Uncharted Frontier EZine Issue 14

by Allan Kaspar

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  Photography by Sarah Kayß

  A Collection of Poetry

  By David Rutter

  Benedition

  God

  You seem

  To offer

  So much comfort

  To my friends

  How I’d love

  To believe

  You are there

  Can we agree

  For just one moment

  To pretend?

  Grant me the power

  To look in the mirror

  And assuredly state,

  “I forgive you

  Your vanity

  Your selfishness

  Your pitiable weakness

  Your arrogance

  Your grandiosity

  Your petty jealousies

  Your silly sensitivity

  Your lack of mercy and compassion

  I forgive you

  For not being able to help

  Being you.”

  Now, God

  As you fade back

  Into the fantasy

  Could you and I agree

  Just to keep this

  Between us?

  Just Faded Away

  We held each other

  In such high esteem

  Didn’t we?

  All those years ago

  We even shared a woman

  Well, a girl really

  You held her left hand

  I held her right

  And we divided up the hours

  Eight for you

  Eight for me

  Eight to sleep

  Three on a bed

  Thinking of you now

  I know you have a son

  But I’ll be damned

  If I can remember his name

  And where do you live again?

  Marin? Mendocino?

  It starts with an M

  And you’re still married, right?

  Still the same wife?

  Did I start this process?

  The day I told that same girl

  She had to choose

  It was me or you

  It couldn’t be both

  And that night we slept

  All in one room

  For old times sake

  But we were in one bed

  You in another

  Is this what started it?

  The decay?

  I realize now

  It’s been five years

  Since I heard your voice

  And ten since we had a conversation

  I made a list

  When I got married

  It’s only now

  Remembering you

  Writing this poem

  That I realize

  Your name wasn’t on it

  You and I

  Would have died for each other

  Had it been asked

  Now I’d need a photograph

  To accurately describe

  Your face

  We never broke

  Never busted

  Never burned it down or crumbled

  My dear friend

  We just faded away

  Spring St. After Dark

  Annie’d shot her nose off

  Running from the cops

  When they smashed down her door

  She’d learned the hard way

  To hold the shotgun with the barrel down

  It’s so easy to slip and fall

  When you’re in a panic

  “Everything happens for a reason,”

  Annie used to say.

  Extra face hole, extra money

  That’s the way she looked at it

  I wasn’t my cup of tea, of course

  But I could see how it might appeal to some

  She’s just another carny

  On Spring St. after dark

  It’s a 50/50 bet

  When gunfire splits the night

  Some sad sack’s got his nuts blown off

  Or it’s just Val Kilmer

  Doin’ CPR on his career

  There’s a film crew

  Under every trashcan

  On Spring St. after dark

  I’m up on the post office rooftop

  With a mint julep in my hand

  (The best that irony can buy)

  Taking potshots at the rats

  Who scurry tween the junkies

  Lying prostrate in the alley

  It’s always a crapshoot

  Whether these guys will mind at all

  If they get hit by mistake

  I just watched a skid row whore

  Polish off her John

  Then reach behind the nearby dumpster

  Pull out the baby in a stroller

  She had hidden there

  Teach ‘em young

  That’s the secret

  On Spring St. after dark

  Beetle could talk a blue streak

  Around you every night

  You’d give him anything he wanted

  Just to shut him up

  There was no choice but be nice

  He might be a Hollywood producer

  In the morning

  Sure as hell

  That’s what he’d been before

  Your track marks

  Are your billboard

  For the dealers all to see

  They might always give you

  Something a lot more deadly

  Than what you came to find

  But you take your life

  (Not to mention your soul)

  In your own hands

  On Spring St. after dark