Rp Verlaine

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.

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).