how many times am I
to misread the signs

& get flanked
by the wound
your dagger left in my side

–LM

Time Bomb

The cavernous abyss
I try not to pillage
only because
once touched [it’s broken]
[you could say] explosive
&sudden
&I’m warned against the debris

But where, exactly then
Am I supposed to store all this emotion

In a bottle bobbing in an ocean?
Within the scars of time?

You couldn’t help if you tried
& that’s why I don’t reach out
Everything is not so simple now

(Whenever it “was”, I can only doubt)

-LM

A Work of Art

Lately I deeply fathom his sense of sadness.