Slaughter

They-

wanted me to fail-

expected me to-

secretly 

suffer.

They

believed him

who spoke in tongues

dripping with alcohol-

venom-

or temptation.

They

assumed some-

thing some-

one else 

knowing naked and shorn

They

could never make it through

the frozen nights

of solitude.

They

estimated-

were mistaken and

some, like me, would say

unlucky

betting on the black sheep

betting on the lamb

who is the wolf

you feed-

and the bitten hand

that continues to write through the pain.

Painting by William Sidney Cooper, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

This grace

There is no such Disgrace.
I do not live inside or choose to
put my dwelling things
away there.

There is Here to one else,
while I cannot touch it with a tip
of glance-on accident
these matters made solid.

Their way does not cross
my own,
or break through my gait.
Thier way becomes unknown
with wind and soft feet.

There is gasping, a vacuous horror
at the senseless flexing to hold nothing,
constricting itself, There,
the worst that would be too atrophied
to rest here.

I do not dwell in Misery.
I do not consider
my self
part of
Disgrace.


Painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, (1870) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Convice-a-versa

There was too much to say 
and no single string
to unwind the entanglement
they had become bound by.

There was no effort to try an utterance,
no thoughtless pennies lying around;
that whet glimmer gone out-thirst quenched
that kindled glow to dull grit, brackish.

Nowadays, 
they say so little about much to Be
done differently, they insist
resistance is futile, 
the pinned up smile, better
(n)ever?

And so, the silence stood for resilience,
for this speechless return, old friends 
in darkness, happenstance
this ends loneliness for this time.

Gentler thoughts could do-(no)
Better. 

Painting by By Felix Nussbaum, 1943 (https://www.tumblr.com/search/Felix+Nussbaum) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.