Outlaw_ghost

Poetry has no secrets.

Perhaps we all have been Looking for love in all the wrong places.

You unlock What’s inside of me As a burglar might Stealing my emotions You need Only touch me I would be yours In a heartbeat Every desire Aching need The flame I guard Would be given My skin These lips This heart The very soul of me All yours.

. She is more than a rainy night, She is the perfect storm.

My fingers touching you Underneath the moonlit sky Beneath a blanket of stars I had to share my feelings for you, This is the only way I know I reach down & gently take your chin I tilt your head up & kiss you & the chills start to send down my back I wonder where they will hit me next.

Expensive liquor & sad songs. We stayed drunk & high; it was her only notion of happiness. in the end, she was off with other men. I lost her; sure, it was in the cards. But there was one good thing About her – she broke my heart So no one else ever could. So now I’m on the corner Waiting for a cab To the furthest dying star. But the cabs are running slow tonight. & then it starts to rain.

‘For it is the moon That begets love’s tragedies’ I’ve walked in the valley of storms Where the shadows Are most bleak, The bleakness most deep. Stumbled along to avoid The cracks in the road, & I’ve heard the tolling Of the bells; (They toll for me.)

. Perhaps I’m the poem You never finished writing Because you were too sad.

These days I try to chase other diversions: Art & music, But sometimes I have a drink Or two, & drift back into watercolor sheets & the arms of a somber woman, The shadows not quite obscuring The sadness of pretended love. Then I write about it, Cheap poetry that nobody reads.

. She wears her melancholy Like moonlight.

I found a melancholy smile Sipping at my coffee this morning; (if only sweetness had lingered A little longer)

• What’s missing? • Your smile to dazzle the sun, & warm every corner of my soul.

My thoughts are dancing shadows I can’t trace back to a single flame, Because you burn a thousand Different ways Leaving me branded. & I swear to you that so true A description of my feelings for you Would char this page the same & love would be finally written in the ashes.

I have said I am made Of dreams Tough guys don’t cry Not so’s you’d notice Like Bogart in ‘Casablanca,’ Drinking straight whiskey, Remembering Paris Remembering Ilsa Who walked hard on his heart When the song said ‘A kiss is just a kiss’ (I knew that sometimes Even poetry lies)

I’ve crossed paths on a lonely road With a sad & broken woman Following the trail of her own tears So tragic & beautiful in her vulnerable state. Dresses that she wore to no place in particular & shoes that longed To be danced in. & a small packet of love letters Taped to the bottom of a drawer, Scrawled notes from a quiet soldier Who was killed in the streets Of a templed city. A woman who once loved. A woman who once was loved.

I may seem out of reach, But that's wrong. I see your poetry I feel the love written in your rhymes They do make my heart Beat fast & will do for all times Your beautiful words Have touched me I carry your stanzas in my heart I read them to myself everyday.

She has the name of a flower, She blossoms, & beautiful is her name. Too glorious for my eyes to hold She is like the wind Which is always near But I cannot hold the wind. if she can be held, I will hold her just like that. (A flower not to be crushed in my savage arms.)

(I need to get this misery out) Fuck you! for leading me With vacant promises, For breaking me down With a violent passion That I perceived as love. Fuck you! for dropping me into this forgotten place & not even stopping to lift me out Before you walked away. Fuck you! How do I unlock this silence You left me in? It was heavy with all of the things I needed to say. Fuck you! I was supposed to be a part of you. My wings; Why had I closed my eyes As you plucked each one From my freedom & left them in your footprints?

Blame this whiskey. I get drunk, & when I get drunk I get stupid. I drive to her house 'Cause I miss her too much. I struggle up the stairs & pound on her door When she lets me in I embrace her so tightly That she might break into little twinkling stars & float away from me.

How a woman like her Shy as the blush on a pink rose Would open for a dusty nighthawk Like me She should have noticed The ghostly kissprints on my face & heard the buzz of a warning No, not him

If it’s raining, I must be in the right place; So I caress my sorrow Close to my shot glass & compose a tragic romance About her About her eyes & her forbidden heart The shadow of an ode The echo of a sonnet. (A man calls himself a poet But it’s the whiskey That makes the poem)