Fairy Dust & Never Land

Fly me away to Never-Never Land.
Jane begs Peter, small fists clenching
his wrinkled business suit. He cannot
give her what she needs, what he gave
her mother. He knows that outside her room,
and his fantasies, she is simply a little girl
and he, old enough to be her father.
He cannot let himself caress the pale
soft skin that peaks out from the pink
half-slip. Now is not the time. He is her
sugar daddy and she likes it powdered.

Jane will never leave London's streets:
never fly beyond its smog filled skies.
At night, she and her mother dream
of the same man: eyes filled with tears,
minds with broken dreams. Perhaps
Mother cries as well for her brothers
who never grew up: boys lost to the war
that rages in back alleyways- the struggle
of their broken generation. Escape comes
in many shapes; some can never fly.

In the end, was it Peter or Mother who
taught Jane the way to escape? A straight
line towards the second star to the right
etched in Tinkerbelle's fairy dust
Deep breath and happy thoughts.
Once, Wendy flew on white wings
that crumbled to dust in dawn light,
leaving her a fallen women. Never
Land awaits the next generation. Fly
away, little one, and don't look back.

Alice wasn't the only one to find
a world behind a looking glass.

Final Sacrament

Mary Jane bathes in blood
that drains from her veins and tints
the porcelain vessel's water red.
Her vacant eyes flitting from white tile
to white tile, she contemplates the meaning
of life. The give and take games people play:
figurines sliding over a marble board,
his fingers on her ivory body.
Lord let us not want for

fear, pain, and misery.
Mary Jane chokes on pennies;
suffocating on the copper
that fills her nostrils
and leaves her breathless: his hands

wrapped in the damp curls of her hair.
This is my body given for you.
She closes her eyes and can feel his
wet warmth pressed against her,
the gentle tug of hand in hair:
memories stirred by the pull
of her Nile's water, its tides controlled
by the motion of two pale orbs
that rise and fall, wax and wane,
to the slowing of her breath.
This is my blood
given for you.

Mary Jane in a Blender

We follow the bouncing ball
But don't sing along.
No one listens to that kind of music anymore.

An orgy of four men and a slut.
We follow the bouncing ball.
A mindless juggling act,
We wait for it to fall.

She's the first to drop it.
No surprise: she doesn't really play.
She just came with Tony.
He nailed her once and
She's followed him ever since.

She's a klepto; always stealing things from him:
His time, his life, his clothing.
Mementos of trips she never took,
Memories of things that never happened
Outside her mind.

She's a poser with bleached hair &
personality. She doesn't really fit.
One day she's gonna skip school;
Dead with slit wrists.
We wait. She practices.

Tony can't see the sack through his hair
And eyes clouded with purple haze.
On Tuesday, he got in a fight with reality and
Walked out on life. He won't be back for days.

He carries two knives in his pant's pockets
But never uses them. He's a punk poet.
Life was beautiful.
Then he ran out of women
And dreams.

Frankie's cool. He's going to make it
He's educated. Been in high school five years;
Two more and he's going to graduate.
Get a diploma and everything.
First in his family. He's a fricken genius.

He's off probation now; that makes him happy,
Since he gets to spend time with his son.
Tomorrow, they take it all to court.
Frankie will win cause the mom's a crack whore.
He never drops the hackey-sack.

Scraggily is kind of quiet. He doesn't play.
Just watches. After three years
No one knows his name
or maybe we just forgot.

He always comes to school bruised and cut up.
We don't ask. He doesn't tell.
He doesn't go home anymore, but sleeps at Safehouse*.
They don't like that, but hell as long
You pay, they'll look the other way.

Dillon doesn't live at home anymore either.
The government took him away.
His mother has issues. She used to be a nurse,
But the drugs stopped helping.

He doesn't sleep in beds anymore.
Too afraid that she'll find him, and finish it.
Sometimes he wishes he hadn't
Woken up when she tried to cut his throat.
Maybe things would have been better that way.

The ball falls, but no one picks it up. We were never good at following anything.

*Biker bar in Tucson