LITTLE MISS ON BIG SUR

From fifteen thousand feet,
the elegant round of backlit morning dew,
thickening cloudy malaise,
masks ghost-whispering sandpipers at play.
Their pecking wild call,
unheralded against the craggy moors,
weather beaten by sun and sea,
mounting Dianna’s chariot
tucking noon beams into ancient coves
mist and fate,
caught expressive, yet removed.
T’is the outside world,
a myth endured,
till weekend trips eclipse
the cymbal crash of restless surf.

We are not amused,
and liken this change-less paradise
to each small and supple bend of my lover’s back
trampled underfoot
bewildered as a pack of midday galloping rhinos
beach balls bobbing,
toward undisturbed, forgetful sands.
@Nick Zegarac 2008 (all rights reserved).

TRICKS TO TREAT

Sit, my friend,
drawing loose tongue
into deep laps of bubbling intoxication
whilst I illuminate the possibilities.

- a ghost story, then…
superficially corrosive to logic
bolstering the wonder-path
overactive imagination
thrust undulating and diluted
into the murky crust of darkness.
We see…we think…
we hear quick light footsteps on the ceiling
perhaps a servant girl
-yes…gone down
into rat infested bowels of a Tudor manor house,
where the good doctor buried
rotting flesh of his wily mistress
concealing their infidelity from an unhealthy wife.

A flash and flicker, then
candlelight…
no – gunfire!
The heavy role and tumble
shattered skull,
clumsily careening
down damp wooden stairs.

Ah yes…then to summon the spirit –
by faith – not prayer,
or, perchance the unholy séance…
specter of Dashiell Hammet,
nay – Sherlock Holmes…
or maybe just a hint of Jessica Fletcher
For sincerity,
to calm the taut
fine fingering nerve-strings
my caustic violin heart
quickening as though by arsenic…

…the same as in your champagne flute -

Dear guest,
You are the murder tonight.
@Nick Zegarac 2007 (all rights reserved).

I'VE CALLED HER 'LIZ...

…she would have hated that.
As though, from spite –
Not so, my love.
Affections naturally blue and coursing
as dropped reposes from each beaded vein.
Eternally yours.
Bearing strange witness
to those pierced flashes of aubergine,
the hemlock flickering
deep within,
gorgeous window-shaded lashes
barring entry to her soul.
Seen…
too much
the unveiling –
not even notoriety’s noose constricts,
faint tabloid kisses lipsticked wet –
a Trojan’s promise
ever made honestly,
from the divine…
rapturous innocence,
womanhood most childlike
- than real
and likened to sport
at playing mistress
amidst uncut yards of glistening celluloid.
Roll film…
and break the tethered heart strings once more.
Oh, Nile-breathed goddess –
…the shadow of your smile refrains.
@Nick Zegarac 2007 (all rights reserved).

BY THE HOUR

...awakenings, too late“Whores make the best lovers…
technically speaking, of course.”
He ponders alone,
in sweet bundled repose,
imagining the trickle of sweat
from his burning forehead
wiped clean as a thousand tongues
their supple sticky juices
changing chemistries mingled
with passionate acrylic finger tipped scars,
proudly displayed
across his arching back.
“Their eagerness to please…”
he explains to no one,
“…for a modest fee.”
- pleasure per cost distilled
more blissful than truths
or that filthy harlequin
promised romances
strung like beads
tightening about his tickling parched throat.

How thoroughly satisfying then?
How now?
To pry these dead memories
self professed
the boulevardier cut adrift,
impaled and pricking
on the sour gnash of repayment.
Thrust into the dry filthy crust of dawn
lucid and cold
with prying eyes
and probing inquiries –
a different sort,
into each deep sunken crevice
starched over by a frosting of saliva:
dire price tag
coughing up wish fulfillments
for compassion only,
any hint of warmth,
or perhaps
- merely death
and a soft Dresden arm
to lay upon these corrupted entrails,
trading insatiable needs
for the dull prick
from a physician’s needle.
“Technically speaking…of course.”
@Nick Zegarac 2007 (all rights reserved).

