Manny Francis III

'You see, the major difference between you and me, '
said one friend to another,
'is I don't want to set the world on fire.
I just want to watch it burn.'
...

It was two Saturdays ago and well
past midnight when the lot of us strolled in
the black-lit house with our share of Miller
Lites in hand, each of us bobbing our heads
...

I find myself confounded
on the third and fourth steps of the basement
staircase. Is it me descending down,
or the cellar ascending to me?
...

The week is raw, uncontrollable, worthy of a new corpse...
...nothing a few Vicodin couldn't remedy...
...my face goes numb, the vanilla sherbet orb
at the end of a dessert chef's spit.
...

A few pounds not only put a few more
bruises in that beaten, forest door, but
also prompted him to open up and show me
...

It was Halloween, but he was a drunk thirty-seven year old,
unmarried, and looking for a woman to temporarily ease
his hostile spirits...his hate for the world. He drove
downtown, down a back-road, in a downtrodden area,
...

Head in my hands, I'm not sure if I quite contemplate my life
as much as I consider why the road beneath me seems to be
emulating the Atlantic coastline.
...

50 cents a beer sounded like something I read
from a Hunter S. Thompson novel,

so with an anticipatory air about me,
...