Bottles

Those are bodies, not bottles,
Stacked below your window.
Fractured faces stare at you
From the broken sparkle
Of each bloody shard.

That is a pyre, not a pile,
Whose glow bleaches the sun.
Jagged limbs flame from the heap
And lunge like razor blades
Through the soot and smoke.

Ashes are no ink for songs.
No fire from your pen
Can ever perfume these lines
With a scent sweet enough
That cinders will sing.

Post Mortem Bar

Bartender, pour me a drink
Free of the ashes and ink
I smoked and spilled for years
With every high spoiled by tears.
I'll wade through the dead for a taste
Of any potion brewed to replace
The gasping thirst in my throat
To devour all I wrote,
But if I can hold it down
I'm ready for the next round,
And if I don't choke on rhyme,
We will toast again in time.

Some knotted and tightened ropes
To blacken their brains or hopes.
Others switched spikes and rails
Plunging when their hammer fails.
I went from bloom to blotto
Preaching more as my motto,
But there's no profit for drunks
To drink where the dead are sunk
And, wet for wear, shed more tears
For their bloody, wasted years.
No poem can call that bluff,
I've chased these voices enough
And what they would have me do
Is drink until I am through.

Bartender, serve the ghouls
Who still crown the bony stools
Strangling shots with shaking fists,
Scars slashing their necks and wrists.
For me, though, the taps are dry,
Soured by the bitter lie
That even the strongest stuff
Is never quite strong enough.
I write these words on barroom glass
Before pushing off at last,
If it's empty, my brother,
Where one bottle came from,
There's always another.