(Seventeen Syllables About) REALITY

Perfect we all want.

Sometimes love is just being

fucked up together.

(Seventeen Syllables About) MOVING ON

My darling, unless

          you’re on my mind, I barely

                   think of you at all.

(Seventeen Syllables About) SEEING

Life in red and black –

          light and darkness dimly glimpsed

                   through eyelids screwed tight.

(Seventeen Syllables About) INSOMNIA

Counting-down in French

staring at a stand-by light

                   foetal in the dark.

(Seventeen Syllables About) GOOD INTENTIONS

Friends denied Pushkin

          bleeding out on a couch his

                   merciful bullet.

(Seventeen Syllables About) THINKING ON YOUR FEET

Jaundiced under lights

          the TV psychic, straight-faced

                   reads for someone’s cat.

HAIKU

Caesar falling raised

      the toga over his face.

            None would see his end.