Quietly Drunk Poem by Benjamin Roque

Eyes open like snapped piano wire.

Condensation upon shellbark tables,
now milk-white, is dry.
Re-orient; Neon lamps flare,
dark widows coil through the flickering barroom,
leave broken bones in bed.

Dentures unearth flesh in
androgynous heaps, carved from a
living landscape.
The choir of branded tongues flush with
seething lust,
and pale honesty in stretched leather stitches.

Wet glass between chapped lips, wordless
from wall to wall, springs night
from cicada shells—
Gathers at the yellow screen like silent rain.
From beneath fists of cloudburst,
someone plays Son House.

Focus; A camera speaks no hour is traced here.
Absence sealed in ominous cataracts,
reflects her face
blown like a pink powder from fissures
in the door.

Split wide the mouth of winter,
a bullet hole in her lapel recalls the murder of its
previous wearer.
Six volunteers awaken entombed
in their own cadavers
to yearn beyond the hour,
undressed and burrowed
in hypothermic soliloquy—Amnesia fakes
a father's words
that stalk gin grafted wolves,
their shadows screwed into the night.

A toothless corsage pins down
a junky's restless hands
like moths beneath bell glass.
His wax bride figurine descends
from snakelike fingers
into a pool of yellow polish,
to exhale twitching yellow smoke
that blooms eternal pleas
for one more life—Sings a minor sabbath:

This won't hurt, to emerge in a brief flash
from utter oblivion.

Concentrate; Eyes open like snapped piano wire.