Joseph M. Gant

Luster

whiskey sweats at 10am;
it's Tuesday, and I
really shouldn't leave today.
the sheen of the gun,
this light beside the candle—
luster never was our game;
we shine beside the shallow grave:
angry light electric ghouls
deprived of all that mattered.


Requiem

for all the stars I've seen
and all the stars I've since forgotten,
kissed beneath the sky
and parched of all oblivion,
supernova seraphs bled their tears
and fertilized
a joyous field, giving life not theirs
into these springtime memories of lust, synaptic
and forever woven,
now a tapestry since lain
along the pathway leading nowhere but to here.