Rough Cut Until I Bleed by Charles Harvey

From the Book

That noise beat on my ears. A mad saxophone player filled the room with his insanity. My eyes got all crossed trying to keep up with the digital readout running across the clock's face like a flow of red water. I couldn't stand it anymore. That's when I noticed them.

From the author:

These poems and prose are meant to be a testimony to our honesty as humans. The poems might seem personal, but what is personal is also universal. I invite you to dive in and see my truth and find your story in the poems and stories. Rough Cuts seesaws between poignancy and humor. An elephant, the duckbill platypus, a plague of cicadas, as well as lust and longing rest between these electronic sheets. You'll laugh one minute and the next go, "hmm."

6 9

The world has secrets

Behind secrets and

Puppets ruled by puppets

You think the game is sixty-nine

But you're a dog, Dawg

Chasing his rainbow tail.

Round and round you go

Until you wake too late.

The catch is twenty-two

Three strikes and you're out.

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Happy

My manhood rots

in the garden

of cabbage leaves.

Where children once grew

yellow fat drips

and splatters my thighs.

My hips are big as money bags

and heavy with gold

I am suffering.

I am happy.

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The poem Apocalypse from this book recently appeared on the blog site NEWVERSENEWS.