hospital bed.

Beginnings

and endings come here

with nothing such as divinity

or blessed cans of oil and incense

baptizing our souls

into eternity.

Nothing but ugly, fleshy, mortality,

the decaying stench of defeated microbes.

In brief flashes

that shatter time,

years slither away, forming milky pools

of withered age at the bedside.

Medicated synapses

are misfiring,

sending mixed emotions

to the conscious realization of an end.

Ghosts of past friends roam

the space around

the body melting under fluorescent lights,

fragile remnants of pain

and joy destined to be lost forever.

dead letters for living people

    

a day like today.

Sitting on a park bench,

inhibited by my organs.

     

Virgin of a past age

welcomes the offer of money.

          

I hear my mother’s voice

telling me to wear clean underwear.

One dollar, two dollar, three dollar, more…

Insufferable questions are asked,

an old woman sings a song

a man asks her for a penny,

This is how I dreamed

a day like today would be.

          

I fall asleep and gaze at forgotten eternity.

 dead letters for living people

rent

rent.

A blind man sits

on the steps to his breathless house.

A dried up farmer holding a box.

This box

contains all that is left

of his life.

He keeps it in a box

so it doesn’t degrade him.

The shiny metallic finish

reflects his face,

showing the lines building

around sunken depressions of skin.

          

A box with his son’s bones,

the medals of his glorious             

effort to stay alive that failed.

               

A father knows all who are born must to die.

Promises of victory echoed sounds of tormented pride.

Silent.

Like stolen stars from a crooked sky.

dead letters for living people