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Rob Plath

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doomed love songs

baudelaire you died at 46
& i feel guilty b/c i’m 51 now
why should i live longer than a beautiful dark giant?
maybe living longer isn’t so great
especially if yr a failure like myself
living in a busted dungeon alone
baudelaire there are so many cigarette burns
in this carpet
like the fossils of fallen black stars
i count them over & over but still can’t sleep
the windows are falling out of their rotted sills
i stub my insomniac toes on broken tiles
in the sleepless dark
the cat is sleeping in the window tho
the moon light a ghostly second coat
every decrepit window is magic w/ her in it
baudelaire i’d give you my five years if i could
just to see another poem of yrs
you lovely green haired dandy of doom
i feel guilty for walking about on the planet
while my idols are mere dust
baudelaire i smoked outside before
while october crickets sang for love
last week i read their amorous songs attract parasitic flies tho
that lay eggs w/ in the cricket
& then worms eat the cricket from the inside out
baudelaire i think some dark thing
laid eggs in my heart too
the more lines i get down
the more i feel something tearing out
baudelaire the ceiling is dripping
in the sleepless dark i imagine it’s blood
& i am christened by trickle drops
as i stumble to the door
w/ a bloody forehead
to smoke beneath october stars
as somewhere another cricket bursts
open w/ parasitic worms
for singing too much
for wanting love too much


Rob Plath lives in New York with his cat Daisy. He does his best to stay out of trouble. He’s been publishing his work for about 28 years. See more about him at robplath.com


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