playing with poetry cont...

I'm playing the piano

banging each note with the backs of my hands
pounding them into a
tuneless
rhythmless
submission

I'm playing the piano and

there are cotton balls coming up
through the keys
beside B flat
I see them dissolve and I know

that it's not cotton
it's smoke

I crouch upon the piano bench
still drumming out sound with my swollen knuckles
I replace my fingers with my toes
so no one knows there's been a change
but so I can stand and see
behind the dust and grainy wood
where you are hiding

I keep jigging on the keys
toes tapping out awful
childish noises
cold ivory on chafed calluses
this tuneless ditty dying under my cramped feet and
you dying under my cramped gaze

you are crouching
among wires and pedels
on a bed of sheet music
my metronome between your legs
holding up the small glass pipe
you're sucking on

you're all white scabs and mouth sores
oozing scabs that crack and bleed
when you pucker up
to kiss or to
take another hit