In Any City

A muffled radio can be heard  

from a neighboring motorist 

stopped at the light 

When it’s green

vehicles thrust forward 

in unison with blind force 

rush by

a cathedral 

framed in scaffolding 

kids playing basketball

in the adjacent schoolyard 

barefoot homeless 

somewhere on any street 

universal longing

The taxi meter ticks

as the basketball bounces

from hand to hand 

the horns drown out a death or two

an eagle cries out 

for its mate

a traffic light is red globally 

while someone’s heart beats 

like a wild bird 

for it to turn green

for the ball to make the hoop

for the barefoot homeless girl

to return home

for some damn thing to happen

for the love of God 

anything above and beyond 

the hustle and bustle

down a street 

in any city

in any life 

Write How Quiet It Is

5am dawn crawls into the sky – hello

write me a love note

some fool’s verbiage

to tell me the dark stars – our death stars

have exploded

and we are free

from judgment

free to write

Write this you fool:

all that glitters

was in my hand

and like the sand

slid into the sea

all that matters now

is that you write it

Speaking goes into

the void of forgetfulness

pre-dementia waiting

on the forum

I write it

buy milk

put gas in car

feed and let dogs out

dumb-ass notes

in fifty years our kids

kids

kids

will read this stuff

and say

how simple she was

good ole

great-great grandma

But listen as I write

the quiet

of my heart

as the beats wind down

as the dawn

has finally won over the night 

and my meager mind

simple as a leaf

sits in a complex

pile of mulch

the deterioration

breaks me down

My two eyes stare

into the vast ocean

recall each molecule

of sand that slipped through

Write it you fool

All My Months of Forever

Every cigarette I swore was my last

that dang cat 

you swung it by its tail so hard

rendered it vertigo-ridden 

for the rest of its measly lives

back then all you did wrong was twist up that cat

would have been so easy to declare you a good soul

Winded now

from just a flight of steps – just one damn flight

you said I was a monster

yet you endlessly wanted to be with me

hence, we birthed the monster together

slipped into its asylum

a toke here and there

on some good marijuana

we spiraled into the Cadillac of drugs

We died some nights

straddled together in an agony so great 

it gives me chills dare I think about it

death is good for you – remember you said that?

it’s good to come back alive and on fire

I came back with one eye and dimwitted

I came back with a limp

I came back with a burned neck

I saw the stars spray

over an archipelago 

in a swoon 

during one of my deaths

I’m sure it was Jesus

That battered black cat long since dead

you – now homeless and a smell 

caked so deep 

you cannot be cleansed

I waited for Jesus under that moon

naked and busted up

it took all those months of forever

it took all nine lives of that wretched cat

He came for me

barely recognizable

me – not Jesus

(I’d know Jesus if I was deaf 

blind or headless)

when you were high as fuck

pouring lighter fluid on his beautiful white loincloth

I scrambled behind with a bucket of water

Jesus remembered

I Wanted Virgil

Same dream again and again

I trudge to the edge overlooking an immense blackened gorge

teeter and sway

will myself to step off 

my body in complete disagreement  

pushing myself with my mind

I flail myself over 

into the abyss 

then Virgil appears 

disappointed

worn and beaten 

from our grim replay 

I awake in time 

to swallow a scream

light a cigarette 

the orange glow soothes

yet my heart 

blows up 

On my nineteenth birthday 

we stood outside our building 

giggling in snow knee-deep

the heroin 

just started to flow

created magical art

on canvases we imagined 

in our personal heavens 

when she hurled her body over the roof

twelve floors 

the slow motion movie scene 

mesmerized us 

Her heart continued to beat

even after her body hit

we heard it – the beat 

a loud gong 

like a wildebeest being taken down 

not ready – the heart never ready 

defies all purpose 

simply because its primary desire 

is to beat 

The red-pink snow shaped a grave

around her twisted body 

and we – high as fuck

mourning like half-wits 

clumsily dipping and falling 

to lean together in some wrecked sadness 

or perhaps envy 

Virgil comes back 

pasty white 

stone-faced 

stares accusingly

annoyed that he 

is my chosen 

chaperone 

I awake again soaked with sweat 

still feel his rough ancient breath 

my heart dead

but the beating steadfast 

so violently alive 

Donna Dallas has appeared most recently in Beatnik Cowboy, Quail Bell Magazine and Fevers of the Mind.  She is the author of Death Sisters, her legacy novel, published by Alien Buddha Press. She has two chapbooks, Smoke and Mirrors, launched with New York Quarterly, and Megalodon, launched with The Opiate. Donna has served on the editorial team of Red Fez and NYQ. 

donnaanndallas@gmail.com

@DonnaDallas15