one-story house

rotting & rundown
sits like the corrupted
centerpiece
of a dying neighborhood
staring
eye-like windows
front door
torn away—gaping
like an open mouth
with nothing to say
murky hallways
always half-lit
by the yellow glow
of glass pipes
where only those
in-the-know
can decode the lexicon
spray-painted along
fractured walls
low-slung cars
crawl the boulevard
injecting sub-sonic
bass lines
into the twilight
bad-ass backing track
for well-strapped gangs
banging both sides
of the block
settling old scores
over scars as cold
as tagged toes
behind stainless steel
freezer doors down
at the city morgue
nightly play of d.o.a.
where no one
gets a curtain call—
revolving
blue-light reflections
caught in the glass
of one-story windows
on the street
where the lost
keep house

blaze

1.
friday-night party
cisco rediscovers
old rage
from old places
& cuts down his brother
with a cheap lock-blade
he bought
from a display case
at the “qwik-mart”
nothing could stop
the startled kid
from bleeding out
right there
on the dance floor
under the twisted
crepe paper
& red balloons

2.
thirty days
back from iraq
jeffrey
shadowed
in the light
of a 40-watt bulb
past the point
where hope breaks
blows out his brains
easy as a candle
& drops facedown
an unstrung puppet
on the basement floor
no one
not his mother
not his father
not his friends
had noticed
the night in his eyes

3.
the last light
on the ward
has been doused
& the broken soldier
can feel the void
that stretches out
from his petrified body
in every direction
360 degrees of seclusion
dead
as a disconnected phone
again he dreams
of reaching
into the black absence
& finding something
to hold onto
maybe
a wayfaring angel
who might allow
a little unexpected mercy
& lift him above
this house of stone
back to days of grace
& the face of a kid
singing to himself
as he plays alone
_____
someday
i’m gonna leave this place
where everything
is broken
fuck all of these
weary musings
on the human state
i’ll move
back in the woods
down by the river
live in a tree
start a devolution
roll back in time
to ooze & slime
before
the fateful lightning strike
ignited this crazy blaze
down a dead-end road

exit

“even death will have exits like a dark theatre” —Charles Bukowski

felony face
cuts down the alley
like a cold breeze
police sirens
sing the same name
as last night
darkness covers
the bloody footprints
of a young desperado
as he stumbles
inside the gentleman’s
john—rundown exxon—
a spider-cracked mirror
hides out-of-luck eyes
hard as roman nails—
bony back to the wall
he slips to the floor
laughing
at nothing at all
shaky tones falling
into a full-blown hack
bell-cracked saxophone
bouncing
death-rattle tones
round & round
the obscene sanctuary—
top floor of hell
holding cell
that smells
like a waiting room
for the cemetery

dust-off

clean-collar commuters
peer from the cover
of stylish shades
taking secret comfort
in a pathetic apparition
wrapped
in an army overcoat
nose down—
an overturned boat
in a pool of piss
baptized
purified
crucified
in the mute humility
of his own guilt
forever refighting
unfinished battles
tangled in green
triple-canopy dreams
while inside crusty
rust-filled ears
the white noise
of distant city traffic
hums like a “huey”
spectral medevac
searching for a soul
lost more
than forty years ago
somewhere along
the mekong river

DB Cox is a blues musician/writer from South Carolina. He can often be found in the early-morning hours bent over a Fender Stratocaster guitar in roadhouses, honky tonks, and juke joints throughout the South. His poems and short stories have been published extensively in the small press in the US and abroad. He has published five books of poetry. His first chapbook, Passing For Blue, was published by Rank Stranger Press. Two other chapbooks, Lowdown and Ordinary Sorrows, were published by Pudding House Publications. Main Street Rag published his first full-length collection entitled Empty Frames. A new chapbook called Nightwatch has just been released by Pudding House Publications.