I am drinking a glass of water called song.
Each syllable is clearly understood:
my heart in my throat, carved out of wood.
To ask who is speaking just gets it wrong;
every dummy must trade on his mystique.
In nightmares, I’m the one who comes to life,
but he’s the one who’s married his own wife.
Some virtuosos make a table speak,
but all I can do is declaim a soul
I cannot prove. I am at one remove,
like you. It’s all the same from where I sit,
chair or knee. I am the remote control.
It’s cut into my smile, deep in the groove.
Something threw its voice & you, I, caught it.
St. Valentine’s Hospital for the Criminally Insane
Everything is beautiful, & then it goes off.
Every kiss is you’ve made your own bed.
All the bombshells are blonde on blonde,
until they dye themselves red.
Hold me in your mind, O Venus,
for I know your arms are gone.
Everything goes off; wrong wire, always cut.
Every kiss is shrapnel, working its way out.
All the bombshells are red on red;
only their roots show blonde.
Hold me in your arms, O Venus…
for you know my mind is gone.
Gregory Crosby was once an art critic, until he got over it. His poems have appeared in Court Green, Epiphany, Copper Nickel, Paradigm, and Ophelia Street, among other nice places.