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Another New
Year’s Encounter by Rp Verlaine Our
lips meet by accident
in a room with
no doors where strangers
watch us grope
through curses, camouflaging
want with animal
sounds for nihilists, detached as grave robbers, eyes glowing in
the dark who watch until
leaving with
an emptiness
filled across a floor,
less a stage
than a prism
asking for blood. Our smiles,
the lone hint we’re
enthralled being watched by
those who see nothing deviates who admire our sharp
fingernails on each other’s
throats… still seeking
the distance to
somehow learn how
to let go.
Feeding The
Voyeurs by Rp
Verlaine She exhaled,
dying from
boredom money provided
in the dark
void drowning swimmers
navigate. Her open designer
blouse an invitation
I’m sure few
resisted, beckoned as she whispered: “take a closer
look.” With trouble
in mind her lips came
forward till I was
aware of eyes watching
us, we laughed and left them hungry. Outside summer skies all seemed like
cotton pale junkies
inject from. But while she
talked butterflies
in me screamed. Later I would miss
her shadow
touching mine and return
to the bar only to join
those eyes In the background
watching.
The Indefinite Chance Machine by
Rp Verlaine Like uncollected
change, the
love she throws away in unnumbered
trysts
with ghosts of her past and present become the invisible game
of
chance already receding
in memory,
vanishing
from
sight with
illusory reveal
in the walking
shadows of
lovers leaving her
bed and her again
lost as the change
and
dust under it.
After
First Sex by RP Verlaine Even with knees a little weak, still 16 years old give or take a
week I seem to dance my way home with feet that barely touch ground while strumming the air guitar I truly hadn't known I could play.
The New Same Goodbye by
RP Verlaine Even with tears larger than the guilty rain, to say goodbye with faint praise or skywriting a particular moribund thought of love’s expiration date miles high . . . something
will be lost. Whispered kisses, indiscreet postcards, videos where faces framed and lost become
you; the director saying cut! To all the pieces of my heart left not
a particular worthy gift I might add/subtract for our new goodbye. A Casablanca ending to remember how careless
time extends all that was walking to the airplane you say that only new
beginnings have no end.
Fishermen by
RP Verlaine He came home with three large trout
a better man than I.
Who had nothing to show
for three hours at the topless bar but empty pockets.
Both of us smiling having had a good day we‵d
both been lucky.
He in the last hour having
caught two of the three now cooking in grill.
And I with the blonde who pressed me so close
I forgot how to breathe.
Who danced with sin
having taken hold of her hips while renting her smile.
‟Be careful with
the bones‶ he said as we ate ‟they can do real damage.‶
‟Women
do much worse‶ I said thinking of her lips
grazing mine so often.
I thought she meant it
but now I know what bait is just like the fishermen.
As the tomcats outside fight over scraps until
the winner eats alone.
I think of the dancer
exhaling cigarette smoke saying she was lonely.
Lies a man believes when he’s fishing for something
that long ago got away.
Three
Years Ago by
Rp Verlaine Was it waitressing? Metaphor,
coming closer to her meaning . . .
net stocking legs
spread wide when I paid the bill. Or worse— was I just being serviced?
The answering machine spit out the evidence without
giving a fuck. She was ready for her closeup.
Her last message said that she'd gone to L.A.
to be an actress, but now I know she meant asterisk.
6 months later: on the strip she meets
a pharmaceutical survivor who slipped, and is now pushing
illegal powders in glycine.
Watching pachucos
drag evil machines,
he talks to her,
seeing her flesh tattooed new but flesh still clean
he says ‟actress, you‵ll get old here, or disappear
in a third-rate chorus line with every verse queer.
“Actress take this
. . .” The pimp says ‟actress, porn films are the new art form
take this . . . take this‶ the pimp says ‟Actress
take this.”
3 months later:
she ties black belt to her arm
in the bathroom of a rented club.
Cool jazz music pulses inside
as the hypodermic slides in before the camera
cuts.
The music doesn‵t
stop as the actor enters in her and the camera cuts,
but all she sees is her blood 'til the rush
when the hypodermic
slides in.
A year later: men dodge rain
into peep show heaven,
slamming quarters to see videos, see her repeat
disintegration, repeat fade to black.
While
outside, her eyes scan cars, L.A. police cruisers she‵s been behind bars in topless,
nude as police patrol heresies from the dreams
of its gutter evacuees her soul‵s devoid of magic she‵s turning tricks not quickly enough
the pimp‵s rear view sees.
Even later:
Baby, I never wanted this poem,
baby I never wanted this poem, yours. But nobody
called off the drug assassins, who fed your flesh
to the creditors or the cheap heretics who celebrated Mass by creating
their own, worshiping you.
'Til your blood
was cheaper than the wine and every derelict pissed
a thousand stray trails that all led back to you.
Today:
police says ‟Did you know this OD?‶
to pimp or dealer on strip.
His eyes glow dark
as the coat hanger marks her corpse detailed.
‟Don‵t know the bitch” voice trails like samurai
too evil to die.
‟Don‵t know the bitch‶
says ‟No, No, No.‶
And
I say No, neither did I.
Rp Verlaine, a retired English teacher living in
New York City, has an MFA in creative writing from City College. He has several
collections of poetry including Femme Fatales Movie Starlets & Rockers
(2018) and Lies From The Autobiography 1-3 (2018-2020).
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