I had cashed my check
just a half hour before
and though her kiss
tasted of a fetid shore
she'd long naviagated
I opened my billfold
emptying ½ of it
money I earned in cold
blooded stupor when
the wine had its say
and i took them bills
and left them far away
inside her undrgarments
telling me how closely she still shaved
I who once went to church
for sins that remain unpaid.
I demanded crucifixtion
though there are many ways to die
each of them outlined in all
the pitfalls of her eyes.
Later, I watched her shoot up
raw whiskey had me vomit blood
the end for both of us was close
we raced to with half open eyes.


________________________________



Full Time Trouble

She always needed a fixer or a diversion
to grease the fall
high pointed heels necessitate
when rescue's cheap
or a prelude to a darker segue
full of surprise.
“No cab, we'll walk” she always says, just
to target needed eyes.
The streets are her mood music
rising above the chaos.
I'm already thinking of past and
present sundry delights.
That come with her wrapped
in sin and negative charm.
When a crack head pulls out a knife
two blocks from club.
She pulls out a gun and waits till
he's run half a block.
Shoots him in leg, “I love to watch them
limp away” she says.
We walk fast to her place around more
corners than her last.
A patrol car passes “don't you love sirens?”
she asks-not a question.
Later, I'm almost sure that I haven't
fallen for her again.
As she kisses me full and hard on lips
then everywhere else.



__________________________________________



For Marilyn Monroe.

No brighter
star eclipsed
us so
quickly
before.
Tantalizing
a small
universe
with glitter
or fantasy
in such
a brave
doomed
headlong
arc
burning alive
toward ash.



______________________________



Alluring Poison

Sharon fights the urge
To fight through an
invisible barbed wire
3d blitzkrieg of sound
that is the Ramones
in a bar and order
more whiskey.
Singer Joey the leather
wearing preying mantis
of punk echoes
off dank dirty walls from
a spit shined jukebox she's doing lines on.
Alternately eating the free popcorn
Joey ate with endless handfuls
½ empty as time
fate would not grant him.
The sneer in his voice
on her lips as a loser keeps
eyeing her braless tits…
under a Ramones t-shirt
and won’t fuck off.
She clenches her fists
wanting just a little
violence…
high on the coke and ready
to accelerate to dealing
pain with fists
karate/MMA classes have stolen
subtlety from.
But the loser's
told to leave.
Sharon nods to bartender
then closes her eyes
for seconds/ minutes.
when a hand grabs her ass.
Enraged. she scans the
crowded bar wanting to fuck
someone up bad.
A habit like the coke
she finds hard to
kick.
Just another asshole
touching her as they
have since she was eleven.
She sits back down
orders another drink
with a smile of alluring poison.
Couldn't god just give her this?
A little revenge...
Nothing particularly lethal
just a quick beat-down
with an ambulance
taking her victim
to a room -
where doctors look and say “oh shit.”

---

Rp Verlaine lives in New York City. He has an MFA in creative writing from City College. He taught in New York Public schools for many years. His first volume of poetry- Damaged by Dames & Drinking was published in 2017 and another – Femme Fatales, Movie Starlets & Rockers in 2018. A set of three e-books titled Lies From The Autobiography vol 1-3 were published from 2018 to 2020. His most recent book, Imagined Indecencies, was published in February of 2022. He was nominated for a pushcart prize in poetry in 2021 and 2022.

---

If you would like to be part of The Chamber Magazine family, follow this link to the submissions guidelines. If you like more mainstream fiction and poetry with a rural setting and addressing rural themes, you may also want to check out Rural Fiction Magazine.