Mark Borczon writes

The lessons on highway crosses

I pull off this dark road
Park in the gravel
Across from the plastic factory
And crack a beer
At the foot of a cross

The moon is a fish hook
Caught in the meat of my cheek
The sweat on my face
Is the cowl I was born with

I breathe down heavy
And hear the echo inside the can
It sounds like a smoker's lungs
Through a stethoscope

The work is done
But the night is just begun
And the beer told me
To stop here

It was the cross
That told me
I had better
Get used to it

Mark Borczon writes

A library for scarecrows
There are fish hooks dragging
The deep water with harmonicas
As their swaying bait
Silence wants a song the same way
I want some whiskey and
My youth
There should be library for scarecrows
Full of field mice and ghosts
It should be as haunted as a river
One straw hand will reach for a harp
Put it to his burlap mouth
And be pulled from this quiet
Playing a howling blues
Against the moving of water
Ascending from the library
Rushing towards the surface
Braking like whale
Bouying like an over board guitar
The ghosts and the mice spilling
From his lips like song
With the hook set deep and true
And then the lamantations of
Scarecrows and of blues song
Escaping the library
Playing in memory
Of my lost and silent
Youth
Ghost of a Scarecrow -- Paul Klee

Mark Borczon writes

Old cars and memories

Weathered like a mailbox
With hinges just as troubled
Even the back of my head
Is sweating rust
Old trucks and dead friends
Stand on the back fields
Facing the highway
Wearing the price of memory
There is a car for sale
My dad owned before I was born
Back when he was going to
Live forever
It could be mine
For 600 bucks
I might buy it just to see
If he's behind the wheel

Mark Borczon writes

TATTOOS AND BIRTHDAYS

There is not much left
After death clears his plate
Of us

Empty shoes and
Riderless horses
Wandering the streets

Vodka bottles
Filled with tears
Metal cans filled with ashes

But what becomes
Of un-used birthdays?
Who owns them?

Even a dead man
Still owns
The day he was born

The Start of the Race of the Riderless Horses -- Emile-Jean-Horace Vernet

  
The Race of the Riderless Horses -- Théodore Géricault

Mark Borczon writes

WHO BARES THE BURDEN

I only ever throw pennies
In fountains where the hero
Sits on a horse
I put my faith in who
Bares the burden
Not in who
Holds the sword

And I have spent a life time
Walking in graveyards
Striking stick matches
Against family stones
Following my burning hand
Trying to find my
Way home

And I have poured milk
Into the bean black eye of death
To bleach it blond
And chain it down
Until it became
Weak and
Drinkable

I have always known
My time aint long
That what I done
Would bare an explanation
And I better know it
Well before I do
Anything anyone
Would notice

 

 
 J. C. Nichols Memorial Fountain, Kansas City, Missouri --  Henri-Léon Greber

Mark Borczon writes

THE FEET OF THE MATADOR

Swimming in

An abandoned

Steamer trunk

On my living room

Floor is the

Blood red mermaid

Of my daughter’s

Love

I am old

And she has

Aged around

Me like

A cape I use

To fight

Bulls that

Are in their

Prime

I have lost

Much to

Heartbreak

And vodka

To hard times

And lonely tears

To the sound of weeping

Reaching across

The city nights

Falling just short

Of my out stretched

Hands

But you must

Ignore the cape

And watch the

Feet of the

Matador

See them stand

True through

Six perfect

Veronicas

Two each for

My three

Perfect

Daughters

In this brutal

Dance with

Death that

I do always

Only for

Them

 

 La Matadora -- David Lozeau