Two Poems

To End This

We weren’t built in a day.

How long do you think it would take to destroy us?

Which structure would be struck first?

Our trust, our fantasy, our rationality?

You’re right, the saved angry phone messages are an easy target;

A sound foot-hold for the enemy.

There’s plenty of wounds to be reopened there.

 

But I still say it’ll be the theft of a certain stash of secrets

Which will spark the real ruin

All it takes is one tiny secret to fall into enemy hands…

And the flags will fly

And the troops will march

And we will fire

And sanction

And force our mutual friends to take sides

 

Oh, but I’m forgetting-

There’s always the sideways glances we give,

Inviting the devil to join in the destruction.

No, you say, even the devil scoffs at the cheap thrill

Of throwing stones in our glass house

We are one sorry friendship too weak and easy to wreck,

Even the devil passes us by.

 

I nod, and offer you a cigarette

As we ponder more fast ways to end this.

Looking Good is For Lovers

Watching you sucking and bloating through the fish-eye lens

Wishing you would hold still

So that I could examine

Your tearless eyes

For some long awaited answers

To my unasked questions

 

You squiggle and squawk

As I strobe your dry eyes,

Trying to stun you

I want to see how long

Before a tear is squeezed

It’s my sick little game

 

A fish-eye lens and a strobe light flash?

How am I supposed to look good under these conditions?

This isn’t fair,

You complain.

 

You don’t, I reply,

You look bad

I look bad at you

And you look bad right back

 

With you pockets full of jingling

Reasons why you don’t need to look good for me-

You don’t need to be good to me

Friends aren’t for that

Looking good is for lovers

We are not lovers,

Remind me one more time