Nice Guy

knew a man
   who thought
he was
   a martyr

kissed him,
   put TNT
in his mouth
   then
walked away

boom like that

- Lynne Hayes

(featured in the poetry forum 04.20.12)

editor's note: Yes! Exactly like that! - mh

observations from a room with a view of the parking lot

sitting on the dented hotel bed
she notices the frayed carpets,
wonders if that oval stain
by the door is someone's love
or death

walls, a jaundice hue
from lonely people smoke
makes almond shaped eyes feel
like acrid tears, and
a snowy television shows
the slick preacher man yelling
salvation is free

"go to hell", her response

decline was swift,
from golden girl to whore
with one step from the road enough
to reduce her world to pebbles,
the kind that weld to tired soles.

as tapered fingers
scratch through long, ratty hair
clarity comes like a vision,
the body has finally come home

tossing a penny to the bible belt man,
she lies on her back and prays

- Lynne Hayes

(added 04.20.12)

Fallout Boy

Heels clicked songs on the avenue
in time to the slow swagger
of those take me to the moon hips.
He was such a handsome man.

Like a matador's moving red wool,
funnels replaced black iris's
as finger-taps in his skull
reduced a house to ashes.

She put herself in front of moving trains,
laid cool palms to bursting temples
and at day’s end,
he merely spit out her blood and sighed.

They say his madness was evident.
He left the crying babe alone,
among hangers and jackets
as the monkey perched high on his back.

His life is now seeped in gray,
looks in corners for something
that carries long forgotten memories
of a life he never got to live.

- Lynne Hayes

(featured in the poetry forum 01.29.11)

Push(er)

Hey you?
Looking for something perhaps
to erase fears
or by chance can
help you launch face first into my
sweet oblivion.
Nights become days become nothing,
but a wicked spiral of ins, outs
sideways, slide ways of messiness.
Trade me your usefulness
and I will return to you a bounty of sloth,
then let me rape your smile
to replace it with a line on the horizon.

Allow me to assist
in your flat line of vitality.
Please, keep taking from my claw
sweet poisons of eternal voids
and I will offer the demise you so
unconsciously crave.
Retreating into the abyss
without ropes, tethers or any ground beneath
your feet, I can ensnare the future you
willingly offer for my economies.

Hey you?
Let me assist in the Remains of your day.

- Lynne Hayes

(added 01.29.11)

Four is greater than pi

Numbers always elude me
yet I think I have it now.
There are three hundred
puke green cinder blocks
in this place where death and life collide,
four windows with bars
to keep what, spirits in or out?
A radar blip
every two seconds to confirm
air is still given
and taken.
One bed so shiny
the glare hurts my eyes,
one three by six device in my palm
holding four words
that broke me in two.
But pulse rates over a hundred
do not kill,
So
I counted two hundred three steps
to the car that took three left turns,
passed four green lights
a lone police car watching
to arrive at one house
where the message
repeats like that awful remainder
in algebra,

Have a great life.

Counting has stopped.

Lynne Hayes

(featured in the poetry forum 08.23.10)

Doing it Jack Allen style

With the grip of a possessed lover
you took my hand,
leading me backwards
to the alley where we met
and broke each other.
Amid the concrete, empty soda cans
and trashy love songs from sleepy alley men,
we burned each other
with love that left our signatures
on the walls, graffiti-style,
Yet,
as the band played on and
your breath grew strong,
you never heard my nails break,
or see my fingers bleed onto mortar
as I made a crack,
big enough to hook my life into.

- Lynne Hayes

(featured in the poetry forum 06.24.10)