Tuesday, December 31, 2013

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

Friday, December 27, 2013

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

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

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?

Monday, December 16, 2013

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

Monday, December 2, 2013

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



Saturday, November 23, 2013

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

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

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

Monday, November 18, 2013

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

Monday, November 11, 2013

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

Friday, November 8, 2013

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