Rose Aiello Morales

Don’t.
Sleep when exhaustion
spreads its arms to strangle you,
rage at the constant sway of worlds,
of words, letters sharpened, whetted
to a deadly edge, they will not hurt you.

Grief rises in the empty well,
and you piling stones,
making molehill mountains.
Pull bricks from the walls,
the gaping absence becomes footholds.
Climb stones, expose your feet,
cling with long nails of your toes,
they are not stigmata,
just another cross you have to bear.
Use it to hold your weight,
it’s all it’s meant to do.

Mass opiate, they smoke it
on the way to church on Sunday,
Monday, any day will do.
A speaker tells you how to live
while hidden ‘neath the pulpit,
a dirty soapbox carries him away.
Dream as the bells beckon,
your vision has more truth
than any laws made up by hypocrites.

Pundits smile in squares, rectangles,
getting larger with technology,
smaller with implants, you forget
and it sounds like your conscious.
There is no arbitrator, Jane was murdered
the day they found her making sense,
now the Cochlear whispering in your ear
says “KILL, KILL”, you will return a hero,
they’ll throw pills from the balconies,
leaving marks upon your skin
looking strangely like rough groups of sixes.

Sixes are lucky numbers, the double
trinity of hallucinogens you would not take.
When parades are over the chosen illegals
will sweep them up, into gutters
where the rats will drink the water.
But you, you take your liquids from a virgin bottle,
knowing always that the drugs don’t work.

© 2012 Rose Aiello Morales

She spent her last dollars
on milk and cookies,
arranged on a spotless
chipped plate, liquid
in a re-washed paper cup
(the only set she had).

Fell asleep on the rug
a gift of salvation
along with two rough chairs,
a candle in the dark,
Sterno and a couple of matches.

Fist of awakening rubbed from eyes,
maybe it was the absence of a tree,
one bare stocking taped on the wall,
the heating coal must have fallen
from the holey sock, powdered
from the drop, wind blown away.

She had written an unanswered letter,
not asking much: money for the lights,
fuel for the fire, and, if it wasn’t too presumptuous,
somehow, someway, to have a way out.

Life was hanging jagged
on the last limb,waiting
for the Fall, wanting to flutter
away before the coming cold of Winter.

We stared at all the signs,
billboards counting down
Doomsday minutes,our eyes
forever surrendering to “Buy more Coke”.

And we mainlined corn syrup,
hoping for a new recipe, our
final betrayal seeming simply Classic.

My lips moved as you passed the bottle,
mouthing platitudes in the drunken dawn,
anything to make the coming daylight bright,
a reason for waking to another day.

You wheezed a phlegm plagued cough,
a sign of tubercular rumblings, deep in
your throat to bring words out breathing:

“I think I’m dying”.

I glanced at our surroundings;
the needles of sun highlighting
the ruin of our days, smoke
cascading, frozen in the chilling room.
I grabbed your empty head, proof against meaning,

“Honey, we all die sometime”

I’ve saved two pennies for Henny.

Quick stepping under pieces of sky,
a flood of memories pouring in, I
had forgotten to close the shutters
and the world rushed in, needle stings
in the broken fabric, my face feels wet
and I finally found the reason why.

I hear the ping, ping, of drops against
the tile roof, a symphony of litanies
crying “Duck, duck!” but my legs are
hard to bend and I can’t get down. My
umbrellas are burning to keep me dry;
the doomsayers in the coffin box are
screaming “Help! we’re all gonna DROWN!”

I laugh, because I’m growing old, and yes,
I think I know about sorrow and pain. The
oracles speak of the coming Apocalypse

but I know it’s only rain.

How could I not have seen it?

Wandering, wondering in Braille,
making my point far too obvious,
wanting to see inside of you, through
your eyes, under your skin, entering
every pore, all entryways opening
to my touch; I was too eager, too earnest,
ended up trying way too much.

Licking drip off fingernails, new to the sense
of flavor as education, finding blood not to my liking.
Needling, picking at your bumps and scars,
poking into places better left alone.
In knowing I destroyed the magic, broke
this bubble of happiness, discovering too late

That you cannot taste the rainbow.

Now we stumble along naked alleyways,
leaves and trash blown harsh against our faces,
stranded, stagnant against this rolling tide
the enlightened merely side step blithely.

The blind now leading the blind.