saints of the broken heart

 
city of a constant moon. dismal avenues patrolled by scarred
soldiers of a distant war, & a hooker under every street lamp
waiting to be picked up.

the glory is that I am here with the chain-smoking hustlers,
the whiskey seducers, & the bad girls who ride the wild,
unpredictable bronco of love all the way to a broken heart.
we are left with rescinded affairs of passion & the poetry of it,
written on tear-stained cocktail napkins.

a woman will tell you right to your face that she loves you, & she
won’t stop, even if you stop loving her. it’s a mighty burden on the
heart of a man, where he carries the heart of a woman.

I’ve pursued strangers with attractive faces & willing bodies, ladies
who saw something in the dangerous tales I weave, dangerous
enough to take me as a lover. it was good for awhile, till it broke
down to the inevitable sorrow. I am given sadness, so I write sadness.

the old loves, the old lies, will fall to the pyre of the past, I suppose,
burn to embers taken by the zephyrs, if I ever make my way
to the woman who wears my name on her ravished body…


(Art: Josef Breitenbach)