Rules Of Fleeing The Burning City

Photo by Ellie Burgin from Pexels

You can’t rely on this path dug by rebels like me.

It’s been crossed and dulled, impossible to see.

Can’t ride, can’t crawl through it in your Ante attire.

You won’t find a patsy to help you escape this fire.

Neon boneyards flaming in distance, viva Las Vegas!

Leave! Take all you can carry, call a powerful magus.

Hide with someone you trust in the city of betrayed

And hope this isn’t a night that you get played.

Cut all contacts or sweep them under the rug.

Don’t tell them what’s going on, don’t give a hug.

You can only swear on words of a rebel, hold on tightly.

Move up to the east, and keep moving there nightly.

Once the neon pollution leaves your left lung, sleep in.

The river is poisoned, the hills can always steepen.

As the air of the burning city flees your thirsty lips,

You’ll look back just in time to see how it still grips.

Staring back at you with its promise and realization –

Nothing incinerated, your mind was the ruination.

Those city towers were toying with your psyche.

You can’t rely on this path dug by rebels like me.

-JW

The Last Of My Standards

Photo by Ylanite Koppens from Pexels

A spritz of the spring touched my heated thoughts today.

A spur of the moment decision. I’m fleeing this town.

Tell your brother I said “hey”.

This weather brings back the skeletons I’d rather keep burnt.

The sweater I’m wearing can’t hold my self-pity again.

God, pass me another urn.

No space left to dig a grave for the next obsession gone awry.

No scales grand enough to weigh my remorse.

This won’t end alright.

These warm spring evenings are stealing the last of my standards.

The swarm of wasps filled with toxic love promises awake,

I’m gulping them down just like salamanders.

-JW