as ever letters

a carpet salesman late

after being lost on the interstate,

was not the best person

to be looking over my still body

as if he could flay the skin

from my meat and wear it

for a ritual of life,

the only corn was creamed

in a can somewhere in a cupboard

high up,

funny as i lay there

i would think of this

instead of some higher philosophical

thought,

book of swatches at my side

fumbling over cell phone

dialing nine one one,

why was i so aware

then again why i was so dead

and when did the moon appear,

six thirty the meeting was to be

damn carpet salesman,

i had died waiting

how stupid,

come on i would wake up

and realize i had dozed in the chair

the one my cat rebel would steal,

now i thought of the letters

in the draw,

but these thoughts

where slipping my body was vacant

was the brain going now

switching off to a dim point

as tv sets used to,

shit i hated being this aware

and i love the carpet salesman

for trying,

but my ex wife would know

those letters

of feelings i had

and would mourn me more than i deserve

the tunnel exists as does the echoes

this is it i am on the express train

so hot it was getting hotter

is hell getting ready to greet me,

closing internal lids of thought

pain wracked limbs,

cracking sound

last human thought as i left my egg

as a four legged ancient

with long snout and tail

slipping into the swamp

a new persona

a life begun anew

 

 

 

 

descent and decay

iron blanket drawn

over graveyards shoulder,

time grizzles in the wind,

on haunches leaving flowers

new ones that repair the vase

to a certain brightness,

tattooed hand

pores darkened by labor

fingers stained by cigarette,

a tear would not fall

enough had shown at the time,

those fingers took a kiss

pressed it to headstone

no inhibition

despite the rumors that had become

a fiction contorted on nights breath,

driven within hours

in a landscape changing

mesh of community falling

into disrepair,

his longing had seen violence

memory carried weapons

and he could only think of

retribution,

slate wiped of all marks

that defined a normal history,

he still had a key

that room there own,

now cleansed and let to someone

else,

he visited sometimes

walking amongst others possessions

picturing his own

and her blood

scarring the walls