SOMETHING HIDDEN

SOMETHING HIDDEN

 I do not take the plunge downward

To the streets of homeless bonfires

And the lure of unspoken suicides

A silent river night

Courses through my shivering jellied veins

And I walk the cat strewn alleys

Of life's tentative second dawning.

I do not fire the pistol 

To send my troubled head

Over the mountains where there is cheap refuge.

I take the gamble

And each new breath

Into these bewildered and frazzled lungs

I do not end it all

For who but God knows

Why life is clothed in shady robes

And there may be something hidden

Buried beneath our memories and perfumes 

Who but God knows

And there just may be a lantern

Somewhere past these heavy waves

Beyond these crafty currents

-Bruce Potts

Copyright 2024

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

COLD HAND ON A CRUEL NIGHT

COLD HAND ON A CRUEL NIGHT

I was killed by a cold hand on a cruel night,
By some wide-eyed drugged up jokester's slashing knife.
It pierced my heart clean in two, in pieces on the ground.
My body melted in the air, my remains were never found.

I was killed by a cold heart in a warm bed,
One too many sleeping pills clouded up my head.
I rose so high and slept so soundly that I never woke,
And death it came and wrapped me in its tender cloak.

I was killed by a magic mystic on some far mountain,
My body he gave as a burnt offering, it was pleasing to his god,
Who ate my body hungrily like a flesh and blood fountain,
And who praised the mystic kindly with a knowing wink and nod.

I was killed slowly by a crippling disease that compromised my brain,
My muscles rigid as a rope held taut against my frame.
I was murdered by it gradually, it had no qualm or shame.
But it knew what it was doing and was guilty all the same.

I was killed by a cold hand on a cruel night,
A man who could not be reasoned with, who robbed me of my sight.
A man who knew me intimately, a man who stood quite near,
As he left, I slowly turned, my own reflection in the mirror.

-Bruce Potts
Revised Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED