Two Turquoise Rings
Category: Writing and Poetry

I said good night to my hired wolves, climbed up St. Thomas' Church and Blew the antennas of it's proud helpless spires. Above all, rusty hinges ground their teeth, shingles whistled, gargoyles wept and electricity hummed through the wires.

Morning found me in a country villa, with shattered thumbs and a straw blanket.
Someone stole me in my slumber.
This house, something like a rusty file cabinet, cigar smoke and airplane hangars.
I don't belong here but I am.
The son of the morning was whispering in latin through the crack of the door. Slow like velvet, splintering his words from forked tongue, grinding gravestone lime between his knuckles and asking me about my father and my fever.

I sweat off the morning star in a corn field and waited for the moon to cool my blood.
Eating locusts and honey in a 64 lincoln as I blew the suicide doors off it's frame chasing your screams.

I can hear you all the way from babylon you lean specter.
I can see you from the salt flats you tired dove.
I chased you all the way through Del Rio.
I danced with your ghost before sunrise in a junkyard in Mexico.
Your eyes still shot full of smoke and infinity, you're hands like a dying millionaire.

Mariachi's stomped upon rusted tin roofs, cayotes napped in pot bellied stove.
Scripture, rose milk, cigarettes, a porcelain basin, a broken mirror, a transistor radio and two turquoise rings.
I lost you In Tahoe to the Morning Star, but I find you every night beneath the North Star.



Justin Dean Thomas ©

Currently listening : Paris and London: 1937-1948, Vol. 2 By Django Reinhardt Release date: 08 May, 2001

1:28 AM - 89 Comments - 44 Kudos - Add Comment

One If by land
Category: Writing and Poetry

One if by Land And two if by sea, no one received them, no one  believed.
One had gifts of myrrh and fine linen, one had parchments of wisdom, and the vessels of that they're kept in.

The one armed merchant has put his wares inside, the towers are crumbling and no one abides.
The spiders know better, never prouder than their work. And a hawk knows best when to dash from his perch.

I am have not a latter above truth, nor am I better than lies, I am all but a dreamer, a fox in disguise.
Like honey was the parchments, swift was their knowledge. Like vinegar in my stomach, stinging was it's truth.

Out to the Harbor all poisoned, all fever, I fell on the docks and heard the ships moan.
That's where I'm golden that's where I'm silent, pressed on my back sick and on fire.
In a hospital in Harlem I pictured you there, kneeled by my bed with your hands in my hair.
That's where I'm young, that's where I'm honest. Many have come, but you've been here the longest.

Black hearted ballads sung from the splintered light poles,  the cold wind screams through my skin and my bones.
The organ grinder cries under false shadows cast, and the clang of the bells awakens the bats.
That's where I'm sharp, That's where I'm alive. that's where the drone knows when to leave the hive

I saw you in a storm on the masthead of a ship, I saw you in a dream in a shivering fit.
The fullness of moon makes it truest of blue.
Somewhere between Lucifer the Snake and Christ the Tiger, There,  I found you.

Justin Dean Thomas      (C)

2:32 PM - 89 Comments - 34 Kudos - Add Comment

Ville
Category: Writing and Poetry

Slipped past all, undetected.   lean back Into cold cement, heels click back, toes out.  I stop just to watch the frozen city burn with electricity. 
Rome never tasted such soft power before her funeral.
Here where the radio wave battered automotons wander the street,
racing against the frequencies, pushing shopping carts filled with bags of  filth and rage ,
the race long done.
Still they climb like sisyphus, still they push.

But you, you  sit in your parlor chair, twirling a dead rose around your sparkling fingers, singing in french to me out your window.
I broke with a whisper what none had done with a hammer.
This is why you sing to me atop Constantine's Tower.
This is how I lean neath the arch.
"Roses are cheaper after valentines day she says".
This is how I leave like a thief in the night.

Now passing under 5 seals broken, now walking upon one wounded heel in majestic nocturne.
My grandest Babylon, My darling breathing city.
How much poison do you spit within my veins.
Still I love you.
Will you be my only witness to my limp?
To what less infirmity did Achilles have?
yet he fell by nothing short of of an arrow.

Ah, the only ones who are still mad, I know where you are, you're in Washington Square Park, digging teeth into your arms and making capilaries burst, talking of maidens not so fair,  flaming ruins,  splintered park benches, and dry winter whiskey lips.      
I'll watch the pigeons dance upon the spine of the paved beast as I listen to their hobo madness.
It's more truth than I've heard all year.

I found no substitute for my errant eyes, you tired old giant.
You shake the very blood in my heart, you carve my dreams from absolute and shoot my bones with fire.
Show me fate, and I'll show you faith.
you who never sleeps, I'll join you.
I'll trace every abandoned subway tunnel beneath your belly.
You, who gave me blisters on hands, black lungs, hard eyes, hard women, torn flesh, broken noses, 
You of who have given me all which is heavy.
Have also given me harbor.
My Ship,  Has Finally come in.

