ON THE SUICIDE OF J.Z.L.

Here is a poem by a dear friend and amazing writer I know. Marc di Saverio is an acclaimed Haiku writer, and I for one am on the edge of my seat in anticipation of "Sanatorium Songs" his forthcoming chap book to be released through Cactus Press. This particular poem is one of my favorites and will be included in "Sanatorim Songs". Please give it a read, I mean I like it I hate most poetry. Thanks, and good work Marc!

ON THE SUICIDE OF J.Z.L.

"'Daddy, you bastard'" he'd crack
with his father...Music once charmed
his slithering veins; He'd bar all thieves
from his diamonding brains contstellating

over a world that would have chauffeured
Him to Olympia. He takes one last look
at his face in his shadow on the ground.
Dawn once did scatter cheer: "two hours

till snowforts!". Jeer-rays echoed from an empty
fish-bowl. ''In heaven I'll have legs of chariots
Drawn by 10 unicorns. I'll be infinitely manic,

So don't worry, Loves; as you know, I've been SO sick...
wtf...his chair?...And what if mother discovers me?!"
A chair toppled, promptly.

Marc di Saverio

Whaling.

"Let's fall in love." I told her as I grabbed her little hand and lead her back inside our past hoping to understand what we did to cause the cracks that caused our walls to fall; to crumble back out into the sea we feared most of all. The waves continued to fight themselves and sounded off their angry bells as you drowned I flailed like hell to keep you safe inside those swells. I pulled you down to the depths with me. I dove with hopes of being free. Her Beluga call like a siren song distracted me from pressing on and so in the second I took to pause we were swallowed up, sent through her jaws. Inside her helm, her ribcage arc, we traced our past back to its start. We scrolled our love across her heart with the other primitive cave art we found scarred inside her chest; the tales of love under her breast. We weathered the storm entwined as one, bouncing around, "Do not come undone." And when our wishful thoughts reduced to none I held your breath and I gave you up. I sent you back out through her mouth; you forced it North but still I shoved you South and that's finally where you were spat out into the panic of limbs about. That's where I'm sure you found yourself, lost and alone in the Gulf coast's belt. I could never leave you you knew that much, but it seemed so hard so out of touch. Then you saw it shoot through the sky in the passing of your blinking eye and then it landed by your wounded side, the love of your life and so you allowed a sigh, "You're safe with me kid, I've got your back." and our bodies went limp at the sound of that. Ready to go so long as we went together we drifted back with the wake, floated like feathers, until we woke back on the shore with our mouths agape and our muscles so worn. With so little to muster I forced out these words "Let's fall in love kiddo." and that's all that you heard.

Where did she sleep?

Where did she sleep when her bed never found her?

What corner was she tucked away into I wondered.

How many nights did I lose on my own

just laying there coldly and willing her home.

I've come to accept that I'll never know

so I guess that it's best that I just let it go.

I can't help that I'll always sit around here and wonder

where did she sleep when her bed never found her?

Who does she read when my words cannot woo her?

Who's sonnets and songs steal her away I wonder.

How many poems have I scrolled out without grace

and soiled some sheet just to offer her a page?

I can't pretend that I don't write here full of wonder

who does she read when my words cannot woo her?

Mechanic's son.

I washed my hands

as best I could

or ever had before then.

I scrubbed under my nails,

the beds of my cuticles,

the webbing of my fingers--

with my prints on her skin

I tried to wash them away

from my fingertips

to let them belong to someone else,

and to let other hands wander like mine

and recreate my memories

and claim them as their own

and have me free from them

and leave me well enough alone.

My signature is branded onto her

porcelain skin, burned pink.

Her porcelain skin

is draped over almost silk sheets

and draped over her is him,

heavy and think

he heaves his weight,

shifting it from his left to right

hard hand and calloused fingers

still dirty like those of a

mechanic's son.

This dick won't suck itself.

This dick won't suck itself, or shed its skin like a snake constantly being reborn under the desert's setting sun. No, this dick won't suck itself, though erected like a skyscraper inside of the horizon made up of the seldom curves of my body. This dick won't suck itself drier than the Serengeti with its pre-cum dangling proudly off its chin. Of course this dick won't suck itself , no it knows of its own diet and could never be so daring as to ever want to try it. Oh this dick would do a lot of things, some I would never have done myself, but of all the things that this dick can do it cannot suck itself.

Wait Winter out.

