Ghost Plant

One story
up, under a roof,
under a perfect yellow moon,
I wait.
I watch oxygen expand
into greatness.

Midnight sleeps an ear ache away
from me snoring.
Oxygen starts its engine, then
shuts off again.

God grows in a cradle like a
ghost plant, a living reminder
of what is yet to be dead.

One story
below me, kids are
throwing stones.
An eye for an eye,
till war takes them both.

When tonight catches up, it will
pluck spots from the day until
we sing the song of
the crickets.
I will wait for God to grow
out of his cradle, strike a match
against conscience and finally,
rename me.

Crickets

In spite of great solitude
come the chirp, chirp of
the night
dripping like water droplets
down the sink drain,
straightened out loud,
a philosophy.

Alone as a daydream, deep
in a honeycomb,
nobody comes,
nobody goes,
rolled up in my own cigarettes
horror chirps in
the white plaster.

All day, mold forgets to grow.
It understands it is just a story,
not like the crickets that
chirp, chirp all night,
catching my sleep in their wings.
I miss them terribly
when night falls down drunk
and puts them to bed.

I wait for twelve hours,
picking hair from rubber carpet,
melting soap into black licorice
for the old neighbor man
with the old hat.
I wait till school buses smile
and wave good-bye to
the highway.
I wait until the waves of L.A hold
the last handful of
sun, till the crickets come.

Dirty Words

The ghosts are becoming countless.
I could name them, but that wouldn’t do any good. I try
to hide from them, but they always find me; under piles of blankets
on my bed when I’m turning in for the night, through the music
playing on the radio when I drive
my car around town,
in the eyes of an ex-lover who looks at me as if he
wants to rip my teeth out with
pliers.

The ghosts sit with me in every silent moment. They whisper
to me and giggle. They know that the escape
isn’t working out as planned. One of them gouges at my eyes. It wants blindness
to suck me deep inside myself so that I have
no way to try to hide.

When I sit, to write these sick stories, I am so engrossed with
fear that the words refuse to fall from the ink of the pen. They climb through, to the
top of the pen and right back into my hand. Dirty, filthy little words climb up my arms and through
each little nook in my soul and back to the dark, screaming corners of my
mind.

Each letter stopping by my conscience to scream obscenities before settling in comfortably.