Delinquent Confessions

Painting by Vitali Komarov


Delinquent Confessions




The Bronze Age followed the Stone Age and can
be generally classified as a disastrous progressive
fiction.
Paolo Honorificas


Delinquent Confessions

a.
From Lord Weary's castle

not far from Hardscrabble Creek,
the distance isn't great
to the old pioneer graveyard
where damp spring weather
impales on blades of cemetery grass,
dampening the souls
beneath this grave diggers feet
who kicks gently at each tombstone
so intent in his task
no resident bothers him
though many rise to wonder,
is he searching for a soul mate?
And if he were to find her
would she be angel or ghoul or both?

b.
She was brilliant
She was caring.
She wanted me to tell her
I loved her, but I couldn’t.
I played with fire.
I laid burnt offerings
at her feet. Stuttering city
of lost excuses
I've paid my dues,
made you fabulously rich.
Were we to take human truth,
slicing it like pie
and each person fed their portion,
would any be wiser?

c.
Let's be clear

It was a summer of paranoia.
It was Sunday.
We were at war.
Well washed congregations
dressed wooden effigies of Christ
in a soldier's uniform
and buried Him
up to his crotch in cash
while down the street,
off of Pennsylvania Avenue,
the real Jesus
just back from Iraq
wearing a dress and sandals
doubled up in pain.
And people avoided him.
And I didn't stop to help.

d.
When I was born

a DNA jury was convened,
a sort of roving focus group.
Kid, they said, you're going to be
a small town hustler,
addicted to casual sex,
gambling, impractical schemes.
You won't be able to help yourself.
And I couldn’t. I was a brat.
My father was Emperor Ego.
Everywhere he went
he handed out exploding cigars.
My adolescence was glandular.
It was all cranberry.
I took the low road
filled with windy rumors
in from the Pacific agitating
both raven and gull in me.
As I grew older
like a headless horseman riding
a headless sea
my lust bound me in chains,
tying ringing alarm clocks
to my mafia thighs.
From Oregon to California
and back again, from Easy Street
to Ocean Boulevard,
it's a long way back
as I lurch ahead like a doomed bus.
The anarchy of my heart beat
my umbilical cord of hope.
Now, I'm served cocktails
at the dining table of life
where the cock in me crows
wicked tales up from my plate.
I sought to steal from Summer
its heat, finding instead
the nearer I came to its fire,
it was life and love
we both whispered out,
gleaning burning scars
and skyscraper dreams,
and these small jewels of light.


Scott Malby

Posted over on A Little Poetry