Gimme Heels

We always wore them:

Red leather pumps,

Mirrored black patents,

Snakeskin toe crushers,

Four inch,

Pink ribboned

Giggly stompers

Trudging through

Midwestern blizzards,

Skating in parking lots

To a corner gin mill

Uppers splattered

With spillage from

Quarter tappers,

Cigarette singed soles

By sot-dropped embers

On a dance floor

Tacky from Jack and Coke

Snapped heel lifts

Crossing gravel laden alleys

Cursing the walk home,

Back for more

Every weekend

Never quite

Learning the lesson

Wooden Beads

Prayers
Trickling from eyes
Down cheeks
Sunken spirit
In a knightly ritual
Stinging orbs
Saline skin
Silently begging
With redundant words
Decade after decade
Pleading for
High resolutions
To daily lows
Under a pitch shadow
Indenting
A sopping pillow
Imploring
The evaporation
Of distress
By first light
In the clarity
Of aurora

And Now, a Word From Mr.Janikowski...

amy, liquid gold

skinny-trip huffer man hacks his lung

onto the sidewalk

with a backturned, halfass basketball cap

basketball, peach basket, orange basket

basket so big like a swollen huffer-head that he holds

holds in a huffer-haze

vox clamantis, said my starchwhite friend

vox clamantis hollering

hoop-de-holler highway hollers

to the highest of heaven

(not in the desert)

while the skinny-trip huffer man

swings a deal for a tube of something good

his dirty little fingernails

like a tiny little set of sheet metal brakes

dirty line of mulch for growing potatoes

(like my brother used to say)

scratch of skin

and scratch of hair

and scratch of mucous from his nose

(some call it snot, but it's not)

even tiny little bits of dried blood clinging right in there

mingled with the feces

from the stool

from the men's room

from the grocery store

right on the bus line

but skinny-trip huffer man

holds his crotch

so the girls will look at him and know

they will know he is more

more than just a skinny-trip huffer man

with a set of sheet metal brakes at hand

and a seventeen o-clock shadow

on the skinny upper lip

that waggles just a little bit

when the old lady screams

and the old man hits

and maybe he isn't more

than a skinny-trip huffer child

in a big-boy-bounding-bold

and balding basketball cap

and his bowels came loose

all over seventh avenue

and the man with the really big eye

(just the left one)

(he injects the paint into the right one)

(it's okay, sugar-poopsie)

(it stopped hurting months ago)

the man with the really big eye

laughed away the smell

on seventh avenue

when the skinny-trip huffer man

lost his bowels

but for just a minute

so now

skinny-trip huffer man wipes his hands

onto the sidewalk

with a backturned, halfass basketball cap

basketball, peach basket, orange basket

basket so big like a swollen huffer-head that he holds

holds in a huffer-haze

and it pounds

pounds

pounds

like a swollen huffer-head

ripe with

the sweetest,

ripest,

huffest,

hottest,

hopped-up hoop-de-huffer

holy hangman

amyl nitrite

I just love you,

sugar-poopsie.

Wake up now,

okay?

Red Wolf Anthology

Over the past year, some of my poetry appearing on the lost beat has been based on prompts through We Write Poems.  The fine people at We Write Poems have published Red Wolf Anthology covering poems inspired by their prompts over the past three years.

Download a free PDF copy of the Red Wolf Anthology here, read it, share it and join in on lots of poetic fun! 

http://wewritepoems.wordpress.com/2013/12/16/red-wolf-emerges-from-the-woods/

Through this site, I have not only been able to get inspired through the prompts, but also through the really fine poets who post their poems there.

Happy reading and writing!

-Denise

"worse than it looks"

"worse than it looks"

poetry by

Tom Janikowski

Available now on Lulu

electronic format ($1.99)

dead-tree format ($8.00)

Coming To...

He slept

With uneven train tracks

In his dreams

As his elderly black angel

Sat by his feet

With her ink tipped white wings

Tucked in close

I was

Trying to get

Her attention

Without words

She ignored me

I wasn’t her ward

She laid hands upon

His tortured mind

Covering him

With feathered

Dotted i’s ,

Crossed t’s

Her stern nod

Tilted my head

To my own angels

With their blue scrubs

In super HD clarity,

Florescent halos

Calling my name,

Bringing me back,

Uncertain of the truth

Free Spotted Overcoats!

