understanding

understanding

 

what you do with it is on you, i don’t give a fuck either way, i can’t polish the platter any brighter or embed it into your dna because your bones lack my matter. and why should it factor it comes delivered lacking white gloves when a bourboned tongue does just fine. true, i’ve won no points for style but i’ve always been one for neat palms and dirty knuckles. my father left his backhand imprinted upon my youth and so i aged fearing nothing. though as god is my witness i prayed for the buckle instead. i’m sorry you’re deciphering now all i never said but the bloody trail leading down the hall surely should have tipped you off that a wounded animal stalked this house and when cornered it would bare its teeth.

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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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appeal

 

appeal

 

snap your eyes shut. open. keep me in that briefest of moments between peace and mottled dark. a luminous lulling that all is okay when it is not. my fingers full now until the winds empty the lot to which i’ve clutched. free picking for crows once bones lose their shelter, the clicking you hear my joints pointing the way. to where as lights descending, to where as distance grows. snap my eyes shut. open. i lose skin like seasons and raked as fast. demeanor a bridge between turn of notions and colors slash. my prometheus raging and all is okay as it burns smokeless and lucid.

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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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asomatous

 

asomatous

 

beset by shapes of smoke i drift through, above, beyond. twisted such as rope my hands, knots. all i touch, drifts, drifting. inside out i, open, spills, spilling backward to self. secrets like dogs e’er faithful waiting for walk, and walked, ne’er collared. sshh, angels talk, where, where trumpets blare in quiescent hearts of which no such beats ears know. grand void beckons, beckoning while apparitions of sham turn heads

oh, was he ne’er e’er there?

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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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dishwasher

 

dishwasher

 

some things require a sponge, some elbow grease and a good scrubbing. some things just find a way to pile up. take the dishes in this sink, for example. crusted over by food i never tasted. isn’t it a shame you took all that time to prepare a meal but not the care to season? presentation like a pageant queen but a poison pill upon the table. sure the meat is the perfect temperature but my flesh is still raw. you deny wrongdoing yet the well laid track of my shoes out the door says otherwise. and that’s the kicker. cheap food i buy on the run tastes like a temple’s bounty while what you cook from the heart eviscerates mine. we share trivialities before the hanging god into whom i place devout attention. reward for my conviction the napkins into which i wipe clean our discord. i suppose it’s not so bad. i’ve a roof over my head, calories in my stomach and a knife i’ve been sharpening. understand, mind you, i dutifully say thank you for dinner but require the honed blade to scrape the bullshit from the surface. i know i chew every morsel like it’s my last but i push the essence of you to the side. ninety-eight cents short of a happy meal, i force a smile and say that’s delicious as the basin overflows with chipped disks ready to topple.

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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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abscond

 

abscond

 

before your eyes, a snifter, a bottle, long draw from the neck, disparaging swallows so the expenditure of your vowels won’t dry your throat as bad, i’ve beat you to the punch, turned my insides inside out, you’ve nothing to invade but the invasion of self and know that violent clash within the recycling bin won’t carry my resonance, shatter like that of halloween bones and tricked twice as bad but the mask deflects the shards and yet leaves a sliver slit for further ingestion.

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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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golgotha

 

golgotha

 

i knew you came to slay me. my tarot spoke such. across my altar i fanned your volatile air but my guides would not yet snuff our death. there, across our timeline, i finally recognized my flogging, the crown of dissolution upon my brow. stripped of all sincerity i once bestowed you, we marched parade to illusive golgotha. you hung me there between your present and past chimeras, denied me grief wetting wine. broke not legs but my chest. callous to nails, i endured only the betrayment of the reed. your final spear of silence did not matter then. already had i awoken. risen with blood eyes. and now you gaze sideways not to notice but i am there.

 

when your lids blink in seismic misconjecture.

 

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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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ledge

 

ledge

 

like a cool glass of water providing relief from the bowels of august, i can never get enough of that breeze bathing my skin so intimately unlike the callousness of your hands. throw up the sash and it’s all right there beyond me. the escape, the relief, the utter end. my father once scaled a step stool with such a haunted look in his eyes. four feet to the floor but he teetered changing that lightbulb as if standing tippytoed in the teeth of everest’s upper troposphere. i get it now. he didn’t fear the height or looking down. he regretted the lack of elevation to drop. i see your palms in my mind as your mouth drones on and on. i see the air between them filling the space my body never touched. the density of my feet snaps me back around. and the breath of the wind across my cheek, beckoning me forward, a mistress of wisp with stolen hours cradled in her arms. throw up the sash and it’s all right there beyond me. narrow precipice dividing the veil between this life and where i belong. i never saw my father change another lightbulb. much like him now, i keep my eyes hidden in the dark.

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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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clothespin

 

clothespin

 they’d dangle like tragic tightrope walkers, splintery legs hooked onto the line, random breeze adding decadence to the danger before my eyes. would they drop and fall, these solitaire risk-takers, for what else destined would be their way? with knobby knuckles grandma added to the heart-stopping spectacle, digging deep into a stained cloth pouch, adding in number the precarious daredevils. held always captive their show mesmerized, though it meant the small wooden graveyard scattered beneath the smoldering august grass would grow by one, perhaps another more. i loved when grandma did and aired the wash. i loved inhaling the sheets and clothes even more, the redolence of sky so rich up into my nose that i ignored the death zest crawling like awful spiders up toward the windows whenever grandpa mowed the lawn.

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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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control

 

control

 

squeeze squeeze a little tighter, so the collar constricts and so do we without tender. what swells beneath skin, a rhythmic denial in need of appeasement and release, so what wounds deeper, the vessel or the tongue. the safe word, we are one, but are we

 

really

 

squeeze squeeze a little further, so the trust turns blood-eyed and so do we without splendor. what tears paper-thin, the liberation from judgment and dark alleyed enclosure, so what exhausts quicker, the carousel or the collapsed lung.  the fail word, we have this, but do we

 

ever..

 

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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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gasoline

 

gasoline

 

 the hard stuff will of course power your throat but strip your gut. you think i joke until you meet the burly irish lads with bludgeoned noses where the red rivers run through and laughter chokes the horse. pressed against momma’s teat, they surely didn’t believe life finds a way of circling back again. but it does. from swollen nipples to the neck of a leaking vice, no matter race or creed, what you draw between lips manifests to source and so chased thereafter. don’t judge the hilarity until you realize we are all born to die and how else can we applaud the effort of trying aside from cauterizing all which will eventually escape from us anyway.

 

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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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