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Jazz Music poetry Short Stories Uncategorized Urban Legends writing

no person or animal other than the author was harmed during the production of this poem

my body is unaware
that today is a holiday

it is new year’s eve 2013
therefore
i needn’t report
to the salt mine

but here i am
at 6 am
coffee pot possessed
as good morning gods sit resplendent
upon my altar smiling

the a.m. news programs
hold no special fascination
so i migrate to my office
having decided early reading
whilst the rest of my house sleeps
is my favorite preoccupation

my fingertips
blindly feel the spines
lining the shelves

i won’t look with my eyes
i want to be surprised

ah little thin things with staples
i’m in the chap book section
one two three
pull now…

…oh hell

it’s
his…

his chap book
labeled #13 of 42

well of course it is

now that he’s dead
i suppose i could
go ahead and read it

half way through
a personal message ink scratched
which has waited years to be read
between chapters
delineating
life and death

“For my sweetest of potatos. All my love. -X”

perhaps i should drop to my knees and weep
but instead
i think
he misspelled potatoes, really?

never speak ill of the dead…

…unless they deserve it

always ten degrees off
a fuck up to the end
well, at least the sumbitch
was consistent

i’m reshelving it
my selection finger
moving on to a lesser symbol of sin
to my enduring and beloved
Hester Prynne

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