Justin Dean Thomas

1:26 AM - 89 Comments - 57 Kudos - Add Comment

One Like A Child
Category: Writing and Poetry

At the table four will meet, come lay your swords down by your feet.
All of them talking, all of them listening but I was just quiet with blade that was dripping.
And all of them drunken and all of them smitten, with all their own faces and all of their own reasoning.
But one like a child contested their laughter, and I ran out the door and thought of her after.

I was made in his likeness but took a liking to sin, beat fast sailor heart and come drink the wind. It's passing and fleeting so do it with haste, for all of it's drinkers are soon laid to waste.
And all of them still and none of them listening, and I with my sword and blood that still glistens.

I was brought to your celebration you draped in black. You danced with yourself as I covered your mouth. I stole you away in the darkness of night, and told you seven secrets and took off your blind.
But your blind you put back and said "let it be dark" I want not to see,
but I love you in kind.

Have some contrition, for once I was like you, now I wander restlessly with this sword so new.
For I have slain the former, and brought him to you. But you in your neivity you wanted the dead, so I gave you his body and left it on your bed.
And all of them happy and kissing and prying, loosed of their hinges barren and dying.

And one like a child looked at the sun and gave me his fire, and healed all my wounds.
He said "all is permissable but not all is benificial" You may bleed in my doorway but write your epistle.
And I with my sword and I with my pen, wrote you this letter
like a child in red.

Justin Dean Thomas

10:33 PM - 89 Comments - 22 Kudos - Add Comment

My Aim
Category: Writing and Poetry

cigarettes, are smoldering neath the pale of the sill, bring moonlight, bring cotton on gypsy midnight beds.
Your aim was steady, my aim was true, your mark was absolute, I say william tell.
No, beast ripped with such precision, please tell me that it's you, whose eyes hold no limit who's strenth is by flesh and truth.
But Flesh is emnity against the spirit, and spirit, I drink like wine, flesh is but my captor, and out of every prison I climb.
So let us go, you and I, neath the drunken brooklyn moon, sabbath is tomorrow, and I must be going soon.
To awake in Feverish madness, and boldness of the heart, unquenchable arrows lie within my chest, And beat with firey fortitude on top of copper crest.
To awake in your absence means nothing when you're sure, I see the doves at your feet, I see us at the door.


I'll take from you your speed you take from me my strenth, I'll leave you at your door, you'll leave me with my silence.
Tomorrow will be new
Your Aim Is so steady, My Aim is still True.

Justin Dean Thomas

2:11 AM - 89 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

What lies within the tongue
Category: Writing and Poetry

What stars can't tell the day, they scream to the night,  and Pierce The window brazenly which bleeds from it it's light.  What time tells no bones,  it whispers slightest death and and rides upon the smoke which dances on a breath.

What the bottle tells the drunkard, as it sings him to his sleep, and echos from the inside as it's ghost takes from him heat.  What wicked kings tell no one, as their villages burn till the dawn, and angels clasp their ears, as the demons sing their songs.

What infidels tell their lovers, On dying december days, Brings us to the river where her body forever lays.  What the singapore sailors last words were, as they lay with knives in back,  only  sea and ship know as they hug the crimson deck

What David told His son, he told not to his wife.  What soloman gave sheba, he gave not to his son, And it burned from the temple and lies within its crumbs.

Justin Dean Thomas

6:23 AM - 89 Comments - 29 Kudos - Add Comment

Here Come The Warm nights
Category: Writing and Poetry

Here Come the warm nights which sing ephemeral songs to our slumbering hearts,  grazing on grains of glass and wading salt.  Intrepid steps and absinthe dreams paint oil on water, it's face like yours

Here come the warm knife and the cistern eyes that keep the bravest ever so dumb. Haste becomes us and leaves us to our devices, but you take my quickness and leave me at the gate. Take from me my warmth but touch not my  fire. Take from me a night but waste not my time.

Here come The summer and those Cold women, with names on their forehead and maps on their hand.  And their decks of cards spill to the floor,  Our eyes will never touch or word not to be wasted, their dreams lie in a box, mine lie in my note book.

Here come the Alpha and omega and my prayers with the ghost,  While she dreams with the fish I ask not for myself.  Drink from the cup that gnostics and mystics spit out, I ask you in the grass I ask you atop your horse.  Come down and we'll walk if you can ignore the fire on our backs. Ask me not tonight And I'll tell you Tommorow.

Here come The warm Nights.

Justin Dean Thomas

4:08 PM - 89 Comments - 22 Kudos - Add Comment