floors in this building
speak with local knowledge
squeaks that betray
conveyance incognito

the grayness of the
second call
echoes
problematic and urgent
ringing and wringing
trying to bring to its charge
the hollow message of
diffusion and reduction

a half squeak towards
and I slump back
I dont need any more “good” news
your personal triumphs
tend to leave me wanting

rusting

your latest optimism
has become a noun
giving you
taking you and
taking you
robbing me of subtext

birds of a wide variety
grubs, snails and fireflies
all visit this thicket
to feed on my heart
in the gloaming

I wonder about the end
what embrace
waits
for my jealous shit

world without end.

© Tom Watters  9/2/06

on this bed of straw
the answer that I have
dreamt of and
felt in my momentary grasp
the balls of my feet
sanding away at the parched adobe
pondering
transposing to a lower key
the tempo
away from the flapper’s jitterbug
into the sultriest waltz
I dont weep for fame
it never was envious of me
its parlor games
so practiced in the mirror
the who of it all
so void of an honest kiss
a kiss whose tongue
never speaks to its heart
because they have
different shopping lists
creating salvos
instead of the art
that used to stem from
a hot fire
I sink into
I breathe into
this bed of straw

© Tom Watters  8/17/06

the lichen-covered rocks
stood stoic and damp
mute to secrets, confessions

they had seen others
the others before me
and during him.
listened to their sighs
felt the pleas set down at your feet

I gripped at their cracks
tried to get a pulse
felt a timeless cool moisture
moving at a crawl

the red in your lips
preserved by the snap
in the early fall air
I gripped between your thighs
found your pulse
in the tilt of your neck

you drove down the
curves with urgency
ignoring the buzzing
and the cliffs that you could
dive from

biting your smirk,
in control
looking toward
the confusion
and back at
a legacy of ifs

and into
the whats

away from index

© Tom Watters  7/28/06

it must’ve been the music

unkind at best
to the power that you
once held
you cheat!

unfolding a tenuous wing
sorrowful, brittle
marrow and sap
snapping in the coming

drawn inexorably to
the solar flare of
passion and mistakes,
passion and mistakes

unconscious influenza
brought a carcinoma of
your own damned design
that picture
that frame of influence
that two-car-garage of shame

I stand at that edge
and look at the one foot drop
that would have been a chasm

when I was a moral
of the story
in a unsurprising play
that ran for years

© Tom Watters  7/19/06