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.

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anslutning

 

anslutning

 

chitter chatter i’ve no part of and a mainstream bearing no inclusivity to my name. there where the paint hides flaws i find solace, side-skipping the shallower crevices into which my eyes won’t get lost. appearances are a thing so it makes sense now why certain fabrics scratched my skin. i hated layers but hated even more the peeling of self. downward glances and shut out all that other stuff like you’ll grow up and out of it one day. what if you don’t grow up and out of it one day? what if you find yourself at a table without inquiry or care of your latest digressions and the smile carried is like freight lost of its port. valuable riches never delivered. sometimes one must question if one will ever be a want. wall upon countless wall has been left wet with my dripping expression and for once i wish there’d be a handprint left in the paint.

 

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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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closet

 

closet

 

today i am not quite sure what to wear so i will slip indifference over my head. it’s ill-fitting, yet another reminder i’ve put off discarding things i’ve so overgrown. all goes black as it crosses my eyes and if there’s anything the years have taught me it’s that it still squeezes around the neck. how i love to flash it before you, so garish, so proud. sadly it’s one of the few feats afforded that brings about the instant sterilization of my space. you’re so outdated, you are wont to say, forgetting all the things that santa brings are clearly not my style. from the gallows dead limbs hang hollow of intention, tags still dangling, testament through no fault of their own that fervent hearts require touch and more than just a swathing.

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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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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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