Dark Poetry Prose Poetry January 23, 2005 Dark Poetic Prose

1-23-05 10:10pm sunday

tonight. cathouse dreams on platforms greased. throwing their tops to the audiences which surround. empty eyed strangers gawk at their nakedness. hollow shell of a person. like a drilled out bullet. once so powerful. now impotent.

it could snow a lot. choke the highways. but i'd just walk. slipping, uneven footsteps with muscles taut. small legs sinking deep into the thick white carpet. stumbling often, but refusing to stop.

the destination not the goal. the journey what is sought. not to go there. nor to get back. but to see what happens as.

to drink the experience down like cold water in a vast desert expanse. to see the vultures overhead soon to pick your remains out from the sand.

to take in that humbling satisfaction as sucking on the hard sweet sour candy words of a poet sublime.

i thought, as i watched the characters in the based on a true story movie being killed, i could've died then. but i didn't.

could've broken my neck as i was leaning down towards the floor of the car, head to the dashboard when it wrecked.

how i seldom wore a seatbelt back then, but that day. that trip i did.

might've only broken my neck. been paralyzed. worse than death. much worse than dying. or living like this.

or that car speeding onto the parkway entrance. how near it missed at such a great speed. and me on my bicycle. defenseless.

then the suv's right turn that conflicted with my cycle's straight ahead. and the neandethal in me instinctively braking and swerving to escape its death.

some might surmise i want to live. that on more than one occasion i've consciously avoided it. a half truth. i do. just not like this.