SHE BLEEDS FOR BROOKLYN
Judge Burdon

She lives with low rent day dreams, on no name backstreets.
Dirty sidewalks made from quicksand concrete,
There’s no yellow brick road.

In this city like desert without an oasis.
Hope a disease that breeds in places,
Where God wouldn’t go.

In the air there’s a stench the smell of desperation.
And lives are stamped with a date of expiration.
The Devil’s grip on their souls.

Night crashes down with the sound of a train wreck.
She’s on the prowl for love and everyone’s suspect,
But they just leave her cold.

She cries with a sound that no one hears.
Her eyes lost their voice
Now she can’t speak with tears
She wonders ’bout life on the other side of the mirror.
Kneels down for one more unanswered prayer.
But there’s no one listening out there!

And she bleeds, she bleeds for Brooklyn
She’s hemorrhaging lies and alibis.
She bleeds, she bleeds for Brooklyn.
Break free Persephone
Brooklyn left the front porch light on.

MY SIBLINGS’ FATHER
Judge Burdon

other children feared monsters
under their bed
i feared the one living under our roof.
his hair was nimbus black
with a storm’s thunder in his voice.
his fists were freight train brown
ball bearing knuckles
frostbite blue was his touch
with empty icebox eyes
his smile untrusted growling words
spoken like tangled spaghetti
he was my mother’s husband
my siblings’ father
a childhood of baseballs never thrown
bruises and shattered bones
medicated with lies
happiness diluted with tears
in a house with screams undetected
when asked what i wanted to be
i testified “far from here”
now, fiber optic home front news
faceless words
cancer eating away at your life
with the fury of a piranha
your disease now my champion
fighting with the courage
i was unable to muster
your epitaph written in my adolescence
while plotting your midnight homicide
again you leave unaccountable for your actions
i’m left to wrestle with the demons
not the strength to forgive
my memory too scarred to forget
i’ll keep the battle lines drawn as your monument
let the puzzle piece fall where it may
good bye old man you’ll be missed
like a pit viper’s bite
your pain can no longer touch me
from the grave.