Well, the book, at least.

Yes, this weekend, thru Monday only! Get your free ePub copy of  Spotted Overcoat!

Celebrate Thanksgiving with me a bit early. Get them while they are hot!

http://www.lulu.com/shop/denise-janikowski-krewal/spotted-overcoat-poetry-on-the-lam/ebook/product-20979624.html


-Denise

lockstep

lock step with jordan

and picking at my face

picking what I do, what I do

I don't pick on jordan

and he don't pick on me

we picked up the anhydrous

and no one picked a fight

“I'm gonna' cook it here”

ass, jordan, you kill us both

pick your face and pick a zit

pick your friends, my momma said

pick 'em well

I picked my friends and I picked jordan

lock step with jordan

“she gonna come later, pick it up”

we could meet her in the woods

or meet her on the street

or meet her by that house

by the gas station

by the church

that they made into a restaurant

so we met her by the empty apartment

by the bar

by the strip club

by the way, she knew the truth

and I was lock step with jordan

and jordan ran to the woods

and then ran back

and we knew someone was coming

ass, jordan, you kill us both

my momma used to cook in the house

but it was meatloaf and tuna and beans

never cooked like this

and someone was coming

and jordan was shaking

and I was sweating like a puddleboy of death

he started to cook

ass, jordan, I screamed

let's go to the woods

and he was shaking

and I swore I heard a siren

and in a half-light dream like damnass scream

I saw the flames

ass, jordan, you gonna kill us

and he was mumbling, mumbling shaky deathwords

and why he took the white gas to burn the stuff

I'll never know

white gas fail-pass white trash can

bake a crankman and a crankman can

ass, jordan, your face is melting

and the car is burning

and the stuff is going

and the house is catching

we got running

ass, jordan, your face is melting

so I dropped him by the clinic

by the grocery store

by the shelter

by the river

right outta my car

and his ass jordan melty face

all crispymelt eye-slit scary

and I ain't gonna walk

lockstep with jordan no more

Hidden

When you lost
Your friend, child, 
Mother, brother,
Our combined tears
Mixed together
To nourish
The water angels
Who came to care for them
When the flood waters came
With a complex power
From the deep
Without reason, 
Making no sense
As you go hungry
Hearts sink
Souls go numb,
The deck of cards
Is cut and warped
From a water stain

apparent self-strangulation

hanging by a thread

and hanging by a rope

they gave him enough rope

rope burn hives like beef-jerky twine

kick the stool if no one kicks it for you

drop like a sack of lead

if the lead in the paint don't kill you

“i got the cash, i got the cash”

“you got the crank?”

“i got the crank”

he got the rope

he got the stool

and a rope burn hive like beef-jerky twine

solid as breath

stagnant as death

and hoop-holler nightmare

stool-kicking time

waste it left and right in a blur

sexcrankroadtripsexcrankbloodknife

knocking over motels

knocking over gas stations

knocking over line after line after line

steelcold crystal burn like baking lime

and a rope burn hive like beef-jerky twine

run and cut

run and cut

runcutruncutruncut

cut his neck and

cut his crank and

cut his life and

cut it short and

cut

mick-boy sells it all (meth and sex and hope)

burned up hole-hide

hiding in the ash

hiding in the

little tiny bits

little tiny bits of ground up bone

ground up bone

and the parts that don't burn away to dust

hiding in the hole

that a hole-hiding

death-trap wizard sold as a dream

dream in a death-trap

and slap yourself silly 
with your high-priest scream

done it all, done it all

we have all done it all

but the death trap wizard did it more and better

(for more and better is what we like)

with a day of crank-stuck sex and sweets

stick in a place where it hurts more than usual

sure, you've done it all

we all did it all,

and the life you live in the life you live

looks like ash and bits of bone

and crank-stuck sex and sweets

offered on the corner of your perfect life

you death-trap wizard sliding high-priest steam

with the steam that bleeds

and never burns away to dust

in a crank-stuck stream

you wizard, you