Jeff Bussey

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                                       switch

with a little something for the soul
to rattle amidst the pain-cage,
i tickle my fingers down my ribs
like a prisoner’s cup clanging against the bars
to echo in the stillness bubbling
like poison from the wound.
i thumb through passages that i wish were truly passages
where a foot could leave its imprint in the soil
and accept the myopia of abortive eyes
to follow the heart like the faltering compass
that never learned to drift south,
and the fevered brain that somehow believes
that it can find panacea on a map.
i tease the tracks like footprints in my flesh
to turn the scars a shade of purity too pale for my ruddy soul,
and watch them fade again
like aphotic light bulbs poised above my head
to remind me
that someone else…
controls the switch.

once below a time

                       "what’s memory but the ash? that chokes our fires that
                         have begun to sink.” ~ William Butler Yeats
 
the memories of my childhood
 
   are like the little stains in your carpet
    where your new dog marked his territory -
 
after you scolded him and shoved him out the door,
you bleached and scrubbed and disinfected
                                         until your hands were raw,
 
  and the dog eventually learned to scratch at the door,
but there were always those spots that perhaps
                                  only you knew about,
 
where the pattern was a little ragged,
and the fibers were a little stiff,
 
     and even though you knew it wasn’t really there
you could never quite escape the smell.

Jeff Bussey's profile

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pretend i am not the devil

just pretend
           i’m not the devil here,
and i’ll pretend
           your love’s sincere.
 
i’ll promise not
           to play with fire,
if you’ll purge the cold
           from your desire.
 
i’ll put away
           my horns tonight,
if you’ll tuck your wings
           beneath you tight.
 
i know i’m not
           in the dreams you hide,
i’m just the man
           who’s by your side.
 
so forgive me please,
           if it’s in your heart,
and i’ll do my best
           to play the part.
 
just close your eyes
           as my flesh draws near,
and pretend
           i’m not the devil here.

                                                    the twelfth of can't remember

it’s the twelfth of can’t-remember
as i find myself marveling at the soft cadence of your affection
fluttering against my cheek in faint echoes of conjured memories,
and crafted illusions which bind me in turn,
to the hollow chambers of misfiring synapses
and daisy-chained coaxials tethering my lips
 to this anvil-shaped heart.
the steam rises in wispy forms
from places where all is void
and memories are married with dreams
becoming those smiling faces
left in the picture frame i brought home from the store,
smudged by the cellophane,
and now conceived whole by the very absence
of a loving progeny to call my own -
pieces of me left to bloom amidst the shadows
exalting themselves - sub rosa, within the absence of light.
it is a moment to taste the waters
and wade out until my bristly chin
is beguiled by the ripples born
of ulacia's stone finally reaching the bottom,
and cry out little pieces of nothingness
to bounce off of the shoreline,
if only to sate the grumbling deception
that my tears could float here without end or amen,
isolated within these painful shapes of you
to clot the cursive wounds
all the while imploring of elysium
 that one day i shall awaken to a strange smell
and realize . . . that i am burning.

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