Reinhard Palovcik and Tom Miller
Death City
Poems by Reinhard Palovcik
Edited by Tom Miller
© 2012 FREDInk Records
Volume III of III
Breathing
breathing
with whispers
of air through lips
the soft tumbling
of presence in time
crystallizes
the reality of moment
through nerve and fiber
where brain meets world
Gum stuck to the bottom of his shoe
He walks with a click
Destination not definite
Drawn to desire
Reeking with rancid rankness
The layer of his clothing stuck to his skin
Those around him make wide berths
On passing him in the street
No money, no place to bathe
No food, no place to wash his clothes
He lives day to day, hour by hour
Minute for minute he breathes and swallows
Sensing not his own stench
He’s always in the middle of it
He is presence on the street
What are they staring at
Others, diverting their gaze
Pretend not to notice
It’s something
You ought
To check into
Before
You check out
Gray Cloak
a gray cloak
covering shoulders
speaks of loneliness
bleak
no colors to display
to ensnare a mate
only flat, featureless void
not white
nor black
but vague shapes
twisting in twilight
not good
nor evil
but real people
real choices
wrenching existence
from the fabric of space
Crash
there is a lapse
of time
of awareness
when suddenly
the thrust
of steel on steel
tears edge from edge
bodies
are thrust upon metal
severed
the pieces thrown
along separate paths
twitching
in pools of blood
to a new dance
of technological wonder
driven by our desire
to go with ease
from one place to another
Oh Cripes!
Confronted at middle age
with the momentum
of time
I sought to live
past old age
past death
To realize my desires
through each new moment
of present
To pluck the plum when ripe
weave my fingers
through slimy tripe
Compose celestial tunes on a harp
cut my flesh
with a razor sharp
Drink the fragrant Vin de Deus
piss on a rose
as the day goes
Climb to oxygen-starved heights
wallow in mud and fungus
oh cripes!
I hate people
They stare at me
They think I’m different
Not the same thoughts
No
Nor arms
Nor legs protruding from torso
Flailing in the twilight
Of faded dreams
Caught in sticky webs
Awaiting the fangs of death
Sucking boredom from life
A raving lunatic
With no jacket
To straighten his desire
Draining blood
Draining thoughts
Anemic rapid pulse
Of a fading heart feeling
With no feeling returned
How do I feel
Now that I’ve had her
So beautiful
Chased by droves
And yet
She chose me
I was humbled
By her presence
A cup of life
From which to drink
Too make a dead man
Rise
Our bodies moved
In rhythms
Dreams of Elysium
Ecstatic attraction
Last Embrace
The evening lamp glows
As eyes tire
The last sentence
Of blurry words
Has run into the next
Object subject verb
lids droop
breath slows
a mind drifts away
unnoticed
Ri-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-ing!
in sad embrace
we mourned our son
whom we nurtured
born of our love
blessed under God
Ri-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-ing!
we will remember his
smile what?
Legs stir
Eyes open
Focus on phone
Ri-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-ing!
Hello?
Yes, is this the next of kin for
we’re sorry
very
just to
not disturb
was found head-on
whose fault
totaled
critical condition
was not expected to
efforts
best available care
died at
would like
identify
could you please wait
until one of our officers
is available to pick you up
and bring you to the morgue?
(a tearful shriek)
(sobbing)
Ummm, yes
I’ll wait
embrace
son
Oh God!
nurtured
love
blessed
Oh god!
his smile
his smile
Oh God!
MY BABY!!
Acrid Nose Bite
Head BURN
Ma’AM
oK?
we found you here
Your son
identify
Collision
three
DIED
don’t know
Can you come with us?
Yes, I will, Ok.
Life
of my child
would
that I
could
have died
before him
that these memories
could have flowed forever
His face
so like mine
so like my lover’s
In his youth
preserved in our son
Evidence
of our mutual pleasure
Symbol
born of carnal embrace
Oh, but that dear smile
Oh God!
eats mile by mile
through memories
Oh God!
I can’t believe he’s GONE
is there a God?
Is there life after death?
Does his spirit
still dwell somewhere
In heaven
or hell?
