fire lotus

I am elsewhere's twin
without a pedigree

I am a series of deathless pirouettes
against the lonely ballast of my past

I am the twins of that difference
I am a palette flash

I am another foolish census
of taproot by touch

I am living memorabilia
I am the final child of no remorse forced onwards

I am lust in the bones
of nothing lonely

I am the bludgeons and pantomimes
that imitate trying

I am the little jade knives
that wound my own bagful of eulogies

I am a boomerang through the omnivorous
returned without fingerprints

I am a cutthroat assortment of feuds
I am terminal burlesque

I am the new servant
trapped in a maze of eventualities

I am an insult
to the widow's inevitable altar

I am the occult wishes of the most casual informant
brought into the regime of elements

I am asylum's chatterbox
quotes filled with nothing but sickness

I am a contortionist, a ventriloquist, a tourniquet-maker
I am bedrock amnesia

Le Cercle Rouge

It has just begun.
Like midnight film noir:
a back street stakeout
on a rain-slick night.
It will not end well.
the detective already knows this.

The pivotal clues will be simple enough:
the timing of the gunshots,
the phone number penciled
on a matchbook
from Le Cercle Rouge,
the Polaroid hidden behind
the other photo in the antique frame,
the dark-haired girl in the picture,
piercing accusation in her eyes.

There will be
betrayal,
bloodshed,
shattered hearts
and finally,
the truth exposed
but only with a price.

When it's over,
no one
will be left
unscathed.