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Little black dog
With ears so pointy,
Little black dog
With powers anointy.

Little dog can read your mind.
Little dog can hop.
Little dog can rob you blind.
Little dog can shop.

Doggie in the garbage can.
Doggie in the trash.
Doggie does what doggie can.
Doggie's very brash.

Bite the doggie on the leg.
Bite him on the tail.
Bite the doggie on the ears.
Life is a giant whack-a-mole game;
Sometimes you're the whacker.
Sometimes you're the mole.

Swan Song

Is there nothing
more beautiful
than the contrast of
skin and blade,
or my blood brightly
splashing on the porcelain?

Almost A Shame

They were very pretty,
Those three rows of blue sleeping pills
And the two of pink painkillers.

Just like tiny baby boys and girls
Sleeping on the tabletop
Next to the mother-hen bourbon bottle.

He wondered why he didn't hate anymore,
Or cry, or feel anything but numb.
He vaguely realized the stereo was

playing.

He thought it was Bach,
Or maybe Pink Floyd,
And turned up the volume

Before he lit his Swisher Sweet cigar,
Opened the bourbon,
And swallowed the first handful of pills.

He opened ROMEO & JULIET
And counted the pages.
He reached 21

Before Lady Darkness embraced him
And they danced.
They were so beautiful
It was almost a shame.

X-acto

Layman's scalpel;
It will do what I want.
This will be the second time;
The first still leaves its purple track across my arm.

Unless I am careful, they'll find me
And cluck their tongues
And wonder at the suicide on the floor,
Never considering that I only needed that moment;
The one where the blade is ripping through the flesh.

The weaker but sharper pain of the incision
momentarily taking my attention away from
the dull throb of
my existence.

My instruments are ready; the knife
(would a box knife be better?),
the solitude, the wipe-up cloth.
All that's left is to decide
which arm gets the scar this time,
the right or the left.

Codify

The eyes are bleeding
crystal droplets,
warm reminders
etched in salt
of an aborted future
that could have been
but instead was prey
to an unfortunate present
and a past filled with
unexplored opportunities.

Anna Rexic

The mirror is fatter
And it doesn't matter.
Reflections are always the same,

Because as I linger
In my throat with my finger
I know I am winning the game.

Nothing can calm it,
This reflex to vomit.
This must be my ticket to fame.

Naked Rafter

Naked rafter in my soul,
What will it take to make you whole?
In the attic of my mind
You are the peace I cannot find.

Cory's bullet? Cleo's asp?
Cobain's nightmare? Hutchence's gasp.
Naked rafter, clothed in hope,
Wrapped up in a hangman's rope.

She's Under The Eaves At The Bus Stop In The Rain.

"Bum a smoke?" he asks.
I reach into my Gucci bag
And pull out my cigarette case.
"They're Virginia Slims," I
Proclaim in my Most Menacing Feminist voice,
"I've come a long way, baby."
"That'll do." He lights one,
Hands me the case,
Rolls up the sleeve on his Armani shirt,
Plucks the cigarette from his
Mouth.

Momentarily, his bleak eyes sparkle.
He smashes the lit
End into his left wrist
An inch from the
Blue-green vein running
The length of his arm.
The sharp inhalation;
The slow, quaking exhalation.

Did his toes curl?

"What, you've never needed
A temporary release? A
Momentary escape from
The pain in your life?"
He asks. He looks down.
"Nice shoes," he comments
And is gone into the rain.

I think I want him.

Eclipse

I know you in this sudden darkness -
Your fear of failure and fear of success.
I know of the nightmare that every night harkens
Back to those nights of duress.

I know of the inner child that never was;
I know your compulsion to mourn
The miscarriage suffered in the back of the bus
Two months 'til she would have been born.

These are the things that I already know.
These are the things that I see
In your wide eyes on this dark afternoon
You've chosen to spend here with me.

The Mask

He's come out to play again,
the Tortured Artiste with his
words to Shock, words to Appall,
words to elicit a visceral response.

The verses are written on the wall
with which he's surrounded himself,
letting nobody in, letting noself out.
He's locked inside

alone with no company
except his pain, his memories
and the secret fear that he'll never reveal.
You know the one.

And it knows you.
The fear that the pain is the only substance he has,
that there is Nothing Behind The Wall,
nothing that would interest anyone anyway.

The fear that he is nothing but the fear,
that there is no "him" in there
behind the emotional granite,
a whisper in a vacuum.

So, the words, they fall
like angry poker chips
on the anguished green felt
of his bloody existence.

He's mixing metaphors again,
His psyche as both a wall and a poker game.
He has to call it something
because he fears that it is nothing.

You may be a little curious about the name.

Originally, I wanted "Soul Droppings" or "Soul Pellets" but I did I quick google search on those terms and found other people use them. So I wanted "Nanner Pudding," but there were originality issues there as well.

So I compromised, and thus Soul Nanners was (were?) born.

And now is the time on Soul Nanners when we poem.

And what better way to begin than a poem about a poet?