Android Summer

Seeking constructive criticism for this poem.

I’m pretty happy with the first draft, though there are a couple of things I think need work. If anyone has any comments, I’d love them forever…

Help lift this piano off my head, I whispered
coquettishly. I had tried to sound more

casual, but the memory of the time my
father removed his belt and lashed at

the filthy rug, causing explosions of dust,
causing an asthma attack in my fragile lung

(it always seemed to be a left-lung problem),
kept recurring. I remembered the guilt

that my father had felt, how he had sworn
off cleaning all together after that incident.

I would visit his house in the Autumn, grey
sedan pulling into the unswept drive, as he

coughed his resentment onto the rodent
droppings that littered his verandah. Blood

pressure’s too low again, he’d mumble, as
if excusing the whisky he’d shotgun like a

teen beer drinker. The barley sugars I’d
found in the glove box did not seem to be

adequate peace offering. He’d light a candle
whenever I mentioned her name. She’s not

dead, I’d say, causing the vessels in his eyes
to break. She’s living with a taxidermist in

Adelaide. He’d step closer and breathe cured
meats in my face. What are you going to do,

hit me, I’d say, as he punched me in the face.
And the piano played me out with Non, je ne

Regrette Rien, though it may have been some
Carly Simon track. Don’t be so dramatic, he would

have said, were we still speaking by that point.

Heaven or Hell

Whenever clouds form
elephant or dragon shapes,
my love elbows me.
“One day we will ride those clouds,
“or else we’ll fall together.”

My Cup Runneth Away From Me

I see
a mountain crest,
or maybe just a wave.
The crest is what appears before
decline.

Or the tunnel

Discarded condom on the tracks whilst trains screech.
T     h     e            e     a     g     e     r     n     e     s     s.
The  can’t  wait,  the  must  have,  the  groan  yes.

Bullet train tears a slash through latex skin.
T    h    e    i    r         o    n    l    y         v    i    c    e
was thinking they could last so long outside the bedroom.

Noir Haikus

Thompson spits revenge.

No onomatopoeia

here. Just fire and death.

Midnight surgery.

Lead hole hewn through neck and head.

Gambler’s gambit.

Dark prostitute lace,

washed-out mayoral visage.

Polaroid exposed.

Night glint shine in red;

vehicular manslaughter

or strange break-up sex.

Shivved  in prison cell.

Spilled beans. Un-shuttable trap.

Onset Alzheimer’s.