sonnet

go get me my pistol
babe this place
don't make sense
to me no more
hermetic you understand
sister morphine in a skinny bone chair
it's too early in the mudflaps
for malarcky with the geegaw boys
a bucket of nails & some holes
are never filled where the words
when half-moon on kitchen wall
waiting for nothing &
for no one again


cigarette in my pocket

turn on lights.
brush fingers.
before you make
the coffee wise.
reflector eyes
open wide
toward anyone but me.
i stand in shadows
where turpentine builds
ashes
far away
i think about you.
as confetti rains
on revelers, sunday
night has its' own pair of eyes
which i carry in a pocket.
they have a newspaper to read
along with you.
the one who has stopped
alongside me by
way of the dead
who saves rubles in a shiny tea pot
& then wear golf shoes to the new year's eve ball

mickey o'connor