conversations with a bar tender 1

Come, let’s speak,  

Like two empty liquor bottles,  

Voices echoing in the hollow.

We who once knew fullness—  

Of time, of lust, of hunger—  

Now lost in the desperate silence,  

Words and thoughts reaching out,  

Falling into nothingness.

Left behind in the scrap yard,  

We spoke in broken rhythms—  

This, this, this, this,  

Needing to ask again and again,  

What was love?  

What is love?  

What is life?

Though we could not be parted,  

Even our shadows entwined—  

Yet we scream, we cry,  

Wondering if we’ve been abandoned,  

Left apart in a place  

Where rain falls endlessly,  

Where there is no wind, no light,  

No shadow, no moon,  

Not even a whisper of the past.

It rained and rained,  

As if everything would sink,  

Slowly, without pain,  

Until the glass doors shattered.

And now, we must speak,  

Together, like two empty liquor bottles,  

Sharing the same void.

I know a friendly serpent,  

Who splits its tongue,  

Speaking two languages, each half in tune.  

It loves, it hurts—  

It's daylight, and I blister by moonlight.  

I climb mountains and drown in oceans,  

Chasing the trace of where you dissolve.  

I spy the sun with a periscope, searching for my girl—  

She loathes sunlight, my fading, yellowish moon girl.  

She devours the moon, sleeplessly thinking of me.  

She loves me—oh, how she loves!  

She is all her love, loving everything in me—  

Nurturing my sins, my sicknesses.  

She tiptoes,  

Climbs trees heavy with sour fruits,  

Leaves dripping with moonlit emotions and sweaty sunshine,  

Green fading to yellow, daylight dying.  

She scoops the moon from the sky,  

Moistens my parched lips with her sweet saliva.  

She breathes into me,  

As she breathes into her lungs,  

And our breaths become one—  

Our oxygen molecules intertwine in the depths.  

The turbid air dissolves into mercury in our veins,  

And I grow denser, peaceful.  

The blisters heal.  

The friendly serpent hisses no more.  

We play our old childhood games,  

Lying supine on cement benches,  

While grandparents nap in the afternoon heat—  

Running through sun and shade,  

Finally declaring,  

Lying prostrate on cement benches,  

Here, I shall die.

She reminds me of everyone  

I’ve ever loved and deeply missed.  

All my childhood,  

The turmoil of my teens,  

The wandering exploits of youth,  

Incessant sins like burnt cigars blistering  

Those tender, kissed lips.  

Let’s play: Here I shall die.  

And oh, my friendly serpent,  

Lick me with your lovely split tongue,  

Now entirely out of love.