What you should have said.

What you should have said.
January 23, 2008 - Wednesday

She was my sparkler girl.

Made of whirly gigs

and sprigs of kindling.

They twirled in the curling

of her dying pyre

dwindling

from bonfires,

struck from the

flint -glint in her eyes.

My lies didn't surprise her.

But it was just too
tough

to shoulder

this weight,

of a

water brigade

that I never made

the effort to start.

Like most of my

best laid plans.

I was too afraid

to douse her

smoldering.

Her ashes,

fell

from a lopsided smile.
she

would have

gone

miles to really mean.

She keened

cries

I studiously ignored

while she grew bored

of trying.

I saw the

flames

in the crackling of her

cracking voice and the drone of
her
perfectly rational tone.

She thought

she was

Atoning for
those sins

she's been

so foolish

to commit

in the name

of rising above

love.

Our many friends

and I

our loving complicity,

our kind duplicity

and
all the other lies

we told ourselves

at her wake.

Were just the fireflies

of

her blown fuses.

Now

She's Used up
the allotted wattage.

And called it“wasted”

at all those supper tables

she laid for us

laden with feasts fit for kings.

She knew way before the end

her pearls

were cast before

us

smug-faced razor tongued

loved-ones

more deadly than the kindest vipers.

She saw us,
Wiping our loving feet

on the meat of her

chrome-plated heart.

I can't say who stared her fire.

But I damned sure wasn't

any help.

She'd been casting off sparks

for so long I sold out

for a song

to loan sharks and drifters

grifting for a dime.

I know I'm guilty,

and filthy with regret.

I'd sing my part

If I could find a tune

over the rhyme of her

neat little death.

Beating to rhythm of a blaze

she's played so long

I've forgotten

the tune of the

song

and the lover's

melody

she used to sing

just to me.

Back when we were meant to be

more than this miser's parody.

Of lost causes and cast off dreams.

But damn it to hell

I remember her smell.

Before the shell-shock
of our passing

shook her foundations.

And Me?

I let it be.

Our friendly fire

took the suit of skin she used to dance in.

Traded it for a bested jester's suit

of ill-fitting Armour.

And I am a coward

I Clamored our platitudes,

faked our good attitudes,
but
We're all foiled

again my friend.

And in the end,

she still burned .

So we, her good good friends,

her long lovers,

found a nice place

up on the hill,

and laid out the blankets
so we could watch her go
up in smoke.

It was a good show.

We all should
lie in our guilty guile
and know.

We waited too late

and never thought

of
calling the fire-trucks

It's a coward's justice
that we were

stuck watching her amazing
blaze from street- side.

So give a wide sweep
and keep your liar's mouth shut

as the trash-collectors

take away the fairy-fay snow

of her ashes.

They came

raining

down so pretty

and so

sad-clown sweet.

If anybody asks,

you better at

least be man enough to

say,

We've let her burn away,

and
She's come

to lie once again

at our feet.