Looking out of my bedroom window and down onto the blanketed Earth Mother Nature took to tuck in last night while I wasn't watching. Forced into treading lightly, forced into the soft steps of a fox trot and out into the bitter biting cold of morning. Watching as the condensation my breath is made up of floats away into the streetlight's rays that only seem to exist in the early day; watching what existed turn into nothing but the waiting that comes before becoming something else. From this point on this moment will be referred to as cocooning. When will Spring have sprung up on the young love reserved for children on snow days and landscapers surprised by the burgeoning blossoms of tulips; or any two lips just before six a.m. I am overwhelmed by the daunting lines of a shovel pressing on through the collected snowflakes of a drift at the far corner of the house I live in but only wish I grew up in. I fabricate memories out of old ones, those discarded by whomever lived here first, and with pieces of my own. Bastardizing my childhood to better suit this snowy early hour, bastardizing my childhood to better look back on it fondly though I never seemed to have a hard time before. I just wish that it existed in here. Staring down onto the street and watching its veins show on the beaten road that would be cobblestone if only I'd been born before my grandfather, I was obviously not. Salt the streets, scare the snow back into hiding in sewers where it waits to become rain again with any luck. But for now pull the blind closed, closer still, closer to the end of a day though it's only just beginning. Lay your head back down, lay it right here on my chest and we'll find our way back to sleep. If I find it first I'll come back to get you if you promise to try and do the same. Let's escape Winter like Harry Houdini, try to lay here and hibernate, let's pretend that Mother Nature was really only trying to tuck us in here and let's wait the Winter out.

Waltzing out the door.

The distance is growing beyond the measurement of meters or miles; swelling like the ankles of my pregnant sister; expanding like the shoreline at high tide and washing me back out to sea. Pacing around on the ocean's cold floor, sinking up to my ankles; to my knees; to my armpits; getting in over my head because I have the time to kill and someone to consume it. I'd throw up my arms to twelve o'clock and celebrating your celebration but I'm not certain you're celebrating at all. It might be mourning come morning with the birds chirping outside a bedroom window that isn't yours as your naked skin sticks to and pulls at the sweat soaked sheets of reckless abandon. Throw caution to the wind; throw emotion over your shoulder and give in to your inhibitions just don't give up. Make sure that the made men bar patrons who surround you like schooled fish aren't swarming but swooning, and then don't let go. Bite your bottom lip in reservation, in memory of days that slipped between our knotted fingers never to come up again even though I have been willing its resurrection. Now I know that it takes two to tango but I'm afraid that you're waltzing out the door.

I'm beat.

Yeah, I'm beat. I'm beaten like the afghan rug my mother clung to for one too many years. I'm beat, beaten down to a pulp like the paper we'll print this poem upon later. I'm beat, dog tired, exhausted, my eyelids taking to beat off of one another ever slower, slower still. I'm beat, too beat for the zoo today I hope you understand. I'm beat, I fold, I muck the cards; I didn't have it in me. I'm disarmed. I'm beat, closed up like morning glory, just waiting to gather the rain. I'm beat. I'm the bareback catalyst of cadence made up of your rapping on taut skin. Oh I'm beat. I'm beatitude, blessed are those who make prose in this garden. I'm beat worse than Kerouac, than Cassady, than Bill Lee, than him... Ginsberg in the kitchen beating eggs into his gin. I am beat.

Cold no more.

I wanna climb into the well of our conversations and live a day inside our past. I'll probably try my hand at hibernation, but I'm too young for it to last. I'm still as naive as when you left me kiddo, still as gullible as before. But I'm too strong now love to let go, oh no! I made believe but now I'm sure.

I built an ocean in your honour honey. I built a ship to sail those seas. I built a dream for us to share here sweetie, so climb aboard, just come with me. I worked my fingers to the bones here kiddo. I worked my fingers down to none. Now I can't hold your hand like I want to, oh no! Now I can't draw you into toward my love.

I'm moving the mountains of our broken records. I'm gonna move them underground. I know your verses; I know what I heard though I tried to ignore the sound. It doesn't matter that I rerouted these rivers to lead me back to your front door. It doesn't matter that you still make me shiver, because I won't be cold no more.

Precious blood.

Your precious blood coursing through your precious veins, and your bones and the skin I'm sure is wrapped around them. If only I could be sure that you exist beyond the fairy tale, beyond the forest, beyond the mist. I insist on entertaining the idea that you're breathing somewhere out there because if you're a figment of my imagination then someone's not playing fair. Beyond a window, before a door, you're sitting cross legged on your bedroom floor or that's how I picture you; that's perfect. I suspect in your chest is a heart left undressed with care, with grace, with something. Now at night I can't sleep. I can't muster a dream so I'm sitting here quietly writing. But you've counted your sheep and moved onto catching your z's and it makes my own bed seem inviting. So goodnight broken verse; goodnight moon, and goodnight girl... I can't wait to meet you.