Confession - Samantha King

I hate you wouldn’t quite do it

I forgive you isn’t quite my speed

I regret meeting you would be a lie

The best thing for me

was removing you from my life

That, I am sure of

Strangers - Richard Shelton

we find ourselves at the exact place

where the light becomes darkness

and turn our faces toward one another

realizing we could be lovers we could

be anything we could even be friends

we could carry our scars

like banners we could pray to each other

and answer each other’s prayers

                 

this is the earth we can touch it

the mountains expose their nipples

to the last rays of the sun

and day lingers on the undersides of leaves

with so much need on the horizon

surely there is a heart around here somewhere

but we are characters from a book who have

come here on vacation

to listen to the pulse of the sea

which makes an affirmation beyond despair

those who have heard it

do not recommend it to anybody

we have heard the hypnotized telephone

ring itself into a trance of silence we have

seen the poor pass by on borrowed legs

we have been enameled by the sun

and as we are slowly going under water

where all light

is the light of a green stone broken open

we keep our distance it is all we have

At Last the Secret is Out - W. H. Auden

At last the secret is out,

as it always must come in the end,

the delicious story is ripe to tell

to tell to the intimate friend;

over the tea-cups and into the square

the tongue has its desire;

still waters run deep, my dear,

there’s never smoke without fire.

Behind the corpse in the reservoir,

behind the ghost on the links,

behind the lady who dances

and the man who madly drinks,

under the look of fatigue

the attack of migraine and the sigh

there is always another story,

there is more than meets the eye.

For the clear voice suddenly singing,

high up in the convent wall,

the scent of the elder bushes,

the sporting prints in the hall,

the croquet matches in summer,

the handshake, the cough, the kiss,

there is always a wicked secret,

a private reason for this.

Grab Ass - C.L. Bledsoe

I wonder if you're dead and buried in a short

coffin, beef-jerky muscles wasted on meth

and misanthropy, daddy's money long spent.

Was the aroma of Ben Gay and rot in the air

while all the ex-footballers cum used car

salesmen wept quietly in their hand-

kerchiefs thinking about the glory days? I wonder

if your cheerleader wife stayed when you lost

your hair. When you got inside her, was there

anything there? Did you even win your blond

medal? What a waste you were. Timmy,

you hated me because I saw through you

to the void where your soul should've been,

and I knew, no matter how fast you ran,

you'd never outpace it. But all I had to do was wait

to get past you. Timmy, I hated you because you ruled

the world from the inside, because you always won

even when you needed to learn how to lose.