NEVERMORE

Craggy rocks of nevermore,
beckon the stifling tang
noon day rising,
through narrow vapor slits
thick clot of filtered humidity.

Raw, crushed
plates of fragmenting haze
cut Ceylon shadows into starfish
perforating hallucinations.

These parched scroll exteriors -
gape their hungry mouths,
in prickly thistle spires,
tucked fruitlessly bare,
until the only distant mirage
- humpbacked mountains,
dot paradise's
blistering cloves.
The pungent dust fragrance
of petrified death…
is inhaled by yon weary,
asphyxiated traveler…
succumbing to that last wheeze
like an old concertina in his knapsack
– punctured,
struggling in low sustained booms
one upon hyphenated next.

Unseen,
a speck concentrated under noon day’s sun
pulverized against nature’s anvil
beckoning toward stifled tang
from craggy rocks
thick filtering humidity
…then,
nevermore.
@Nick Zegarac 2007 (all rights reserved).

LAST SUPPER

She thought intensely on it now,
on that other fellow,
on this one,
how she had betrayed him,
so completely,
such utter lack of remorse.

No splash of shame
from exposed, sweaty pores,
breading his halibut
dutifully
as though,
stain of ruby wine kisses
had not tainted her.

Imagining – proudly
daydreaming even,
that cold slender insertion of metal
twisting inside the lock.
“Honey, I’m home…”
…only to discover her note,
next to another perfect meal
by the phone.
a ‘please don’t call me
– ever again’
scribbled in frenetic excitement.

Note pad sticky, egg batter
faint tang of lemon rind -
garnishing little more
than she might do,
sun shedding its grace
too obvious -
across flour-dust counter top.

No plans for intrusion…
…but it comes.
thick gooey ooze
curdled mixture
frying battered fillets,
perfection – in a skillet at least -
both reminder
and farewell.

Arranged so neatly
bitter hint of parsley
beaded glass, homemade tea
one cloth napkin pressed into service,
everything else purged into the washer
- almost.
Nothing left to consider –
small comfort of clean up.
She smiles,
pitching apron and mitts
remnant domesticity aside
trading Limoge for lip rouge
‘Boy’, she reasons,
emptied handbag slung over strutted shoulder,
‘When I cook I sizzle,
But when I lie, I really bake!’

@Nick Zegarac 2007 (all rights reserved).

BRAIN CHILD

She sat cross-legged,
pensive parental hush,
observing his every unrehearsed movement
happy fingers,
dancing clutter
amidst the menagerie of wish fulfillments.
Her rigid excitement,
bursting forth from well intension arteries,
storefront stocked ready in baited daydreams.
Encouraging the chemistry set,
with pointed debate, shuffling building blocks,
determined with all faith,
to rid him of his left-handed crayon doodling –
the sure and telling signs of a penniless future.

Perhaps he would reach
- even surpass,
these lofty expectations.
Presidential appointment, no less,
though statesman would satisfy anew,
her hawk-like search
seeing a swift proud hand,
dispensing justice from his ice cream gavel.
Misperceiving the curious delicacies,
light surgical touch from sticky fingers
grazing over cat hair husk.

He would scale these heights,
as foreign, disinterested and force-fed
as the waiting spoon -
drippy pabulum
leaking from his full lips.

Perhaps then –
in a few nauseating annum
calculatingly measured
in growth spurts,
then grade point,
and finally,
- certificates and honors
hard earned…
perhaps then –
when all that he might have desired
had been beaten from his consciousness,
liberated – then, might she be also…
from her own disservice youth
and blindly follow…
to no fulfilling end
when all either had wanted then
was to play on the drums.

@Nick Zegarac 2007 (all rights reserved).