drag my heart...

 
to put that hurt  –  to put that hurt on a lover

was a soldier once, whose name was John
came from the streets of a mean city
packed my duffel & shipped out
hauled my ass to the bunkers when the mortars dropped
hard in my armor over army green
smoked my smokes & warmed my hands
on the fear like a small fire
wrote letters to girls who sent me poetry

when the guns spit their last bullet
I was done with war & done with girls
went looking for a woman

made a parody of love to whiskey & to whores
& couldn’t figure which was the bigger sin
the whiskey or the whore

I drink the rain of the storm & eat the desert’s dust
make my way across the valley of the lonesome
& when fortune hits me up
I’m in a woman’s bed
she’d never have taken me if she wasn’t lonely

so when I find this woman
in her poems of despair & darkness
not sure if she’s looking for love or a lover
the passion comes easy for us
I tell her she’s beautiful & she brushes it off
like crumbs at the corner of her mouth

she’s a good woman who knows what bad is
I drag her down to my hell of dirty
of abuse, of sex that loses its glory
transcends to the iron maiden of fury, the skyrocket I ride
she holds it close to her naked body
with the sweat & the tears dripping down her thighs
she calls it love & she wouldn’t trade it for
   the blue wilderness of nothing  –

she’s locked herself in the prison of me
& I don’t know how to make her free…


(Art: Man Ray)