Larry Houston Poems

the clock is loud
as it ticks in the hall
I notice dust on the tables
and I stopped doing drugs
...

I can't scrub the black
from my heart
Tony can't scrub the black
from his face
...

The front porch stairs were the perfect place to
correct
all the relationship wrongs in the world
that two teen aged brothers
...

Chopping wood in the side yard
The axe has a satisfying thwack as it hits the wood
the logs split and fall to the sides of the fat stump
steam rises from the back of my neck in the cold air
...

I come home from the hospital, an aged old man
In soiled clothes
tubes hanging, like a fat leech,
from my right side
...

You have gone
and the sparrows don't sing from the trees anymore
and a lawnmower starts in the distance
tequila and limes
...

She had scars on her wrist and her arm
And she didn't pull back when I touched them
they were purple and straight
as if done with real purpose,
...

Riding shotgun in the Le Mans
passing a bottle of bourbon
Lou Reed's ‘Sweet Jane'
on ‘Rock and Roll Animal'
...

Flat water, calm winds
overcast day turns to sunshine
pelicans fly in formation
like arrowheads piercing the sky
...

Five days out and everything stunk
woods, houses, bodies
sour air clogged my throat, I spit it in gobs
onto the limb strewn yard
...