corps

 

momma…just killed a man…

 

corps 

it’s never been about the good you have said but the supportive you haven’t. frayed on the inside, the diligence of tying ribbons round ribs like souls lost to war and never coming home. you wouldn’t know a thing of my patriotism in the teeth of your heavy fire. pockmarked soul the price of incoming shells and i’ll no longer be the outgoing saint i’d been. somewhere in those fields the mewl for momma while dulled surgeons and scissors fumble to cut the cord. you have failed me in such epic proportions future generations will hold my limbs and say here, the ancient man turned to slug. i drag this sack of meat before you desperate you’ll smell the rot but i am recipient only of that karmic reducing perfume of yours. ignorance never took such a fragrant path to my nose. so come holidays we’ll speak of imaginary storm fronts that threaten you worse than the notion your child wanders the front line geared in little more than dulled eyes. leave no man behind but quite obviously you forgot the boy.

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© Copyright Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved.

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thermal

 

beware the lover who only wants a stooge…

 

thermal

between nest and sky you caught me at my weakest. advantageous you kept a suggestive mouth. cunning i filled it where the living no longer walk or speak and i despised the taste of myself whenever we kissed. you nourished my irresoluteness until fragility took to your words. i harbored resentment even as i worshipped your breasts. you never understood the rational that migratory and delusionary patterning would take me away. entertaining your flawed notion that all raised remains home, i sucked down your toting love and spat it back your way. never was i your baby boy. never i the sparkle in your eye. i flew the coop and you couldn’t cope. no longer one with your air, this chick you thought now a hawk. i circle and circle above while you believe me prey to the currents. i’ve a way to lull with outstretched wings as the blue sky disguises my intentions.

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© Copyright Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved.

‘From My Front Steps,’ ‘Scotch and Scars’ and ‘A Distilled Spirit’ in paperback and Kindle ebook at Amazon.

ya’aburnee

 

and thru my fingers only air…

 

ya’ aburnee 

over and over, forced into me. be. just be. know no hour. no day. slip moments over your head like a well-worn sweater. i stand with no comfort. passing seconds make me feel no better. so dug soil percolates through my nose and here i know i will rest. eventually. your face shimmers in a glass in a palm in a mouth and all i cannot speak repeats from my gut through my heart out my soul again. i am dying without you witness to my withering. i suppose it’s all well off. animals expire alone. bones married back to earth. maybe i’m speeding the process but if you’re not coming back what’s left to wait. i’ll forgo the streamers and banners should the almighty grade my papers before yours. only an open hand bringing you home should you be so inclined. a table for two made in unassuming fashion, origami as centerpiece and my whiskey glass replaced by a bowl of milk for your cat.

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© Copyright Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved.

‘From My Front Steps,’ ‘Scotch and Scars’ and ‘A Distilled Spirit’ in paperback and Kindle ebook at Amazon.

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ma’goa

in all phases i’ll be your light…

 

‘ ma’goa ‘

morning carries an inching mustiness from the eve before like a secreted child. hand in hand, i walk you to school. the cool dew has slicked the leaves and i’ve care where to step. merrily you chatter on and on, the waking blue jay only more resolute than you to be heard. a glaring bright the moon slipping from full and it seems so misplaced but your knowing palm becomes my sun. we cross the street together cause you’re so small the cars so fast and what needs slowing fled me when you were born. you’ve grown thinking you need assistance when it’s been the other way around. kiss and you’re gone, string bean legs the way of stalk and i pray the kingdom you find will stay yours forever. veins and complexions under foot and though strong of heart i fear my seasons near expiration. i turn so quickly. short walk to the door but i can move on. and on. eventually i’ll become a lunar ray and when you seek mysteries i’ll be the answer. illuminating your autumn with gentle notions.

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© Copyright Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved.

‘From My Front Steps,’ ‘Scotch and Scars’ and ‘A Distilled Spirit’ in paperback and Kindle ebook at Amazon.

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drumsticks

 

my rhythm of taps…

 

‘drumsticks’

clear-eyed from the distance but obviously you’ve not looked quite close enough. machine gun rat-a-tat-tat marring my whites like crows stealing ahead of october night. your words still catch my lungs and not even the waking wisps from neighbors’ chimneys can clear them out. slow or fast, my feet keep the rhythm of your pounding, a redundancy without regard to the resistance of massage from fingertips to sole once shoes kick away. and there they lay on the floor, my favorite pair and my bones, all untied and sideways and waiting for something more than space to fill them. my soles are tired from wandering and my soul aches from a redundancy without regard to the nuances of triage etiquettecies. hung like damocles your insistence you’ve known me all along. it’s not your song the same but the two beat you play. for now we keep windows wide before what warmth remains the chill takes. somewhere someone burns the foliage and that makes the score marks along my ribs hurt just a little bit more.

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© Copyright Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved.

‘From My Front Steps,’ ‘Scotch and Scars’ and ‘A Distilled Spirit’ in paperback and Kindle ebook at Amazon.

