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| by Mike Monroe | ||||||
| Phoenix I. once a night around dusk i stretch my arms out to the horizons in search of excitement to fill my hourglasses with and in search of butterflies i know i won�t be able to keep and usually i swing my butterfly net at empty air where illusions once had caught my fancy but when i try to catch them they fade into angry faces and my sorrows drown me in bitter whiskey i begin to die slowly like a tree casually losing its leaves in the fall breeze until i wake up lonely in a forgetful daze and violently vomit the previous night�s amnesia away like no simile needed here but the one already in your head as the day goes on the scene spins into rewind and the leaves slowly float back up to their branches hen around dusk the mighty phoenix explodes from the tree and spreads its wings out to the horizons II. once every few years a balloon blows up in my belly and each step i take an invisible man punches me in the stomach and i shit blood and my body slowly deflates as my intestines inflate with swollen red anger i end up a lonely skeleton in a hospital bed filling my time with ancient words and brand new moving pictures as my veins are filled with an endless sea of drugs and i�m pin cushioned repeatedly with hungry sterile needles that i watch fill slowly with thick red blood the nights and days pass like cars on a quiet country road for time has become a vast arid desert whose only variety is an occasional sandstorm then my body begins to inflate again and my face puffs out like the man in the moon and my belly rounds out like a crab soccer ball and my intestines slowly cease to shout their pains to my scattered brain and i dream of the mighty phoenix soon the world welcomes me back into its sometimes loving arms there is no feeling like the chill of winter after weeks of stale hospital air and i wait out the days at home until i�m ready to continue with the adventure of my life (Continued) Back to Index E-mail the Poet |
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