2016: a portrait (draft)

half-nelson
the muscular shadow:
__mountains of heavy-weighted silence

___*

near tears when i arrive home
scared of the front door
frozen on the porch in the dark, still holding my keys
__hoping the stray cat will visit

__
___*

you were sober all week?, that's great! that's great, And last night too,
oh.
...
___...

___*

this straight road.
this tired sunday,
yet another fallen to my feet, with the other playing cards

even the shingles doesn't scratch,
in the shape of a perverse smile
licks its lips and presses its fang into me

hi sucker

___*

this finger is fine, i can move it.
the finger is swollen, dislocated and fractured.
i can move it.
you cannot.
but i see it moving.
you do not.

___*

half-nelson
the breathlessness
the herbs for the anxiety
the pills for the cold bed
the medication for the frenzy
the booze for everything else

___*

it's true isn't it?

i am here?

am i?

please
_please ,



is there no bottom?

(the carousel. the merry-go-round,

hamsters on a wheel. rats in race).

___*

there's a voice on the other end.
far away.
it keeps me walking.
i keep pace to it.
if it stops i stop.
tomorrow it may be there again.
tomorrow maybe i will be.

___*

2016:
the year of the half-nelson,
the choke-hold
breathlessness : the year of the motionless frenzy
the sunken cathedral
the bottomless piano,
the monday vampire
the tuesday drone
these white tulips
these cigarettes won't light
these pills won't speak
no exit
no stronghold
the muscular shadow, with its mountainous weight:
the year of the gridlock,
the lost birth certificate
the half empty tumbler
the empty bottle
the year of the



is there no bottom?



___please :


______is there no bottom?