12 poems by Alexander Vincent

Red Hands

Uncross those fingers when you cross your heart
When you show your true colors you regard it as art
So don’t hide your blood red hands
or yellow bellied crimes in any circumstance

Wicked grief has left his teeth
buried deep inside my neck
When it’s time to pay for your sins
I’ll make sure you write the check

Royal Treatment
On the hunt for fresh dead horses to beat
Thoughts like these don’t come cheap
Shame on me for thinking them freely
with my tongue gripped in my teeth
Opinions form in a queue
Can't bite the hand that feeds
when it’s more than you can chew

Simplicity sells but I can’t seem
to make ends meet
playing William Tell
with the apple in my teeth
 
On the hunt for something new to bite into
Your darlings are starving
Let them have their cake and eat it too

 

A Close Eye
Burning our midnight oil reserves
to do what they do
Setting comfortable traps
for us to slip into
Keep a close eye on those
body takers living here
It’s no mystery they hold us near

Don’t have to tell you what it’s like to be
a shallow walking analogy
Tear away the facsimile
My dead ringer is ahead of me

So it’s come to this
The great villain will insist
on pulling you in

Rose tint lenses don’t do much at all
when all the lights go out

Midnight TV
We fell asleep to midnight TV
cursing this tropical heat
We had fever dreams
in some fox state of mind
Chasing rabbits through trees
and growing far behind
Your secrets safe with me
because I’ve lost all credibility
What do you mean
you watch me sleep?

Don’t go waving around
loaded thoughts in this heat
With an itchy trigger finger like yours
you’ll shoot your feet

Cold Blood
You’ve been buying suffering
you could have had for free
just to leave the tab with me
Lost a part for every time
life's incisors opened wide
to bite down from behind

Vulgar pasts with unfixed hands
sure can drag a razorblade
You turned away
to hide scars on your face

When you’re ready to kick
the placebo addiction
Here’s a reality prescription
(You take it on the chin)

Lost on Black
It's not hard to notice tension
Catch a tight face relax
after a photographs snapped
and it's plain to make out
who is the snake in the grass
 
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing
You take pages from my book
to use them as kindling
Why try to hide that you're a crook
We could both dress like wolves
with no tear holes to see through
It would be a nice contrast
to that tattered old sheep suit
 
You look like a million bucks
that all got lost on black
and countless vain attempts
to try and win it back
But I'd go so far as to say
you've got what it takes
to make mistakes and just walk away
 
Getting closer to the light
casts bigger shadows
Not one to be outdone,
we look up from the growing shade
as you approach the Sun

Our Evil Ways
Cold withdrew her toes
poised to kick our static bones
Her lips make quite a fist
Don’t expose your teeth when you get kissed
 

When you get buried away
Ahead of yourself in retrograde
Time stops by with no invite
to keep an eye on you and I
to call us out when we each say,
“We insist we have changed our evil ways”

When we get carried away
Ahead of ourselves in retrograde
We wear this on our hands just like a ring
It certainly ruins everything

Crime Season
One or two too many times
You backstabbed your only
partner in vice

You should know I won’t wait around
Our getaway car will be far from this town
When I knew you’d be too
spoiled to appreciate that view
You begged for me to stay
“Don’t change our best laid plans
before they’ve had a chance to go astray”

But I swear I’ll find a way to make crime pay

Death Dance
Thought you'd be consumed
Desire forgot to whet my appetite
I know it's sinful just to
author all the wrongs I write
 
The razors edge calls for a death dance
I'm ready to cut a rug
before it's pulled from under my stance
 
Watched events take place in an
unaccounted for reflection
Expecting things to go right
but they turned in the other direction
 
Always a roadblock to run into
Well there are plenty other avenues
Take a detour and arrive by night
as the horizon puts out the daylight
I'll see you then
just as the Sun plunges
into the ocean again

Matching Clubs
Fruits of labor get eaten again
by greedy hourglass quicksand
A symptom born from holes in each hand
Well, well, like they say
Your past will come back to haunt someday
Nowhere to hide those snake eyes you played

Well that’s what you get
What else did you expect?
Just thank your lucky stars
there’s no rope around your neck

Gun for hire, recently fired
ready to redeem his slip
Scratched off matching clubs
from a disaster lottery ticket

These hands hang shaking
heavy, holding guilt for walls I’ve built
that partitioned and expelled
what those graves swallowed whole
and spit out into hell

 

Out to Sea
You won’t believe this scene
Who’s been fighting in my dreams
Uninvited memories
creep in breaks effortlessly

How long will you wait
for a number to get called
that’s so far down the list
you’re sure to be buried with it?

That ship has sailed, lost in a sea
Picking up waves just to throw them at me
We’ve only known playing the fool
Two losers who can’t quite get half a clue

So what's the use?

Old technicolored tapes
are fixed to repeat plays
Don’t you know that home is where
the change of heart is these days?

 

 

New Vogue

Always tinted your lips as if to say

words you speak mean 

nothing without a frame

Each hand you dealt had

cards with changing faces

Only a fool would decide to play

Successive steps are counted in days

when vexing dreams don’t show in your place

Dreadful steadfast dream keepsakes

A fear of heights after falling from grace

How many times can someone fall apart

before it’s too late to make a fresh start

When pieces get lost 

new beginnings come at a higher cost

 

Grip caution in your hand 

and get ready to throw

Because letting go has come back in vogue

Since you can't eat hope

put your money where your mouth is

and try not to choke