I looked up tonight: it was all roiling gray, slate granite dryer lint with a here and there silver lining.  It's a thing, to be sunk and weighted against all that, here creeping shallow-breathed from hole to hole like we do.

Sorry, Honey

and here's that shimmering prince in all the yellow trappings of a Swamp Rat.

was a frog, was a prince; were a sore and hay-trimmed cinderella, were the belle of the ball

was some sick-crusted spectre in the throes of your bic-lighter passion (click, click, click), and--look--that jewel in the back of his fever-eyes--

once or twice you caught the glimmer of a Swamp Rat.

and here's the king's amber mane all matted with your lover's sweat

and here's a lazy sun hanging gallows over the Swamp you've built

and here's a scaly tail with the rattle of dead skin over tree branches

it kicks bile into your throat. it slimes into the shelter of scabby lemon trees.

there waiting for an ankle, jewels of his eyes winking gold from the cool underbrush

the fetid home of your shimmering Swamp Rat.

Eight Tenths of a Threat down your Vulturous Neck

And Fuck Los Angeles?

Two deaf chirpers scream to me: 

"All Right, it's All Right".

Comfort, home, warmth, comfort again in the space of five syllables.

But this isn't the Taiga, my adventurous allies.

And this isn't the Life, my too-clever comrades.

It's a new world, it's a new life, it's a new day,

And I'm feeling as though too little has come of a mind too great.

You sentinels of prosperity; this is the mind-punch.

You estimators of worth; this is the heavier scale.

An  singular element is a waste if unused,

So I'll again smack, slap, use my element

And there are words, pictures, words yet to crack your hardened visage.

Look here, visage.  Here I grasp the void of your expression, to let you know

That I ain't beaten by a mile yet, motherfucker.

Your Urban Legend

Like a hook hanging on your car door.

Like the car flashing its brights behind you.

Like the pet alligator that you flushed to get rid of.

I'm all of them, gorgeous, baby, darling, and when you hear the stories about the friend of a friend of a friend, make sure you listen close and careful, because you're the friend of a friend of a friend to someone.

And I? I am Urban Legend.

I'm calling from inside the house, precious, and I'm the million tiny spiders nesting cozy in your cheek. And no matter what you chant, doll, don't look for Bloody Mary in the mirror: that's me too. You thought you'd found a hairless dog, but soon enough you'll get bitten. And when the doctor tells you it's nothing but a rat, that boiling you feel creeping, sliding, trickling through your veins isn't rabies: I'm inside of you.

You guessed it, honey, I'm the Viper. And I'll vipe and vash your vindows 'til you see all too clearly what exactly is going on here. When the old man's hand grabs you and you die of fright, I'm the pen-knife you accidentally staked through your skirt.

Let's be clear about this, sweetheart. I'm a fable, I'm a myth, I'm a superstition and a cautionary tale. I'm the crack that broke your mother's back. You're Miss Mary Mack, all dressed in black, and I'm the silver buttons all down your back. I'm the bubblegum, bubblegum in the dish and no matter what piece you wish, what you get is me.

Ashes. Ashes. You're about to fall down:

Late night, somenight, gliding and twisting down the wrenches of a highway in the woods, and here's you, listening to the hollow ghosts on the radio and watching the sleepy wipers struggle with the fog. Here's your headlights, or fog lamps, cutting useless beams through the cold. Look out for the shape on the side of the road. He's been walking, walking and waiting for someone just like you, and he's so grateful and he's so quiet as he settles into shotgun. 

Drive on. You're thankful for the company, unexplainably secure in his presence. There's no conversation, but you understand eachother all right. Once or twice you turn to him with that small smile, making sure it's all right, he's all right, you're all right and you're crawling closer to home.

And then he's gone. But, oh, my dove, I am not that man.. You'll find out soon enough he's been dead for a good ten years. That hand in your chest cavity, clenching down tight on your lungs and cracking out across your mind as you turn to the empty passenger's seat: oh, darling, see me; there I am!

Hurtling down Blood Alley, I'm a Green Phantom and I'm the dead girl screaming in the cabin of your truck! I'm at Disneyland, crawling through the ashes of all the mothers who scatter their cremated in the middle of the rides! At the late-night restaurant I'm the silhouette in the rear-view mirror, and out on your favorite coast I'm a blue lady in a white dress who one day walked west into the Ocean and just couldn't stop.

