Three Poems by Jack T. Marlowe

indigestion

tears drip

into the mix

like hot

bacon

grease

an essential

ingredient

for the dirty

gravy that

you greedily

sop up

with

your dry

biscuit

heart

but i've lost

my appetite

anyway

it's been too

long since

i've been

served love

for breakfast

knives in waiting

when love-

making

devolves

into mere

fucking

a shape-

shifter is

exposed

your

lover's

new de-

meanor

more

feline

than

female

a feral

passion

sinking

into

shoulder

blades

with the

caress

of sharp

nails

ten little

harbingers

of the

inevitable

back-

stabbing

to come

will work for love

i wasn't looking

for a handout

when i said

that i needed

change

in my life

but she handed

me those three

little words

anyway

like some dirty

coins that had

already been

spent on some-

one else and

returned for

a refund

even so

i accepted

the offering

considered it

a gift

and gave her

a gift

of my own

and it's

true that

money

doesn't

buy love

but it's also

true that love

doesn't buy

respect

consideration

compassion

or even a hot

lunch on Sunday

and meanwhile

that silver

is still jingling

in my pocket

rattling

like the chains

that shackled

my heart

back when i

actually cared

and i'm still

working

for some kind

of change

in my life

because

the change

that i got

wasn't

the change

that i needed

it's hard to say

just who's to

blame, but

either way

i'm stuck

with a handful

of cold reckoning--

more legal

than tender--

hanging around

a pay phone

with nobody

to call

Jack T. Marlowe is a disillusioned, formerly romantic rogue from Dallas,

TX. A writer of poetry and fiction and a veteran of the open mic, his work

has appeared in Carcinogenic Poetry, Montucky Review, Black-Listed

Magazine, Visceral Uterus, Handful of Dust and elsewhere. Jack is also

the editor of Gutter Eloquence Magazine (www.guttereloquence.com).