In the aftermath,
I’m only a fraction,
You’re half of what I am,
I wish I had your…
undivided attention.

The wake of a sleepy sea,
Underneath night’s cool black sheet,
I can hear windswept secrets,
That the sea crests could not keep.

A swallow of sorrowful joy,
Flits its wings in pity,
Flies helpless into the void,
Sunset shot of whiskey,
Killing two birds with one stone,
She couldn’t die without me.

The leaves scattered like papers,
And crumple underneath his feet,
There’s nothing he can say to her,
The words written on those sheets,

He walks around an open grave,
In the cemetery where she sleeps,
Hoping death isn’t a stranger,
So he won’t ever again be lonely.

Listen to your chest,
Do you hear it?
I’m the dead beatnik,
Slamming poetry,
Against your breast.

He could taste the saltiness of a cold seaborne rain.
He was more a capsized vessel, than its captain.
He could hear the sirens wail of a great refrain.
With the wind on the quarter, he sailed toward death.
He looked to his compass, but there was no other way.
When he left port, it was never to return again.
He saw shore just before crashing on the rocks like waves.
All he treasured inside his chest had sank with him.

This loneliness is crippling,
And alcohol is like a crutch,
For a poet wounded by love,
Whose verse is mostly scribbling.