Alexander Downie

Your latest haircut denotes your status and style,
a thick velvet rope lifting makes your false smile.
Tattooed arms state, crazy child like charms,
draped laminate passes, a vacant call to arms.
...

Real Men cry for others, real men love their Mothers.
Real men stand for right, real men walk from a needless fight.
Real men live with respect, real men ponder and reflect.
Real men say what they mean, real men reject the obscene.
...

My head spins like a pirouetting ballet dancer
My wraith laments under a burden of piquant turmoil
My days are faltered and my sable minutes lay shattered and crushed
My masquerade contorts to whisperings of enraptured passions and trepidation
...

When the volume subsides and the last word is silence,
I still believe in love.
When the pressure in my head subsides and my breathing shallows,
what else remains?
...

A pretty black girl in Chicago takes a stray bullet to the back,
another Mother standing beside a dark grave, while white America arms.
A black boy shot in the face getting groceries for his waiting Mom,
a congress so dumb white blind, they can't see this as wrong!
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Are you ok, you ask the wrong person,
it is not her that sits all alone.
Are you ok, who is the victim,
who destroyed a loving home.
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After the first scream she lays the child upon her sweat covered breast,
they breath in time, a journey on a winding new road with no end.
Through ripped knees, ferocious fevers and torn hearts her scent never alters,
soothing spectres on fearful nights, smiling through dark days, an apron for a shield.
...

He walks over fallen timber to find the high point on the hill,
placing feet on dry bark and avoiding damp moss in the dark.
His breath spits misty splinters of ice in the cold night air,
and his taught chest raises with fierce, effort and expectation.
...

With my body draped as a passive gift,
I give you my flesh in which to scribe.
All my yearns are lost in the cuts and pain,
all my visions blurred in this moment of sanctity.
...

Me and my pony hooked up on the Chicago Eastside and went for a ride,
we grabbed a corndog in Springfield and pulled our way on to Route 66.
In Oklahoma we sat with an Indian chief, watching movies while lovers kissed,
and turned a collar to a Cadillac ranch in Amarillo, blue lips and fresh Texas snow.
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It has been three years, she said,
and I am finally getting better.
It would have been easier, she said,
if he just showed, he was one bit ashamed.
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I walked by your gentleness today looking for my daily dose of pain.
Evil attractions caught my eye and burned a fraught feminine flame.
No scratch, slap, no punch, no kick, can compete with the cut of words.
A repeat offender returning to the scene of crime, to relive every hurt.
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Hold tight to the cold painted steel,
don’t let the charcoal waves know you.
Grip tight on the last vestiges of a lost self,
while the storm clouds turn growling seas black.
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Your guts scream stop and the sordid sickness make flesh fade
Without closure there are no new roads just dark paths to the past
Cliché fill thoughts, “dammed if I do, dammed if I don’t”, while bile bites
Boxing ugly shadows that laugh at you efforts and watch you slowly die
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She looked down at me from her willing white pony,
her Tennessee eyes delved for rescue, waiting, tempting me to run away.
A Lakota Mustang's white shield my only defence against those dark pools,
pools of lost dreams, pools of hidden desires, pools of sorrows past.
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She did not look for smooth skin and taught toned flesh,
She looked for a good man.
She did not seek to lie to herself or others to make truth fit.
She looked for a good man.
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X is using you
Y is showing you no respect
Z ls a loser
Stop being a professional victim
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Banging your head against a brick wall
Any friend of yours is a friend of mine.
No Smoke without Fire
Cheaters Never Prosper
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I would take a yellow bandana from Texas and fold it around ice,
and bath your arms and legs with the gentle touch of love.
Plant a weeping willow in your garden to shadow your window,
and open every sill to the cool night air.
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The King and I we sat down, he'd grown oh so tired of wearing his crown.
He threw of his robes, he looked me in the eye, raised his face to the rain and started to cry.
He kicked off shoes from manicured feet, his regal body crumpled like freshly cut wheat.
His jewels scattered around a marble floor, a name written boldly in future folklore.
...