Love Poems with Stanley Harbor

[Still doing these.... Still not titling them differently]


I hear spiders spinning in the room where I am a prisoner,
Bound fast to an iron chair with iron chains.
Before me in the near-blackness is a cold stone table
Upon which sits paper and pencil,
Both embroidered with my hair and traces of my own dried blood.

She says she won’t let me go until I write one for her.
I reach out a cracked hand and pick up the pencil, but still
No saving words come.
None.
When did I give up rhyme and rhythm for malicious missives?
When did faith and fraternity give way to distrust and despair?

With a triumphant snap I destroy the pencil,
But she is there before I can tear the paper,
Appearing beside me out of the frightened air.

Her eyes brighten and the chains tighten,
And I shut my eyes hard against the sight of her.
She bends forward to give me inspiration,
Her lips stifle the scream erupting from mine.

When she withdraws I recoil, spitting.
She tastes of lies and the last man she has eaten.
All I know is the surest shame and
The retching noises that take the place of her name.

Before leaving, I had told the man in the mirror
To come looking for me if I wasn’t home by morning.
That was two days ago.

Sleeping with Stanley Harbor

[I need to stop doing these...or maybe title them differently.]


The sleep clock sounds, but I am not in my sheets.
I am hanging upside-down in my closet,
Thinking of the orange detour signs and
Making a list of all the things I am not.

An unhappy echo reflects my sawdust sighs:
“As long as my eyes are on backwards,
I’ll keep doing the wrong things to
The right people.”

The chime chirps again; this time I don’t ignore it.
I crumple up my list, and
With a great effort I flip the world straight.

I crawl into bed between cold sheets,
Rub my shoulder,
And think of brown eyes and burnt skin
Until morning comes.