Lady Pain
by: eddy styx and Dan Watts

wild horses
couldn’t stop her
from ruining her life.
She was hell bent
on destruction
and all her
shuddering denial
denied her intentions
of exposing her
tender pink
silk and satin
underbelly
and all her
feminine frills
like tea and crumpets
she needs her fix
of love and pain
laced with daily
humiliation.

solitude

solitude is quiet
in a
cacophonous sort
of way.

solitude is a print
with no
press.

solitude requires
endurance.

solitude is a memory
retold.

solitude is its own
price
paid.

sanctity of quiet

quiet is sanctity
of one --
an insouciance

caring free
nonchalance
as grape vines
burgeon fruit

a fly buzzes farmlands --
light shines
dappled between feathers
of birds in flight

not counting quills
to stay aloft --

avian brains
balanced as no others
know

but perhaps humans
who trod thin edges
of silent way

long and narrow
the path
pitfalls each on each side

one more day

lost chord
is hidden in chaos --

perhaps chaos is lost chord
in disguise

I came into the world screaming
I may stay under protest

but --

listening to lost chord
while still here is
a wonder in itself

midst chaos' clamber
tune keeps me

present

one more day.

vcp

BEST OF FRIENDS

We were lying on the grass,
We were talking of the past,
And I told you of my dad's old steel rimmed glasses-
Then, you told me of the man
With another in his hand,
And you couldn't believe that he was making passes...

Then, you spoke to me of touch
And you said it meant so much
To be touched when you are down or just plain lonely-
Now could that be the spark
Made you hold me in the dark-
Though you said you really loved your one and only...

craps shoot at thought café

in backroom
at the thought café
game of craps
was ongoing for as long
as I recall.

most of the regulars
were there with
their money folded
long ways between
middle and ring fingers.

action was a little
slow, and regulars
were looking for new
meat.

they looked my way,
and I shook my head, no
and said, “I don’t gamble.”

“why are you smoking that
damn pipe and drinking
cabernet?” they asked.

eyes

eyes hold you there
applause subsides
auditorium empties

another night
another show
whispers heard backstage

stage door creaks on
rusted hinges --
opening, allows players' exit

alleyway awake with footsteps
summer moths flutter naked light-bulbs
on aging brick walls -- casting eerie shadows

shuffle a dozen shoes
to street beyond
on the way for a coffee or drink

aura of performance just played fades --
just ahead of lightning and thunder
actors reach the street

closed gate -- open road

not come to an end this hike
gate behind me closed

stepped onto the road
without being swept away
--trick of all tricks--

jumped that freight at
three AM

headed west
never looked back
nothing there -- but
door locked and barred

behind the gate
a house but not a home
there -- nothing left to learn
but how to burn

liberation

aching carbon corpus
humiliating adventure --
diaphanated alarm

discovering humiliation
to be first step --
on path to liberation.

vcp

Angelic perversion
fall from grace
banished into the wilderness

He wanders a solitary road
a desolate soul,
the abandoned one.

Hades and the bowels of hell,
behind soulless eyes
the stench of death upon his ragged clothes.

Creeping through the urban undergrowth
ashen heart, so brittle and cold,
Godforsaken, rejected.

Immortality his cross to bear
condemned to exist in purgatory,
A deviant fiend.

Vile transgressor
contrition his eternal torture,
redemption his goal.