Dreams of the undead

The blond with the beautiful thighs
lay naked in my bed. A dream,
of course,
for the woman ignores me at the gym.
All of our man eyes burn holes in her flesh
and you don’t fan the flames
by batting your baby blues back.
You walk around us like a zombie.
And we stagger after her,
zombies ourselves,
desiring everything but her brains.
I try not to overdo it;
I am on the cusp of dirty old manhood
and should not stare at younger women overlong.
So it was strange to find her thighs
under my dream sheets.
We were two kids
playing at the edges of love.
Then a zombie groaned in the night
and I woke up alone.

Moonwalking

Since I learned that Michael Jackson died the song “Billie Jean” has spun on an endless loop in my head. For no reason at all, I saw Jackson famously dance to the song on Motown’s 25th anniversary TV special in 1983. I’d never seen moves like these before: the moonwalk, the toss of the hat, the one gloved hand flexing. I’m sure he was channeling James Brown and Gene Kelly but they had never worn just one glove. Besides, I was 13; what did I know?

I knew I liked listening to Jackson sing and watching him dance, but I disliked him in public. Because as a boy I had to and because some fawning girl had scratched “I love Michael” into the string bass I used in school orchestra. That pissed me off, so when the Police won the most important Grammys that year over the songs from Thriller I rejoiced with my brothers.

My friends still don’t like Michael Jackson, though for more sophisticated reasons than my childhood buddies had, and I still don’t admit a certain taste for his songs, or at least for that one song, ironically about a guy who won’t admit to fathering a child. His voice keeps crying in my head, not accepting the truth.

I know what he feels, because if Michael Jackson is dead why does he keep singing?

Dracula is a Buddhist

You could pity a vampire.
When they suck our blood they suck our lives,
and while some of it is good,
much of it is blasé,
from disappointing sex to the unemployed year
you spent living in your parents’ garage.
Who wants to relive that?
Not a vampire.
It’s too much to swallow.
So the poor guy retreats to some
Himalayan monastery,
shaves his head
and considers a bird.
But even bird blood thrums in a vampire’s ear,
and soon the monastery is soaking in red.
Buddha couldn’t conquer such hunger.
A vampire is stuck with all our crappy lives,
and I guess that serves him right
for cheating death.