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.
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