A Poem from the Pool-Side

(untitled)

cigarette stubs twisted, broken
all purpose burned away
lying in a box of sand
on display
eight and twenty
scalded and worn
kissed a dozen times
before being cast aside
every kiss drawing more away
dragging out
the breath of life
until
exhausted
one lies dead and half-buried

--dd


A note on the poem: Sitting out by the community waters in a chaise lounge, I noticed beside me a small sand-box within which many wasted fags (in the British sense) lay mangled, broken, and abused. I began versing my observations of these victims of addiction (as you see the notes above), then came across the idea of their being kissed to death partway through the verse and concluded with that thought. There is more in this: I realised that as I am now 28 years old, perhaps I had written about myself and not that number of spent cigarettes, perhaps my heart through kisses is now spent, half-buried, both dead and alive...or perhaps this is not truly me, but is someone reading this. God, teach our hearts to love.

Further note: The structure of this poem involved more staggering of the lines (to a purpose), which I tried to accomplish using tabs while typing--but apparently Blogspot didn't like that idea and pushed everything to one side...ah well...