Saturday, November 28, 2015

Noel Negele- Two Poems


About My Good Friend John

It happened usually
at dawn, while the sun started to come up
and we all wished the night lasted for two days-
when we came down from
the drugs hard,
our feet feeling like truck tires
instead of feathers
that we talked about the really serious stuff-
Syria, Hamas, immigration problems
world hunger, pharmaceutical companies
extremists, conspiracies, enviromental downslides
and there was always this bold guy telling us
about economical wars going on
and that we were really close to something awful-
this in truth was only a way of coping with sadness
talking about worse things
though we were, and still are, poorly educated
and the majority of us with criminal records.
But anyway, this is about my good friend John
leaning over the plate- a plastic straw jammed into his right nostril
just after I've told him to it call it a day,
that we had done enough self destructing
to last us for two life times,
my good friend John falling on the ground
flapping like a fish out of water,
foam coming out of his mouth
his eyes nowhere to be seen-
death rocking him hard before
taking him from us,
my good friend John
the more good looking one
the kinder one
dying in front of our eyes
bringing a flash in my mind
of him laughing at fourteen years of age
all rose-cheeked and careless,
remaining still, suddenly, at last
like a puppet whose strings were released
as if someone up there got bored
or disgusted more than the usual,
my good friend John
who is no longer
like so many good people out there
leaving us behind, remorseful and horrified
for all the chances of kindness we missed,
for all the love we came short.



Night Time.

Five in the morning.
Strolling along the whore houses and coughing
alongside dangerous friends with self-sabotaging tendencies
as the field of the sky becomes a menacing purple
all the lovely darkness giving away to gruesome light...
Time waits for no man.

After window shopping for a while
( the shamelessness so very honest and blunt )
you head in, more dead than alive, too drunk for a remarkable erection
and rub your carcass against this woman much older than you
with bruises on her thighs and no matress on the bed
inside a room that smells like a junky's sneeze.

You know there are vaulters everywhere.
Men with heads tucked into shoulders-
barely a sign of life in them.
Stoic, mean women under the red lights.
Flesh for money.
Cheap affection that will have to do.

And when you puke your guts out on the stairs
and it's that hollow thing echoing in the alley
your friends laugh
and you laugh too.
 
 

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