A Little Too Honest

Perhaps, you should have let me sleep.

      It’s in poor taste that I expose

    my dark side, my bad mood rising—
not a place to end, but somewhere to start.

  Absence makes the heart grow still,

         and that silence helps hide everything

             you never wanted to know.

     So, here we are, two zeros, the classic case.

Weren’t we supposed to set the air ablaze?

             Instead, it’s face to face,

           shadow box, then double cross…

       I dropped from the shot to my

                  glass jaw, and the shock to

                                my cold heart.

     But if it’s a chase you want, my angel,

                my sunbeam, let me find

             a gag and a net and

          I’ll drag you down to my level.

I’ll hold open the door, for you.  In the

    light of day, in the foyer with the

        potted plants, I’m a gentleman,

     a marquis, a smooth operator.

  Follow me down the hallway,

               to the bedroom,

         where I study philosophy

    and spiritual phrase.

         I’ll give some, to get some.

       Give me all you got, girl.

               I have an itch, I want

          scratches down my back.

      Swallow my pride and

            make me lick your boots clean;

          but leave your coat and skeletons

        in your own closet with

   your chambermaids.  I could

                 give a fuck about your dignity—

       just keep giving me that sweet taboo.

The washroom is the second door to the left,

              should you wish to feign cleanliness.

       One dirty hand washes the other hand,

         sacrilegious ceremonies,

                heaving in drains.

    I won’t forget to leave the toilet seat up.

           Yes, that’s an insult;

               mind yourself, so I

                         won’t have to injure…

      In the parlor, where lewdness

               waxes drunk and the glinted disco ball

      spins away the years, a party has started

         and everyone has gathered:

             boisterous and foolish, libertines, all.
         No place for beginners or sensitive hearts.

            The scene is tired,

                 trite,

              impious,

                   debauched,

                      depraved,

                               criminal…

God, this town is so small.

              Paraphiliacs, or hypochondriacs?
         When sentiments are left to chance

    and bedbugs are shared,
               it’s getting hard to tell the difference.

       I’ll take my leave of this and keep you

                    jealously to myself;

                and if not,

                        you can find me downstairs…

Below, in the solitude of the root cellar,

        the shrewd pariah sits

                  hiding, brooding

      in a basement of hoarded smut.

  He laughs at those who say,

      “Life is short; don’t fuck up.”

     He laughs at those who say,

              “Life is short; don’t miss out.”

           He’s far too apathetic for hedonism.

…and in the quiet of my shade tree I wonder,

                          what makes me say these things?

           In the face of disaster,

                         out comes my laughter;

          it’s this flailing, blind anger in me.

I should crawl back to my cold unmade bed.