A gun at your head:
One bullet,
Six chambers.
The gun goes click
And the bullet moves up
One notch.
Morning’s light:
An incoming tide
To carry you through the day,
To float on the hours
Talking and doing
Pleasant, simple, nothings.
And the gun goes click
And the bullet moves up
One notch.
Love’s heat:
Curled wisps on crested waves
Of far away storms,
Lift and toss
Your pretty sandy hair,
And then, slip calmly away,
Leaving you lonely cold,
Trembling wet.
And the gun goes click
And the bullet moves up
One notch.
And now me:
Slipping and sliding
In joys and sorrows,
You’re desperate to end the fluidity,
But you find nothing
To grab onto,
Spinning and swirling
By lands unknown
And seas not swum.
And the gun goes click
And the bullet moves up
One notch.
Our sweet goodbye:
The empty doubts
And needless pain
Cast to a watery death
In whirling night winds
As you succumb
To its pleasure.
And the gun goes click.
James K. Richardson