Last Ride

2:30 on Sunday morning, next to Sassy's gentleman's club, a drunk stripper ran out into the middle of A1A right in front of my cab. I hit the brakes so hard I spilled coffee all over the passenger floor. Lucky it was late enough, the bar crowd was home or at the Waffle House. Thirty minutes earlier some drunk woulda ate my rear end.

In the club parking lot, a couple cabbies from another company and Greg the head bouncer stopped yappin long enough to rubberneck. They didn't pay any attention to the chick in the middle of the street, just stared at my taxi grinnin like a buncha idiots, shaking their heads and chuckling.

Eduardo's Soliloquy

I greet the morning sun with a warning and a shout,

Stretching full to   
And stretch full to let her bask in my glory.

It's my turn;
Today I shine.

I've seen the others,
And tasted them.
Too weak to make the cut,
They'll make the chopping-block instead.

Their watery blood whets my appetite
but lacks substance to sate it.

When the man comes to pick his winner,
"Eduardo"
Will be the name on his lips.
And I will win for him,
And for myself.

Galaxies Colliding (a metaphorical love poem)

Galaxies Colliding

When galaxies collide,
It takes a long time.

Sometimes one gets trapped in the other's enormity,
And can never pull away again.

Sometimes neither one survives.

Sometimes gravity knocks planets around;
Down black rabbit holes like cosmic billiards,
Splashing through nebulae,
And smearing dark matter
On the walls of a chuckling God's clean living room.

Sometimes suns swap systems,
Asteroids tear through atmospheres
And vaporize crusts into colossal acne pocks
For future life to live within and puzzle over.

But most times,
When galaxies collide
Nothing inside of either one
Ever gets close enough to touch.

Image courtesy of Tom Brown of Baltimore