The Red Red Red Red World
I go looking for him at the darker side of midnightout in my grey slicker
and black umbrella
I wade through the black puddles
and grey garbage
littering the uneven sidewalk
I see him standing in the shadow
of a bright grey streetlight
his hat is black
his eyes dead
he takes a drag
exhales hot grey
flicks the butt in the grey gutter
It explodes in white hot sparks
What you need, he says to me
What you got, I say to him
He looks up and down the alley
Blue, green? he says to me
Orange, yellow? he says to me
No man I want the hard stuff, I say to him
Into his black coat pocket
his hand disappears and reappears
and opens like a blooming flower
Red
Bright red
blood red
candy apple red
bright blood candy apple red
my retinas shudder
Can you handle it, he says to me
I want it all, I say it to him
we do the deal
and he midnight fades
back into the black alley shadows
I look at the blaze in my ash grey palm
it glows, it pulses, it burns
I feel it on my skin
in my skin
And I use
I use it all
because I'm a user
and users use
and the world flickers
like a naked basement light bulb
like a dusty reel-to-reel warming to life
the street
the sky
the night
they all flicker
a thousand thousand shades of red
and I watch the blacks and greys and whites
of the black and grey and white world
drip and drop and fade and ooze and plop into the gutter
and down the drain with the night and oil stained rain
and I breathe in the blood night
tasting deep the candy apple sky
and for just a few seconds
I am the night and the sky and the world
the red red red red world
Poetry by Rapscallion
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Editors' choiceWritten on 2009-01-05 at 06:03
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