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cortisone

 

take the shot. there might not be another choice…

‘cortisone’

reflected in the glint, your face especially longer than the expanse of which i am used. hold still, big pinch coming and if ever in the history of understatements was there such a grander lie then i am at a loss. once upon another lifetime ago, my parents bought me a dog until mother decided she could not handle eyes imploring for care and so stage right exit left went dog and up across my face a new space for tragedy and cheap plastic acceptance. luckily i hid eyes imploring answers behind cheap plastic acceptance cause i was a good kid and did good kid things like keeping the big kid’s conscious clean. hold still, big pinch coming but the fib is muffled under cloth the way the fast one was cast across my vision. problem is i am keen to tricksters now. and in a silvery flash the breadth of your ignorance drives through my joint. i am told this will cease the release of molecules that cause inflammation but when i plead for a stake through the skull the doctor pushes a shaking voice before retreating legs and declares my mental health might do good with a pet.

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© Copyright Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved.

‘From My Front Steps,’ ‘Scotch and Scars’ and ‘A Distilled Spirit’ in paperback and Kindle ebook at Amazon.

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helicopter

 

‘helicopter’

 i must have lift. i must have a force moving me upward. but i’ve lacked it all, and all my life, the reminder of it a steady beat within my chest. whoomp whoomp whoomp whoomp i imagine a parade, a marching band, endless columns of feet with gum-stained soles and taut lips that should be smiling. i should be smiling, had i ever been taken to a parade, had my soles ever been allowed the mileage to step in gum. it rakes my ribs now, a prisoner with a tin cup and no matter the pleas for leniency or a sip to quench the fire, i am sentenced to life for the oversight of others. whoomp whoomp whoomp whoomp and all i’ve ever fancied, all i’ve ever tricked myself into believing could be mine suspended right there above my heart, breaths away from severing attachments if only the cuts could be so neat. a fascination so many believe my shit is together when the truth is it stinks. every morsel ever force fed has yet passed through me and god help everyone once it does. staring into and through the glass until then, i sometimes allow my mind to drift to the rat-a-tat-tat of drums and how my keds would’ve tapped if i’d only heard them.

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© Copyright Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved.

‘From My Front Steps,’ ‘Scotch and Scars’ and ‘A Distilled Spirit’ in paperback and Kindle ebook at Amazon.

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mirror

 

i’ve been reflecting on a good many things lately.

so although i wrote this a year ago, this is as good a place to pick up where i left off as any…

‘mirror’

lately you’re the only one i turn to for truth. it’s not as often as i’m sure you’d like but it’s something and something counts. so many things get in my way and yeah you’ll say i’ll make excuses for hours. funny i know what’s coming spat from your throat and that makes it harder. but you’ve a way of waving your pungi and all the snakes i’ve got coiled inside start to rise. i’ll sink my fangs into you if i’ve the chance and i know you know that too. healer in your heart while from my mouth destroyer. it’s no trick of light. no matter how we turn we turn and lose each other. i need the best from you the way you need the worst of me. the one relationship i can show up in all my glory and still you’ve not walked. yet you’ve the reasons. how can you bear to stand there and watch me mask my gut-eating demons? i mean, i know you know i drank those fiends down all weekend (and beyond). you’re the only one i turn to but it gets sadder every time. grey has turned to snow and the grimace you cast somehow colder. i blinked one day and then my friend still you were there but older. eyes a darker shade of grave. i may have buried you once or thrice before but only one of us has realized the ticket has been punched.

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© Copyright Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved.

‘From My Front Steps,’ ‘Scotch and Scars’ and ‘A Distilled Spirit’ in paperback and Kindle ebook at Amazon.

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ghostcore

 

ghostcore 

it’s you and me and all left never said expired between us. it’s the drinks reanimating the fringe of lips and the abnegation that makes me drink them down. it’s the cool side of your cheek and the smart flash through mine. once i could raise the past without it haunting us. now it seems shadows stick where no wind blows. you persist spring buds from your tongue while the periwinkle signals my stay of sentence. destitute of vision i cry smoke, smoke but when have you ever stood close enough to feel my fire? what moves me most? i cast the spade more times than i could bear and even then you cheapened my toil with plastic flowers. pay the bill as if considerate but it’s only meant to keep your debt from growing. another martini never hurt me none while it only assures the erasure of your memory.

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© Copyright Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved.

‘From My Front Steps,’ ‘Scotch and Scars’ and ‘A Distilled Spirit’ in paperback and Kindle ebook at Amazon.

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billiards

 

billiards

first error, believing my guise of patience to be a coat of acceptance. there’s a rack hung in my closet smelling of cover’s mistakenly judged and bargain buys. hey if it fits you wear it and i wear it worn without posture. from corners i see you circling like a shark. i might be bleeding but i’ve yet bled out. call me twisted but i’m head over heels with the notion you believe you call the shots. oh babe you carry the big stick and that’s well and fine because the words i set up perfectly will never reach you anyway. collision of wills a sharp crack much like the tearing of my meniscus, an awful sort of reverberation through the flesh signaling that all is definitely not alright. and so we careen and to the lazy eye we are spheres, plummeting, burning up but i prefer to think we probe signals like lost satellites. your loops tighten the table and i know you’re searching an angle to put me away for good. so like you to overlook my sense of fashion for while you think you’ve dressed me down i’ve pulled the wool over your eyes and as i go screaming into darkness you can bet sure as shit i’m taking you with me.

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© Copyright Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved.

‘From My Front Steps,’ ‘Scotch and Scars’ and ‘A Distilled Spirit’ in paperback and Kindle ebook at Amazon.

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