A week later she weeps
on his grave
flashing back
to that moment
in her mind
his conception
where
in carnal bliss
firm sliding
of the act
brought him
into her body
later, his birth
the sweet pleasure
of his lips
to her breast
a new life
so dear
that could have carried her
past her death
My son
So young
his smile
His nails
so clean
his face
So pure
my son
Oh God!
He’s GONE
(Note)
Drifting off to sleep, while reading, a mother dreams of her son as if he were already dead after
which
she gets a call informing her that her son has just died as the result of a car crash. Overwrought
with grief she is asked to identify the corpse but through the ordeal her thoughts reveal her
incestuous love for the son she has just lost. A love born of necessity
but the bittersweet flavor
that bites our tongues
Looking ahead
Past my death
I see
Events continue
As usual
(descriptions)
What then has my life meant?
Am I survived
By the memory of those few
Who knew me
Who returned my love?
Perhaps they think of me
Occasionally on passing
Either with sorrow
Or joy
Or just a vague sense
Of presence
For someone who was
A part of their lives
Or was my life just
A self-indulgent excursion
To acquire experiences
And memories
While feeling the daily
Jumps of ups and downs
The lone stranger walks the street
On pads of feet at the end of his stalk legs
The downward left right rhythm
Propels him forward
Over concrete, grass, and tile
This tails of his long gray coat
Trailing in the wind
A drizzle of rain
Air brushes his face and hands
The cold wetness penetrates deep
Through denims
he fumbles for a cigarette
The matches are wet
They crumble when struck
Soon the cigarette is soaked and discarded
Demons peek from under his hat
Past stark lifeless skyscrapers
Moving in 3-D relief
Hardened mango of rusty metal
The parrot’s beak drips
At the instant of creation
born too soon
He could not mock
The melting emotion
In awe of the act
But had to sit, still
To see fornicating torsos
Of atoms
Twisting to fields of quarks
This silenced his beats
So that now it takes great effort
And great expense
To unravel the mysteries
Of the act of creation
On passing my love’s place
I saw footprints in the snow
Leading to her door
My heart sank to my groin
Excitement amid the anxiety
How to fathom this breach
An erotic fascination for her form
In the embrace of another
In our homes
In our neighborhoods
We live in a sea of deception
Carefully constructed delusion
Designed to control
and orchestrate
We are puppets
to the powerful, who
With a nod or shake of their head
Decide if we eat or starve
Freedom of speech
But no one listens
Freedom of religion
Yet there is widespread bigotry
The right to bear arms
But not the right to use them
Against those greatest of evils
Politicians and bankers
Freedom from want
Freedom to pursue our lives
According to our desires
Are just shallow pools of moisture
Gradually drying up
In the summer shade
Of lazy political bickering
TV weaves a careful web
Of psychological deception
Sliding on a razor’s edge
We resist the cut
All is not as it seems
A futile flexing of muscle
Suspended in space, weightless
Holes drilled through a skull
Whoa, what’s going on here?
A life
Incinerated for its religious beliefs
The powerful presence of group will
So many bald priests
like dogs with collars
Blood flowing from nails
in hands and feet
Supreme deception
Who can we not fool
Take this body
Take this blood
And feel holier than now
A crusty scab
Bursts forth its blood
In bilious streams
The swollen boil festers
With bacterial madness
Protruding tips of yellow pus
The open wound drips
clear juice of dreams
Leaking essence of its life
To a sidewalk of cold concrete
Schism
Breeze wafts through willows
Petals fall from the moon
Swimmer’s elbow cracks
Knee of runner snaps
Dark green leaves glimmer
Under starlight of radiant suns
Gas of nebulas doesn’t hiss
Black holes never miss
Angled limbs entwined
savor pleasures divine
Men with suits and weapons
Bullets fly in all directions
Curtains of aurora borealis unfold
To a cosmic dance of constellations
On stage a stripper bares
Her femininity to glazed stares
Mounds of cherry blossoms
Hide lovers’ love embraced
Casual money for sex
Who now can escape the hex
The oyster has unfurled
Its purple cloak in swollen ecstasy
Corpses rot with time
Brother can you spare a dime
Newly conceived soul breathes
