TFLN Poem - Rebound, Rules

Hey.

Here's this week's www.textsfromlastnight.com poem.

(269):

He's my palate cleanser. He's my mint sorbet. He's my saltine cracker. He's who I fuck between people to make the next one better.

Don’t know his middle name.

Or his favorite color.

When he talks, it’s like a clatter of dirty soup spoons

Tossed in a kitchen sink.

But, he serves me.   He’s always prompt.

No questions.  Eyes wide and gently brown like

Sodden earth.  I strip him down, I stretch him

Just so.  Set him in motion.  Guide him to

Where we rut:  today, the floor.  Six weeks (and a

Sleepy art history professor later)

The dusty, thin-lit kitchen.

Never the bed.  Not there.   Rules.

I’ve made them.  Silently.  

My toes curl and he smiles, sadly,

And he’s out the door.  Knows he can’t stay.

Rules.   He’s a perfect in-between person.

Takes no space.   Hoping always I’ll never see him again.

That the next shape will be permanent.

That the smile will hold.

That some other man will lock arms and coo his compromises.

DD Poem - A Divorced Dad Plucks Out a Nose Hair

Hey.

Here's this week's Divorced Dad poem.

A Divorced Dad Plucks Out a Nose Hair

An hour, maybe two,

Since the alarm slightly coughed.

But he’s not moving.   A to-do list

Sits folded on a desk, some ten feet way.

And thin-crept dream pours into dream:

A face of a childhood love with their mouth torn and missing,

Then, struggling to move his possessions out of a casually crumbling house.

With one final effort,

He guides the loom which shapes the scenes.

But it’s still wrong.   Still wrong.  A freckled, curvy

Sculptor enters. She smells like cinnamon.  They make

Love, unhurried and sure.  With an awareness of the frail and the glory.

And then she dies. So soon. She’s stricken with cancer,

And the dream flashes to a dimly lit bed,

Then the footnote of darkness.

And he’s awake. 

A chorus of sobs.  

Not ready to start.  

A widower of fantasy.

As a reflex,

He reaches with his right thumb and index finger,

Finds a nostril,

And pulls.  Hard.  Sharp.  No time to reflect or stop.

A crack of sensate shivers echo,

And a long, twisted, black hair is collected.

He smiles. Breathes again, ragged but alert.  All is reset.

He lifts the covers.  He finds his feet.

TFLN Poem - Dicks, Deconstruction

Hey,

Here's this week's www.textsfromlastnight.com poem.

(306):

when a dude sends me an unwanted dick pic I just send him a picture of a nicer one. A more photogenic one. A dick with a future.

My game plan?

Cockspiration.

Making trolls weep under their cum-covered bridges.

I should  - I should know your middle name,

And at least three personal tragedies you’ve worn,

Before I’m seeing your dick.  That’s my exchange rate.

Pure and simple.  If you’re flaring up my phone

Or my OkCupid profile with some grainy, mange-tossed

Thatch of hair and grey, calloused member,

 What do you expect?   Swooning?   Pity fucks?

And if you took the pic yourself,  it’s even more pathetic.

Everyone knows the best sex pics, like all mistakes,

Need perspective. Illumination.  A dedicated background.

Oh, goddamn, yes – I’m judging your white socks

And the rash darting around your thighs.

I’m wincing at the trundle of dirty clothes

Slopped on the floor beneath you.

Mise en place is everything.

Take this iconoclastic phallus

I’ve sent you,

Strive not for perfection,

But for the capitalization of the ideal.

And maybe,

Just maybe,

Don’t fucking send people your junk

Like it's a Craigslist sofa sale.

DD Poem - A Divorced Dad Howls At the Moon

Hey,

Here's this week's Divorced Dad poem. 

A Divorced Dad Howls at the Moon

The moon,

She’s a bone-white eardrum

Stretched bare across a littered sky.

A confessor,

A bolt of crinkled paper suspended in quiet,

A discontinued firemen’s net  -

 Scuttled by the grave of time.

He’s in the backyard,

Stripped to the waist.

Sober.   The weekend toys

Lodged neatly in plastic tubs.

Feeling the downy grass on his bare toes.

It’s one am.   And yet, he can’t stop living this day.

There’s more action to be made.  Exaltations,

Dream-seeding, corners to clean.

There’s an itch. An implacable itch,

He fills his lungs with twilight air,

Deeply, and then,

In stark surprise of himself,

He barks.  A feral, joyous, cry.

Moon-bound.   He, he is saying:

Hear me, you lunar mistress.

I am living. I, I  am slowly getting fine.

TFLN Poem - Seagull, Sanity

Hey.

Here's this week's www.textsfromlastnight.com poem.

(410):

WHY AM I THE ONLY ONE CONCERNED ABOUT THE SEAGULL IN THE OVEN

First,

And I’m just getting started –

Erica, you didn’t use a pan.  Tucked in the wings

And lodged him in the bottom rack.

Set to broil.   I heard noises. Harsh, brittle noises  Thought that was

You and Trevor, scraping groins on the counter again.

Or doing knife play, or just filling the room with your wild

Wiccan chants.  But it was him.  He was, he was still living,

Wasn’t he?   Banging against the door, hoping to fly.

Singed blood slopped on the bottom, feathers

Crisped and yellowed.  You’ve seen chickens in stores, right?

You know they don’t cook ‘em in their all together.

And next –

Here’s why I’m afraid to even ask –

Since there’s no fucking beach for MILES –

Where did you get him, and why did you bring him here?

They’re airborne rats.  Let ‘em pick up the garbage.  Take

What’s undesirable.  Don’t bring them into our apartment

To hunt.   You want blood.   I don’t get it.   I never will.

We. We. Live here.  Things, people, animals.  Do not

Enter this dwelling, cowered, quaking, unaware,

To be yoked at this altar of itchy rage you’ve made.

I’ve cleaned it best I could.  Worn through five pads

Of steel wool.  Felt bone and eyes  mush into my fingers.

 Smell’s pretty hostile, though.

But I want you gone.  Sister or not.  You’ve stopped

The meds, that’s clear.   And I don’t to want clean any

More carrion.  Make any more excuses. 

I kept the wishbone.  Cleaned it.   It’s yours.  Keep and 

When you need a gram of kindness, crack it open.