So you could stay out of the sewer if you don't want to get eaten.

And you should let that car flash its brights, but don't look in the back seat.

But wherever you drive, there's still that ghost in your seat. And those spiders in your cheek. And that hook in your door.

Because you are a friend of a friend of a friend to somebody. And for that, honey, baby, sweetie, darling, dear: I will always be your Urban legend.

Vices

Black Bottles on my shelves where pictures should smile and offer up the dead smiles. Those times I am told (and I believe) were good.
Green and clear bottles against my walls, labels and labels and somewhere the labels have been picked, peeled and torn from the binding glue to end in rolls and balls of paper lost in the carpet.
Plastic bottles, their caps scattered over the floor and under piles of papers. They are hockey pucks and technicolor petri dishes, whose purposes are lost on their drained containers.
Inside the closet door is a tiny graveyard of mangled caps. Shrapnel pried from glass bottles by the inner workings of the handle latch, before I traded up to a plastic hand-opener as a matter of sophistication.
Boxes in bags hold empty bottle reminders of quick runs and liquid conversations on late Wednesday nights. Religion and politics are not to be spoken of except here, where we are so built on insult that we are immune.
Start the car and lift the latches. Some of my secrets are buried in there. Four cigarettes full of dust shaking in an angry yellow box, kept company by two lonely books of matches: one black, one white.
Yellow, chipped and blackened, a submarine for my early escapes.
In many colors, sticky and dirty, a newer but better friend.
There in the backseat under the clothes and the shoes and the boxes is a brown paper bag, look in there for a corked jar and a straw. I don't sip that one much anymore.
Give me an hour or three days, I'll open more bottles. Maybe burn more glass. It's what they always said college would be.

Your Move

There's a triple-word-score on the board set between us,
And I know the space will just serve to defeat us.
'Cause you set down your tiles, aglow, full of pride,
Then I throw out a word that beats yours by a landslide!

In Clue you've no clue, you demand the revolver,
I take secret passages, ever so clever,
By the time you begin to suspect Colonel Mustard,
I've found out Boddy's killer, cuffed and printed the bastard!

And you loved it to death when you first saw my brains,
But you'd quickly resent just how much I contain.
I'm better than you at the games that you love,
You're a chute, I'm a ladder, ten spaces above!

And we're just like a Jenga; our tower's in ruins,
But it's you pulled the last brick, so why should I rue it?
Was it when I blew up your last battleship,
Or when finally I captured your carefully-placed bishop?

I'm sorry to say you're a poor strategist.
It's evident from your Scattergories list.
I score higher than you in Parker Brothers' eyes,
So how'd I come away with the consolation prize?

Now alone with a Ouija, I'm searching for messages.
Ghosts tell me you're happy; I'm left with the vestiges.
In our game of Life, you inexplicably rate:
Though I got all the tiles, you got Millionaire Estates.

Eight Days Late

Pen, Ink, and Page on a three-thirty thursday,
The gentleman taps out his thoughtful review
Taking some effort and care with his diction
Intending, by writing, a love to imbue

"My dearest" begins it, with no written name
Blank space for his uncertain intake of breath
"I confess that, of late, I have loved you in dreams;
Waking, for me, has become like a death."

The letter flows well, a clever composition
Allusions and similes thoughtfully placed
The Gentleman's hand, in a quick, steady rhythm
Ensures that he matches his words to her grace

Well on into friday the Ink and the Paper,
Inspired by the Gentleman's visions, enmesh
Until with a weary but satisfied smile
He sets down his pen, certain of no regret.

A Ribbon ties all of the pages together
A Rose slipped between to enhance the effect
Ink, Pen, Page, Rose and Ribbon tuck carefully under
The Gentleman's arm, his missive perfect

Then nervously stepping out into the day
The Gentleman muses aloud to the street:
"I'm in love with her, here's my confession in Ink.
I will carry it with me until we should meet."

So the Gentleman and his Ink, Page, Rose and Ribbon
Made five fine companions, all knowing of this:
Somewhere was his love; he had seen her while sleeping
And he will be ready when he learns who she is.