endless poems about regret

 
waiting for the snow

all the threats from my dead relatives

from what i remember, the doctor
told me i would be dead by now

i'm sure he got into just for the money

i often dream of kissing you and
then never seeing you again

endless poems about regret
and what could have been

instead, i'm facing the likely
possibility of never kissing
you at all

those poems hit a little fucking harder

find the rare moment to share a laugh
tucked away between the murders
and endless tragedies on the news

how does one find a romance
in the middle of hell

not afraid to be alone,
just hate being lonely

the scotch punches a little harder
on these nights

like the woman of your dreams
texting you to fuck off instead
of thinking that you deserved
to hear it from her lovely voice
----------------------------------------------------
thirty years younger

 
she had the feel
of an old jazz club

cigarette smoke
hanging in the air

everyone wearing
sunglasses

i'd playfully slide
my hand up her leg
and she would blush
open just enough
to tease me

a saxophone would
cut through the tension
like a machine gun

we'll go home that night
and make love like we
were thirty years younger

bite my lip just hard enough
to let me know i'm alive
and she loves me

these are the nights i want
to think of on a front porch
in the rain

slipping a little whiskey
in the coffee

watching a cat chase
a butterfly
------------------------------------------------
for nickels and pennies

 
sometimes in my mind
i'm still that teenager
hanging out downtown

listening to frank play
the saxophone for nickels
and pennies

i'd go buy him a sandwich
so he would actually get
something to eat that didn't
come from a brown bag

if my memory is correct
frank drank himself to death
years after we first met

he's the one that would
tell me stories about coltrane,
charlie parker

how he once did cocaine
with miles davis

he would read the poems
i would write, tell me i was
getting better

give me a few sips
when i would get
published

i still hear that saxophone
when it gets quiet at night

a much simpler time

all the demons still
to come