The Garden is Tainted by Hag Women and their Rabid Men

by R.L. Elledge

Walking through the sodden garden,
Soaked in kisses from heavens lips,
Reclining in passions embrace,
Inhaling the sweet breath of her children,
Shivering, cold, bright eyed, joy,
Wondering, whispering, like the rustling leaves,
Of old bleary eyed trees, splash of yellow flowers,
At the foot of the graceful gray oak,
Whose arms shade her impish daughters,
From the suns howling gaze.

Electric spots of fiendish flowers,
In the manicured lawn of wealthy age's dour faces,
Cocaine falls in showers,
From their lonely bowers,
From which their bitter eyes, barely held in place,
Amidst stretched and pinned skin, sickly sick grin,
Stare hotly at youth’s freedom, smooth flesh,
They finger their scalpels and nicotine patches,
And fleetingly desperately consider some madness,
But they’re too old.

Teeth, Glass, and Ashtrays

by R.L. Elledge

On some days, I feel drawn and gray,
Like a destitute and dusty dissolute ashtray
Or a darling, plucked too soon
With handbags hanging heavy in her haggard face,
Holding her sin, while the devil does croon
Sibilant and sweet, keeps her in her place.

And on those days,
When I moodily peruse
The dusty shelves of my damaged recollection,
I revisit those nights,
Sleeping under bridges and smoking under street lights,
In the aftermath of the inevitable collision
Between the bastard and the beast
With defiant eyes and rictus grin
Stabbing at his thin lips and red, fat, pig face
I spat on his house,
his god,
His fat fucking face

And so,
he got to swinging
and she came down screaming
and he got to bullshitting
before I realized he’d swung
and I left,
and I waited,
and I left.

Then some days, I feel red
And fists start curling in my head
And further, callousing
Into a cocoon,
And further, coiling,
Into a rope
Which twists
Like a snake,
And hangs,
Like a sentence
And lingers,
Like love

And then its, Happy, Happy Fucking Birthday,
To you,
And a little blue pocketknife,
Too thin to be useful,
Too sharp to be harmless,
Sharp, sharp, so very sharp
Slicing,
Running rivulets and ruddy ribbons,
And it’s Happy, Happy Fucking Birthday,
To you.

And then, on other days, I feel dipped in black ink
And into my sin I’ll contentedly sink
With silver and gold, steel and leather,
Slithering, unfold, light as a feather,
A bastard on the brink, a deal with the Devil
Strolling casually through every Infernal level
And Purgatorial vice, a laugh like clattering dice
Grin dyed black with tar, spitting slivers of ice
And it’s cold, cold but I feel fine
The Devil’s pale blessing comes with the next line
And there’s blood in my boot, but I don’t feel shit
Stab or shoot, I’ve got my personal self-medication kit

With everything you’d ever want to feel
Or never feel again,
And every experience you’d ever wished to steal,
Or absolution from your sin.
Desperately needing selling snatching grabbing willing to lurk
With my teeth in the glass of a broken ashtray
Gums receding nose bleeding fingers ready to work
But it’s okay, cus someday
It won’t all be so fucked,
At least not in this way
So fuck it, see the sarge? Buck it
Theres glass between my teeth and ashes in my eyes
Doesn’t talk much but at least he never cries

Dystopia

by R.L. Elledge

Icy slivers
Of ruined frozen livers
Slither
Out her eyes, with black oozing lies
And she shivers
As they slide
Down her sultry spine
And carve
A little white line
Through rounded flesh
That will shrink and stretch
Around protruding bone, offensive and white
like what the moon could have shown
on that fateful night
when stinking blight
lost it’s way back to Hell
got cold and crawled back into it’s shell
and oozed it’s slime
all over our lives
and now it’s what drives these sick machines
because it never dries up and never dies down
and never fades
or slows
or knows
what it does
and is therefore innocent in it’s sweetest sin
It wears a grin, as it goes about the Devil’s work
that it would never occur to think to shirk
as it enjoys it’s job,
to watch and to lurk,
to kill and to rob,
to corrupt
and putrefy
The ripe bodies lain before him,
a Last Supper for the Devil’s deadly dozen,
lounging in the brightest idle mind
that they could find,
at short notice
because it’s go go go
to get ready for the big show
that Mom and Pops have been planning
all of all our lives.
And the show goes like this;
it starts with a kiss and a sweet goodnight
and then a man comes to town to make something right,
but what is wrong?
What did we miss?
What is sick in our town’s lovely song?
Something’s wrong, something’s gone,
can you smell the rot of what I’ve got?
Can you feel the weight fit to break your back
or send a crooked crack
down your skull
during a lull
in the storm
and when did that get here?
Just a minute ago I was dry and warm
and had never tasted fear.
What is wrong? What is there?
I don’t care.
Burn the song and burn the town! Burn them long and burn them down!

Break the kiss,
Breathe in the lies
No more goodnight,
Eat the lips that soon you’ll miss
And open your eyes
For a bloody sight.

The Bitter End is a Bar

by R.L. Elledge

Poetry,
Like sex,
Is best when it’s angry.

Sweetness loses its savor,
And if you’re that sorry slick type,
You’ll last about two seconds,
Before a real man,
Decks your sorry ass,
And makes you bleed like a bitch.

So come at me son,
Come the fuck at me.

Anyways,
In other news,

Fat lips squirm like a red worm,
Wriggling obscenely in screaming half seen memories,
And infuriating implications.
Pulse pumping like an eel crashing through my veins,
And eyes seeing nothing,
Besides the insides,
Of my head, and the other, that bled,
A bittersweet red.

Drugs only get you so far.
Blowing a line off her bare thigh,
At the Heart of Texas motel,
Off Highway 290.
A bottle of Jack in one hand,
And the other slowly sliding,
Steadily down,
The smooth flesh of today’s freshest catch,
To where I’m sure your imagination has already led.
And then out.
Into the warm night air.
Onto the pale moonlit street.
Where summer lounges in sultry heat.

And I light a cigarette,
With a silvery flick of my wrist,
And make my way down these city streets,
My streets, though cold, graying and old.
Like the bony grasping fingers of a lecherous mayor,
Fervently clawing at the soft young body of a dead whore,
Whose glassy eyes gaze at starry skies like rotting fish scales,
Reflecting pale will o’ wisps,
Suspended amongst the turbulent motion,
Of the merciless ocean.

And I’ll traverse these city streets,
Cracking his knuckles with every clacking impact,
Of the riding heels,
Of my black ostrich hide boots.
Or singe the Old Man’s sensibilities
In my daddy’s white truck
Too big to be softy slick, but just the size for a hard fuck
And to lie in afterwards
In dizzy sex sweat drenched dazed ecstasy
And marvel at the will o’ wisps
Watching beyond the fogged windows

At the Bitter End
There’s a bar, a bogie, and a light
Once you’ve gotten kicked out of the one
And smoked the other
There ain’t much left to do
But light yourself on fire
And then drown in the gutter
Ever burning soul outliving charred corpse
Remaining in eternal, beautiful agony