David Michael Jackson

ARRIVAL AT THE CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD

When I first arrived in Tampa,
The city of skulls and bolita balls.
I found everyone was buried,
Only their heads stuck out of cement graves,
So they stuck out their tongues
To rub across lipstick smeared on a beer bottle
Shaped to resemble Helen of Troy’s adolescent lips.
It was a city of warped billiard balls
And homebrew in the back room behind swinging doors
With over-peppered chili sold up front.
It was the city of the short half-pint
And hair tonic with fifty percent alcohol.
The voting booths were surrounded
By barbed wire and sawed-off shotguns.

2) Remembering if I Remember

Diversions drip from dirty lips
slip past chins and dribble
towards assorted nipples.
Pass the salt
shaker, mover, groove-monkey,
lover needs a new baguette.
Bananas float in whipped cream bliss,
dreams amiss, a stick of color
me, a berry-blue.
Dab of napkin, swab of sin,
erotic, toxic-licked your skin
is honey, umber hued,
if I remember.

Marie Kazalia

I made love with a multiple personality–

the one-(of him)-in-control
sat on the edge of my bed
explaining the many aspects of 10
oops forgot to count himself–
eleven selves

I asked if each one inside him had a name

“I haven’t gotten that clever yet” he said

Who’s the one that giggles when he kisses me?

he glances a flash of eyes from the side
under a dark hat brim–
“oh, that’s just the silly one,”
“are you going to miss him?” he asked

yes, I said simply

“I’ll tell him” he said

So I asked if he talked to them all
and they to each other

he said “yes” pressing things forward
making it time to leave
“but the truth is”
“there’s nothing there between us–
you and me”, he told me

I knew it was true of this one
the one-in-control
but I definitely had something going
with the others

Marie Kazalia 7/31/2K2
***

Awakening

Sometimes I awaken from a sound sleep
And wonder if I have died, for I rise effortless
And seem more to float than lift myself
From my bed and the house
Is a silent as a tomb must be.

I must remind myself that death is uninterrupted
But sleep is not and a glance at the clock reveals
It is slightly after 1:00 a.m.
It is as if when my death comes
I will somehow be unaware of my passing
And it will be somehow unbeknownst to me
And revealed as an unexpected surprise.

The story will be recounted
With all the per functionary phrases and
Obligatory exclamations:
“Honest, I was minding my own business
And all of a sudden I was mortified.”
In the hallway, somewhere between the
Bedroom and the kitchen, the words of
A Gospel comes to mind:
“He who loves his life will lose it and
He who hates his life will find it.”

I whisper them through the darkness,
Like a chant, an incantation:
“I hate my life.
I hate my life.
I hate my life.”
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***

Seasons

Understanding is a creative act
And like all such things I suppose
Only comes of its own volition
Seeming quite arbitrary and
Wholly independent of one’s self.

I would venture to say
It is something that happens to us
For recently I too have fallen prey
To an understanding that I have managed to
Eluded for an entire lifetime.

Anger gives way slowly and
Ever so reluctantly as hard feelings
And old hurts soften somewhat
And jagged edges are worn smooth
Like rocks along the river.

And forgiveness forms
Like the first warm day in February
That melts the last of winter ice
On the lake and thaws the frozen earth
Along its shore.
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***