By: Richard LeDue

A Living Poem

I’m still alive
as long as you read this,
even after silence tells me
the truth about gods
and worms wonder why
my eyes taste nothing
like apples.

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A coffee stained collected love poems

of Pablo Neruda
whispers midnight regrets
as it lies with dust under stars
that burn bright as new lovers,
only for their deaths to go
mostly unnoticed
because we prefer light
over the darkness that surrounds us.

Our hair in the shower drain
my newest love poem,
written without a single word
but with dirt under my fingernails
and a sore back that complains
to the ceiling,
while the sky hears nothing
as it poses poetically.

###

True Rhythm

Bukowski drunk again,
typing up another poem
and a little pissed at being
in this one, even though he died
when I was in junior high,
being taught how to rhyme,
when true rhythm is spilling your drink
and getting to it
before all that’s left
is an empty glass and a half dead ice cube,
but most today want broken glass,
as if blood more poetic
than 1 AM words on a page
next to empty bottles,
staring like ghosts
we ‘re too smart to believe in.