Its first breath and cries
Corpses rot with time
Brother can you spare a dime
The serpent sucks
Through her narrow passages
Penetrates planes not yet desired
Her mind is still naive
Now overcome
By a wave of love
Passing the corners of her lips
She smiles
Having received that river of love
From one she only barely knew
He also smiles
Having received that quiver of love
For which he aimed
She was an angel
Bleeding white feathers
Along streams of cirrus
Her wings of water
Wrinkling in the breeze
Buckle under gusts
Through billowing smoke
Her milky white thighs
Swollen with silk
In loose flaps draped
Past knees and ankles
Brush dew stuck to hailstones
Tumbling in the cyclone
Spinning, twisting
With tendrils of dust
She ascends to the sun
Beaming rays of heat
along sharp streams
The arms of humanity
Twisting through time
Snaking tendrils
Feelings displayed
In every face
The mindless mass
Moves forward
There is a cat
Soft in my lap
Wishing only to be fed
Asking for love
Yet a being unto itself
Not letting domination
Determine its desire
It loves me for its meal
It hates me for my love of it
It hates me for my dependence
On its soft fur to pet
Distracts me from human intercourse
It ate my time, as I expected it
To fulfill my parched need for love
A starving man
In a sea of food
Thirsting
But unable to reach
the glass of water
His stomach
a parched leather sack
The juices
have long stopped flowing
My heart surrounded
By branches with thorns
Like the prey
Enciphered
In spiders’ long curving legs
Trapped in a cage
The fangs of time
Slowly sucking youth
Draining strength
Draining beauty
These tattered words and phrases
That emote from inner self
What do they mean
Am I secretly seeking fame
and recognition
Or is my soul emptying itself
Of all those gnawing terrors
That slowly devour me
Over the course of my life
They told me you were still conscious
That you saw it coming
The great wave of water
As the days wore on
In perfect bliss
My tongue failed me
I ran out of
Intelligent things to say
interesting things to talk about
Soon she grew bored
My ever present presence
Wore on her
Wore her out
Until she felt herself slipping
Into an agony
Of not wanting to hurt me
But wanting out
I could tell by her casual
Darting glances
At handsome athletic men
As they passed us at the pool
And wondered
What she imagined
and dreamed
As she spied
Their forms
Dashing seductively by
A Touch
A touch of flesh-colored
Fingers to blue brocade
It is the makeup
The flash of red lips
Dark, caressing eyes
And smooth, peach skin
That gives me a rise
Mounts blood to groin
In swelling waves
Lost in abandon
To thrusting hips
The sharp-rhythmed
Spurt of pleasure
races along
A limbic maze of memories
Down
Through the depths of my soul
Spires of steeple madness
Tower above
Rational rebirth of feudal fear
Controlling minds and spirits
Verucca Marginalis
Warts on the edge
Crusty flesh skin patch
W is for water
These walls are fiction
Their murals speak of dreams
One ball strikes the other
As both tumble downward
Looking down
Seeing her wasted form
He remembered the images
Of his unfaithfulness
Drawn by his desire
Into illicit liaisons
Ones she never knew
Was this now a revenge
Of her spirit
Lashing out at his feelings
In divine retribution?
that he should see her
In such a state
Eyes hollow
Skin stuck to bone
After the cancer had
Wasted her flesh away
There was no human form left
To this once body
Now seeking to become a corpse
Wrenching thoughts
Repetitive explication
Those minute elements
Of chaos triviality
To change the destiny of millions
Dependent on
The delivery of pleasure through
I have not written these words
But copied them down
From pages
Of long forgotten memories
Of past lives where
I lived more than this life
Wrong Number
(telephone rings)
Hello?
I’m sorry.
I must have the wrong number.
Are you sure?
Yes, I was calling B.
I don’t know any B.
Yes, that’s why this number’s wrong.
By the way, who are you?
Who do you thing I am?
You called me.
J?
It doesn’t sound like you.
No, this is *.
Who?
(click)
Yes
yes
I’m here
right now
ready for you
ready to taunt you
ready to offend you
ready to
penetrate
your secret spaces
suddenly
as I unzip my fly
you stare
see nothing
I thrust my hips
you close your eyes
roll back your head
you are so so offended
but why?
this is the symbol
of the force
that rendered
your creation
~ Reinhard Palovcik
