happenstance

my daddy wrote gag lines for anyone willing to buy my mama barely knew how to read so i got myself born on the edge of the morning with a song stuck between my teeth i knew right off though i didn't yet know why they had sold me into slavery it could have been happenstance for anyone else but it still had to happen to me daddy gave me lessons in how to frisk sure made sure i had something down there to hide like my own secret ways with the play of his razor but then that way i was never denied he left me with incurable hunger for risk to mark my culpability it could have been happenstance for anyone else but it still had to happen to me anything illegal mama tried at least once but nothing ever seemed to stick that kick in her kiss meant she's let out of prison good for any quick five dollar trick i've got me her body and all its stunts with its open marketability it could have been happenstance for anyone else but it still had to happen to me the old place burned down, mama up and ran i got passed down from friend to friend i earned my own keep making time with strange people not a decent freedom left to defend every smile i got from every man hit me like an allergy it could have been happenstance for anyone else but it still had to happen to me all those stale sermons i memorized were all about getting to yes at some ghostly call i even lay on an altar sacrifice can be useful, i guess the part that had me the most surprised was my struggle with eternity it could have been happenstance for anyone else but it still had to happen to me manhattan was good for a straight open sky i flew through it like a stone chasing on after the flow of the traffic so surrounded yet always alone city streets gave me the face of a spy with thin invisibility it could have been happenstance for anyone else but it still had to happen to me my journal was a mirror hanging over the john a convenient place for me to purge instant release, automatic and easy the flushable side of the urge it never was meant to keep going on like some virtual immortality it could have been happenstance for anyone else but it still had to happen to me the authorities picked me up on a meaningless prank confined me in a padded cell they inspected my schemes and invaded my dreaming on probation now growing up in their hell i have no one to blame and myself to thank for what they call insanity it could have been happenstance for anyone else but it still had to happen to me one night up in chelsea i thought i found love took all i had to hold on to my mask my joke of a heart was the life of the party but that hangover next morning, don't even ask one night for a lifetime was more than enough to function as a memory it could have been happenstance for anyone else but it still had to happen to me get me talking on more than a glass of wine i might say who the father was but now that i lost her to that shit they foster i don't care that much to argue the cause if sin was involved i am sure it was mine call it honest creativity it could have been happenstance for anyone else but it still had to happen to me i can't envision making it to twenty or more there's too much too heavy too fast good luck and pure chance ain't a magic answer when it's done only one thing will last i can't speak for the one i am singing for but cutting gives her clarity it could have been happenstance for anyone else but it still had to happen to me

malignancies 

not near enough

this hall's familiar, i've been here before and you were here with one who looked like me a few spare bucks and favors, in advance the desk clerk checks his watch and gives the key yeah, one debt paid, only ninety nine more you're here already, i'll be last to leave and in between will be here when i can perhaps some extras when i get the chance in this room i'm your woman, you're my man and i'll take no more hits than you receive we have only an hour, not near enough to pair up all your words with all my dreams just squeeze in what we can and call that love (i'm here with you in mind, or so it seems)

malignancies 

a christmas villanelle

last christmastime i gave my heart to you (oh jesus how i hate that fucking song) this year a piece of ass will have to do. this season is for giving? yeah, says who? all you ever give up's your dingaling dong, last christmastime i gave my heart to you. your wishlist reads like sin: a virgin jew, an inn, then hallelujah all night long. this year a piece of ass will have to do. why celebrate? i wish to hell i knew, them holiday blues just come on so damn strong. last christmastime i gave my heart to you. there was much more to me you had your chance to screw than the stocking stuffers you went for beneath my thong. this year a piece of ass will have to do. so color in our season with black and blue, the trappings of gay tradition got it all wrong. last christmastime i gave my heart to you, this year a piece of ass will have to do.

malignancies 

daddy’s singing

my daddy i was told he was used to sing to me cigarette tucked up his lip the whole damn tune the lowest notes all soaked with warm beer and spit him making like we won't say what that word meant. hey, he's no thief for getting it for free did it look like i didn't know what he was doing? like i maybe had some other smell in mind? something, how they crave what they despise and want to witness where he led my hand trust, my dear, it's how we touch the words. such aching in his strength as had to have then biting deep, the juice of me oozing out all sticky in my curly-headed dreams me holding to him tight until his breath left wondering if he too saw it flash just our little secret, him and me how risking just enough can make that sound. once he did me a ballad of his first lover how naked they had lay in her mother's garden and used a rose to mark each other's skin hold real still, he'd show me how it went this time maybe he would get it right at least i hadn't had no place to run aging me up while straining to grip his youth his disappointment showing like a welt but never letting on he gave a fuck. the ash tray by my bed would fill with butts the women he had over would so stare their mental calculations of all the hours made up for all the time i'd smoke alone and hum to myself, trying to sound like him. my daddy i was told he was, yeah right. he never could find words that need be said he sold his soul, that only bought him shit he'd come up with something good, then let it slide like his next pretty thing. and the next. and the next until it got so he just wouldn't let them linger long not the girls nor the words nor anything he felt but he never thought to stop. like a knife he knew it had to break the skin so it got to where his songs ran end to end the smoke hanging thick and blue above my bed and every silence waiting for his cough and every darkness aching for his love. he'd make like we both knew what that word meant it wasn't supposed to be much more than that: you say what you have to say what's left is what you use to make the song. my daddy i was told he was used to sing to me. that's how i sing: i come by it honestly.

malignancies 

church and mission

my body stretches out against its bone unbroken, claimed by unbooked tribal lore for strangers to possess. i dance for you. the muscles in my back grow tight and sore the way the weight of pleasing you has grown. watch out! the tide looks swollen on the storm against the traffic, crashing on white walls until enveloped by its undertow i let the wave receive me. when it calls i taste release, red and moist and warm. this word is who i am, is what i do, the one forever pasted in my throat where in the end the ones i save will go while those i sacrifice will service boat.

malignancies 

generosity

were it not for jennifer's open window you would not be sleeping with such contentment dancing in your dreams of a playful sunbeam teasing your cradle. i would not be watching you touch my morning up with kissing promises in your fingers reaching out for something i could not give you, what i most wanted. simple as a word that you know on hearing, full as legends never meant to be finished, jenny's voice cut through our most desperate silence, steady in comfort. "come," she said, "i'll make up your bed for sleeping, close your eyes, there's no cause for you to worry." child and mother snuggled into her peaceful homewarming blanket. off, you monsters, baby won't cry about you. back, you demons, mommy forgets to use you. something in the way jenny held her hand out holds ours like morning.

malignancies 

you would have loved it

you would have loved it had you been here walking the streets this time of year wind blowing the fallen leaves around not letting them yet touch the ground until they were crisp and fresh as breath so as to reflect what's become of your death days like this i can still feel you near you really would have loved it here god i miss your touch so bad the first i knew to the last i had traffic all bundled against the chill but you laughing shirtless at the open sill then joining me back in that borrowed bed with some joke of how cold you might be to be dead and tickling my thighs for acting back mad oh god i miss your touch so bad that was something you said you knew we'd meet up back here when we were both through you no less eager and i no more wild you with your conquests and i with your child but my hope will find jewels in the fall's first ice as each new love echoes your sacrifice i loved you               yes and                            i still do i wish i could say that was something you knew

malignancies 

Time for Trust

If what you say is true, perhaps I'll find it so. Then I'll believe I might escape the hidden traps in what you say. It's true, perhaps, you've let all time for trust elapse, but who's to fault one last reprieve? If what you say is true, perhaps I'll find it something to believe.

malignancies