Where The Taxi Lights Burn Like The Sun

i put my arms
around this broken
beaten beauty
      only 24
   and already
defeated

you could see it in her
face and her sagging ass
her pale legs

and misery was a little black
bird under an eve singing
singing so sweetly that
tears dripped from the sidewalks

she nearly slipped one time
(the girl)
her knees met and she
stumbled
and some kids walked by and called
me a fag
or no, they didn't say fag
   but made some
comment about us both looking
like women
i paid no attention

the girl yelled back at them

come on, i said. and we went
to a bar
where everyone stared
and i bought her whiskey

there were dead men in the alley
picking maggots from their
bellies
and girls with cocaine lips
smoking thin white cigarettes
and
i
   knew
      that
         misery
that
little black bird
would sing
her
song thru these streets
forever.

- Justin Wade Thompson

(featured in the poetry forum 04.25.10)

Four Years of Solitude

it's hard
to be alone
in silence

when you want
to be alive
you want music

when you want
to be dead you want
the orange pop & crackle
of a warm flame

silent
alone
with the heater next to your
body

a blanket wrapped around
the knees

behind the darkness
behind the curtains

a string of lights
hanging more like defeated breasts
than a jack o lantern smile

the holiday chocolate next to
a shelf full of books
on human disease

you want to be alive
you want to be alone
you want to sit
in a golden circle with
severed arms

and a loving heart
beating blood to a brain
afire.

- Justin Wade Thompson

(featured in the poetry forum 02.19.10)

My Death Clock Singing

I’ve been dead for 3 days, thru
the putrid
crust of the earth
finding
angels in
the streets
and a drunken
mistress who chews
her own nipples
until they become
raw, RED, & swollen

I’ve been dead
for 3 days
picking at calloused
skin
& blisters
while fat flies
with big
RED eyes and RED asses
sit on my belly

lips cut with aluminum
tops of beer cans
sucking
blood
between my teeth
to tell stories in the gutter
under a street light brighter than
the boiling face of the moon.

- Justin Wade Thompson

(featured in the poetry forum 11.15.09)