Charlie Robert
Don’t Eat the Blowfish
Tastes like chicken but like everything else it’s not.
The liver is Nagasaki.
The lungs Hiroshima or Jesse James and
Dear Old Death comes to us all but
the quiver is fantastic.
Like lips full of bees.
Like a bucket of glue and no one but you.
Hey Toshi! It’s Number One on the Hit Parade!
Who cares that The Deal is about to go down the Crapper.
Or that we may have to eat the pets.
Elsewhere in the Kingdom it is dark but this is the Shit.
This is the Rush.
Like finding Jimmy Hoffa in the attic.
Like kicking Mother Theresa in the teeth.
Like fifty-fifty at best with tubes in the chest and second cousins eyeing the Will.
First Published by Milk and Cake Press: Dead of Winter Anthology
There’s an Addict in the House
There’s an Addict in the House and they’re
Cracking Down all over town.
We have programmed him to report at First Light but
Confidence is running low.
Hey Man!
Given the opportunity he will ruin our scene.
Somewhere his ancestral home still stands.
Let’s stash him there.
In the place where the wind comes up from the Lake.
Where Elders drive by and Mourners high-five.
Where resolutions are covered in cellophane.
Cold in a bowl.
What will happen to him is anyone’s guess.
Caesar felt the first knife and thought it was the last.
First Published by Iconoclast
Morning Deer
Two Mule Deer.
Turning their heads as one.
Watching those of us still on the trail.
It is a Grand Gesture and does not go unnoticed.
A Sparrow Hawk waits and dives.
Please! she screams.
Every moment is sacred.
How many creatures know this?
The deer rotate their ears with deliberate intent.
Waving at us with the well practiced indifference of
newly minted royalty.
First published by Iconoclast
Simple in Retrospect
The house smells of apples and hard cold water.
Your dog whimpers in her dream chair.
Rabbits pouring out of countless bushes.
Easy pickings when you are still.
Outside there are stars.
Cold and bright and the Silence of the Country
is ripped up the middle.
When you look for it that is the beginning of trouble.
When you don’t that is the beginning of pain.
This planet is pinned to the Void.
Filled with creatures close to the earth.
First published by NOMADartx
Last Call
Barmaids.
Fixing their face.
One of these jerks could be The One.
The Champagne of Bottled Beer.
So they say.
One of these jerks.
One of these days.
Rotate.
The stools have fresh grease.
Creaky with ass.
With whispers Beer Loud.
The Deal is it on is it on is it on?
Their pistols are dicks.
Ready like snakes.
Ready to strike.
Upping the stakes.
Tomorrow.
There’s a Line-Up.
And the hope that no one breaks out in a sweat.
These jerks.
Point at their chests like squirrels.
Their memories of Last Call are just that.
First published by Rat’s Ass Review