April 19th - “The Divorce Capital of the World”

Queen of Spades - “The Divorce Capital of the World”

“The Divorce Capital of the World”

My grandmother lived outside Reno

For forty nights in 1963

In a place named “Washoe”

As far as you could get from Brooklyn

With women who spent full days crying

And those who laughed and couldn’t stop

Women from Biloxi and South Bend and

Other places she had never been to

Or ever thought to go

On some ranch 2000 miles from home

I struggle to imagine what she did

Or what she thought of other than her boys

As once again she stepped into the night

To light another cigarette

To cut the foreign desert air

And look up at the moon

That great waning gibbous

Which shined down on the Truckee River

Which made it almost look like gold 

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April 18th - Mondo Kim's

Four of Spades - Mondo Kim's

Faces of Death

You could buy drugs there then

But you never thought to ask the men

Who checked your bags whose mouths

And yellow eyes never stopped moving

Sober you could lose yourself for hours

Frantic click-clack searching till

Your fingertips were black until you

Found an album that you weren’t afraid

To show your friend for her approval

Something that could soon become

Your favorite thing you’ve ever heard

And upstairs where you’d only go alone

To look but never buy the films made mainly

For their scenes of sliced-off fingers or popped eyeballs

Eye-popping bodies sweating and heaving

Cat-eyed Jezebels who’d stare at you from

Boxes you’d pick up and then pick up again

Pre-owned VHS tapes which forewarned that

You would see a person die – and sure

None of what you watched was real but still

It made the blood inside you pulse so fast

It made you close your eyes

April 17th - Artifice

Five of Diamonds - Artifice

Social

In the blue light

We continue to be

Empty as anyone

Can be empty

Voids cannot be filled

With artifice, illusions

April 16th - The Fall of Your Scene

Ten of Spades - The Fall of Your Scene

There once was a bar named “Poor Frank’s”
Where everyone flirted and drank
But exorbitant rent
Turned to patrons’ lament
As its structure now houses a bank

April 15th - Spirit Guides

Four of Clubs - Spirit Guides

Psychopomps

Under isolated streetlights

I forget if I am dreaming

My spirit disjoint from my body

Diffusing in the tactile summer air 

Which resonates

With hidden insect voices

The kind that sound

As if the world is clicking into place

April 14th - Small Victories

Ace of Clubs - Small Victories


Small Victories IV

Cold feet
Touch colder floor
After you swore
You could not do it
Not today

April 13th - Bedford–Stuyvesant

Seven of Clubs - Bedford–Stuyvesant

Miss Wilma

She shuffles in old slippers

She pauses by the door

Barely enough room in her hallway 

Filled with sealed packages

Everybody’s packages

Gathered like found treasures

Held for now to keep them safe

April 12th - Never-Kings

King of Spades - Never-Kings

Le Grand Dauphin at Château de Versailles

Never once did he say

In all those endless years of

Hiding cards in parlor games

Cupping pairs of bare breasts

Drinking till he could not stand

Not once did he say

When he relived himself

On the palace walls

“I will never be king”

April 11th - Zach Adler, 2005

King of Hearts - Zach Adler, 2005

Photo Credit Unknown

What is the half-life of a moment

When only an image can be

The thing preserved?

At was point does

A photograph become just

A photograph?

I have this record but -

How long will I remember

That I was mugging for laugh

What was out of frame

Or who I kissed

That night I was drinking 

Whisky ice and water?

April 10th - New Year’s Regrets

Nine of Spades - New Year’s Regrets

New Year’s Regrets

Kisses of course

Not ones given

Or taken but

Kisses imagined

And never born

Otherwise?

None!