Neal Romanek – words/pictures

XII

There is a kind and like-minded thing that lies beside you while you sleep.

XI

How many times does a woman laugh
In a day?

The survey I read
Said twenty.

How do they know

Where one laugh ends,
The next begins?

Can the animals be taught to laugh?

Can machines be?

Or what about weeping?

To hear my lady laugh recalls
This world is in every way perfect

I was so afraid -
yes, more afraid
than I have ever
ever ever ever ever
ever ever ever ever
ever ever ever ever
ever ever been
before, ever.

Or am I being melodramatic again?

IX

Van Helsing unfastened the coffin lid,
peeled the crucifix from the bone-white brow.
He pulled the garlic from the rust-flecked mouth,
careful not to touch the teeth.
He stitched back on the severed head,
and he blotted up evidence of Holy Water,
and, full of care, he heaved free the hammer-frayed stake,
like Excalibur from the nameless stone.

Rolling up his sleeves, he said:

“Now here comes the hard part.”

VIII

She looked at the floor and wall and was uncomfortable,
and I did not smile.
I did not say her name.

She told me her family secret,
and I made a joke of it,
and we laughed.

She spat and snarled
and made claws.
I shrugged and looked away.

God, how can I ever atone for my sins?