Snakeskin

Sunburst shower
Heating rock, water, soil
Tepid air, gentle zephyr
Calling the serpent forth
Slithering from conclave
Encased in last year's skin
Sloughing off the past
Dead cells discarded
Side to side
Emerging forward

Existential Alphabet Soup

Fragile bones disintegrate
After taking years to form
Shape and grow
With a mother's love
Thousands of hugs
Years floating by
On a river without reverse flow
Days pass easy
Going down the gullet
As a limp noodle would
Spelling the words
That should traverse the lips
In the opposite direction
Where we all struggle to paddle
Failing with shrugs
Kisses
Moments
Buried alive
In the memories
Of those who survive
To suck down today's hot soup
And let it digest as it will.

Tequila & Poetry Breakfast

Stale cigarette pencil
Lead scratching
Complementary but divided
Blank paper wedge
Adjacent to the cracked salt shaker
Staring down the pepper grinder
Wanting a firm twist
Grains pouring, falling
Tantalizing that space on the tongue
Reserved for salt
Freshly whetted
Shivering for consumption
Tasting the nourishing
Burn in the throat
Tempered

Skeletal

Peeling flesh
Strip by strip
Shedding muscle
Strand by strand
Casting out organs
Veins
Arterial matter
In tandem
Down to the bone
Hosing the skeleton clean
To name each piece individually
Pointing a knotty finger at that rib
Calling it what it is
Two Hundred and Five to Go
Visceral
Real
The infrastructure
The center
Support system naked
Truth.