No Tire Shop in Babylon

Respect stepped out

in the pharmacy parking lot last night

sitting next to a girl one car over

hiding wrinkled tears in tissue

and basilisk eyes

two thousand-yard stares

company for each other

 

Both faking well

in the direction of the highway

just past a canal slicked solid

watched the steel trap struggle

and three women drop

out of lame transport

to shove hot machine past white line

under the gaze of centurions

nozzles to asphalt

 

Big shot shotguns

bullets aimed for this land

pointy lips pointing

double chins shrugging

to rifle through car trunks under tropic last light

in which a flat tire ceases molasses sojourn

through teeming peninsula

of men and fishers

 

These pigs have no place

in her briny breath eating

shacks and motels to shack up

where Carenage spreads her legs to Tetron

a soft curve on hard coast

joint fastening a leg of earth

drunk and lazy before leaning into green valley

tucked into submarine bath tubs

made of wars long fought

and soldiers still soldiering

 

The smell of big shot shotguns

meandering a cloud of diesel near chassis still aground

leaving sisters to crank jack

struggle with bolts and belts

with just enough time

to terrorize all the North West.

 

*Author’s Note: A motion to grant civillian police powers to Trinidad’s military personel has been recently killed in the senate. There is fear in the re-write, because ass holes come in both grey and camouflaged models here.

The Driest Dry

Kelly meringue kisses touch

cirrus mist about her mouth

Aripo opens her smile wide

and shoulders fall beneath the way

while nimbus float about her head

and cool motes flit along her thighs

shadows run between her brow

wrinkled age her beauty bound

sound vibrations echo out

to sprawled and mostly languid limbs

and folds of canopied soft flesh

lay on pillows stone and clay

 then mirage mercury does rise

meeting forest in the face

next to copper planes that cut

her gorgeous lazy belly wide

umber burnt and tawny hard

crust and ash delight

when sun sits low

the smoke does rise

air thick with true love’s bite