Category Archives: POEMS

the day after

there are many things
i just cannot comprehend
why give them head space
why enshrine them in my heart
go ahead and call me fool

i wish only peace
serenity for the soul
merely do my best
i don’t need to beat a drum
nor have any notice me

someone conquers mars
someone sells bad bananas
someone invents worth
none of this matters to me
remember? i am a fool

you can laugh at me
but when you’ve become bankrupt
(i don’t mean money)
i’ll be gone, so far away
basking in another day

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2019

snowed in

you wake at night
when first snow has tucked the city in
and neon glow has plucked glam rings
into the supercilious dark

you see outside
something shaggy and stark wants in
presses craggy nose, sharp tightening
unto the chilled window pane

you rush through the door
jump up bare to the porch sans clogs
and december like a debauched dim dog
licks your cheek with frosty tongue

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2019

circle without end

i am shape, formerly human
a frosting sphere beneath heaven’s blear
insensate in the wake of chased dreams
waking to be, to be held by you

but you don’t care for all that i’ve shared
(in truth) do you
taking only what i can ill afford to give
yea, lay me down, do trollen sigh
into the bracement of dip and rime

hoar am i as the sea
you always said something about completing me
professed to crest open roil with gladness
but have you ever

i’m the end you always supposed me to be
and you’ll always be the end point of me
we reek of codependency
yea, lay me down, do trollen cry
cover thon over these lovers’ crimes

tease me with your lips, plunder me
sweet talk me again and again
squeeze me with your hips, squander me
junk me gently with the pain

yea, lay me down, do trollen fly
decrease the contours of my decline
was there ever a beginning to all of this
you’ll always be the end point of me
we reek of codependency

hoar am i as the sea
something about you completing me
and cresting the open roil with gladness
but have you ever

yea, lay me down, do trollen hie
bury me gone, away from all time
you won’t care for all that i’ve shared
(in truth) will you
taking only what i can ill afford to give

i am shape, formerly human
a thing to be abraded with use
an asset, a liability
you’ll always get to choose

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2019

pariah hymne

here we go again
peering over the edge of time
vultures dancing in the air
above the slain ones in the grime
we’d trodden with the angels
but then they’d gone and left us behind
absconding on hoverboards
no mortal could keep pace with their kind

“don’t trust the bastards!”
so say we all, “beware them all!”
celestial traffic, superlunary scrawl
stay hungry, stay foolish
all barefoot and tall at the mafficking mall
“we’ll jive! we’ll survive!” so say we all!

so, we raise our hands
in the sign of the devil’s antlers
we hope he’ll give us a lift
us ethereal gallivanters
instead, we get struck down
by the balls of his carronade banter
but we’re used to being ditched
crumpled, we embrace a new mantra

“don’t trust the bastards!”
so say we all, “beware them all!”
celestial traffic, superlunary scrawl
stay hungry, stay foolish
all barefoot and tall at the mafficking mall
“we’ll jive! we’ll survive!” so say we all!

here goes time again
peering over the edge of us
worms lancing through the grime
‘neath the spent casings and arquebus
leaving angels and demons behind
we sink bayonets with gravitas
into the ground, say with resolve
“we’ll abide in this temporal annulus”

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2019

how to explain life to a live girl

they walk around the room cuddling a dead hare
smearing the floor with stale syrupy gold
they cry out loud that awakening is here
exactly as beuys has foretold

i lie on the floor trying not to sleep
but the damned gold flashes before my eyes
here i balance over the greasy steep
falling through the creaky rickety skies

and i see in my dream how a huge dead hare
cuddles me to its soft warm belly
runs its paws over my messy hair
treats me to marmite and orange jelly

the hare whispers of shoes and sealing wax
of shooting stars over the seashore
that a worldview’s a matter of parallax
…i wake up to the sound of a slammed door

by TETIANA ALEKSINA
© All rights reserved 2019