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

praise this queen
or jester or goddess
whatever this blur
of plates and glasses

of applauded spills
and eloquent yessir
flirtatious banter
and large dreams

no stranger to gossip
she has been the
purveyor, and the conduit,
and the cause

the regulars
the just-passing-throughs
she is a quick judge of
lottery ticket choices

she tacks a room
as if it were a regatta
looking for the prevailing
opportunity in the swales

explanation is quick
rote and sincere
insincerity is left for the dollar
the most necessary of pariahs

there’s always tomorrow,
walking through the front door
there’s always tomorrow
there’s always always.

© Tom Watters  6/24/06

we converse through the random.
fortune cookies
and coins
oblivious that
every occurrence,
every turning of a corner
breathes the others name
gingerly
on the earlobes

our music is
organic, house,
and sparse
we dance slowest
wide-eyed and spooked
fingertips and spines,
pelvis under sanded palms

we thrive in secret
sweet cool streams of
our own wonder,
our childhood
our tears taste like our laughter,
taste like our sweat…
taste invisible

no promises, no promise
experience necessarily
not
required

we build our fountain
on quicksand
we suffocate delicious
precious few
attempts at escape
we grow downward

© Tom Watters  6/16/06

this veil of pity
was sewn from
mutual fabric

I craved its softening
gauze and wanted
to serve
its halo.

to believe you.

Pollyanna shit.

in your clasp
it was
subterfuge,

security
for your
sleight of hand

a hedge
against any
sudden

shifts in attention

that might damn you to
the plain
thick black shoes
of mediocrity

oh-fucking-well

trust,
as it turns out,
is a wind-up toy.

tension the spring
with measured caution,

or hail the
motionless cymbals
in the paws
of a sad,
evil monkey.

© Tom Watters  6/12/06