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Bryan Rindfleisch

of

La Crosse, WI, US

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Just Words

by

Bryan Rindfleisch

The lipstick of an affair
smears your face
as you spout words that would make
even Pinocchio’s nose blush.

Game Over
in a Try Again world,
I wish you away
with three clicks of my heels
only to find you back at my door,
pleading innocence to your case,
but baby, I’m Tom Cruise
and I can handle the truth.

You’ve regressed to stage one
where sparks can’t fly
from the fireworks of a fantasy
where the climax comes from him,
in you, and not me.

With tears enough to fill the Dead Sea
you crawl back and beg
for the water of a romance
as you’re stranded in the
desert of meaningless sex
and un-Shakespearean love, but
with 95 Theses of why it’s my fault.

You’ve become as shallow
as a one-foot deep pool,
where the piranhas of my heart
tear at your feet of deceit
as I give you the
Deceleration of my Independence
from your tyrannical throne

Screamer

by

Bryan Rindfleisch

You stole the word
'sacred' in a crimson splash.
The lunge of your brush,
the slow drip of your words
draws a portrait of warped reality,
as you seized eyes
like you were the star
of a soap opera
in a world all your own.
The still form of your model
is curled upon the floor
like a passed out drunk
that couldn't climb the stairs.
Regret took shotgun to obsession
in the car you call your heart
as you turn the wheel into
the oncoming lane.
You sought to paint
the perfect picture,
instead you created
a masterpiece of misery.

World of Red

by

Bryan Rindfleisch

green the color of day
in a world first red
with meadows of ignorance
that colors the rivers
a deep white of shame.
A million thoughts of pain
captures the death throes
of a broken boy
who can’t find his mom
in the sea of strangers
of a Super Wal-mart
that invaded his homestead.
Red, the whisper of his veins,
erupts with the passion
of running blood
that strains the shirt
of the knife in his back
that speaks of civilized ways.
Little do we know,
so little do we care,
how little we really are
in this world so big
where white is merely guest
in the home of red

Charon

by

Bryan Rindfleisch

On wounded knees you pray
for what you know won’t come true, as
your eyes bleed tears
like a stigmatic statue.
Fear falls off you
like a nightmare where you
watch yourself hit the ground
a thousand feet below
but awake to the sound
of an empty church.
Your hands smell of disuse
tied behind your back
like a hog tied boar
spitted over a roasting fire
for as soon as the camera rolls
you scream in defiance
with a banshee’s wail
over the silence of a loaded gun.
Your body lays crumbled
in a lover’s climatic embrace,
desecrated without a toll
to pay the ferryman’s cross.

Reflection

by

Bryan Rindfleisch

swimming without legs
in a sea of broken glass,
leaving a trail of empty beds,
as I pass door to door
like a Mormon boy on mission.
I remember the mirror
of my reflection, but
the wrinkles in my are
like a thousand year old ruin,
disintegrating at touch
as it litters the ground
like garbage in Philadelphia streets.
I’m stranded in the glass lake
of my dissected ice rink
like an alcoholic in his drink,
for all I need is the taste of used lips
and the green fairy’s touch
to keep me from drowning,
and when I re-emerge
with the shards of empty promises
embedded deep within,
I’ll high tail it out of here,
because it’s like asking
a three year old to put an
eight hundred piece puzzle back together.
For bathed in the indifference
that comes with the love beaten path,
I play out the broken window fate

Thursday Night

by

Bryan Rindfleisch

I’m as used as a Hollywood cliche
that spends every waking moment
bathing in love at first sight.
Driven beyond the white flag
I’m addicted to your lips
that spell disaster at every turn
while in my head
wages a civil war of
virtuous nationalists that
spout poetry like it were gospel
and belligerent militarists
thinking only with the hard hat.
The curves of your voice
are like a siren’s call
upon the sunken ship of my heart,
tempting me with promises
that would make even grown men quake
as I drown in your eyes and
climb through the lust
that slithers off your body
like you were Medusa herself.
Your crossed legs taste of
sweet vanilla in the summer nights
that can satisfy the hunger
of a third rate world, but
even the white of an angle
snakes away from your touch
as the red of your passion
arouses the fires deep within
that overwhelms a helpless child
on a battlefield for innocence
where the victor claims the
spoils of a Thursday night

Happy Birthday

by

Bryan Rindfleisch

You let us through your gates
without a fight
like 60-year old French hospitality
for a German neighbor,
and i can speak for us all
when i write sweet words of
sincerety that drip with the poison
of a writer's taint.
You dance across the ocean
of our ice, breaking through
the outer shell into the stables
of our entrenched hearts,
battling beside us like
we were at moment's end
on the hills of Shiroyama,
wearking the badge
of a lost, forgotten honor.
The lipstick of your smile
disarmed our ragged band
like the white of surrender,
curse your fiendish laugh
you vixen of charming fruition
into the depths of our Hell
where cows ravage the land
and beer flows free from the
fountains of our veins.
How lucky the dice
has been rolled in our favor
for the gift of your romance
that warms even the cold
of our wintered spirits
because you're not as useless
as the asshole on our left elbow,
but as dear as we hold
one another in this labored circle
through our trials
and never-ending tribulations.

1937-38

by

Bryan Rindfleisch

The army poured through the gates
like the erupting anthill
leaving a path of violation
as if Sherman had marched
back through Atlanta once again.
Women laid sleeping in the streets,
raped of their lives,
while old men colored the rivers red
and infants sat upon bayonets,
a totem pole of a massacre,
spitted to be cooked
slowly over the fire.
Every grave footstep
a tiny hole
the size of a '93 Turcel
six feet under where
crows are well fed
with a three months supply
of coverup and denial
to be forgotten as simple
as a slip of the tongue

Brotherly Advice

by

Bryan Rindfleisch

The wallowing of my heart
claims you as my own
when spiders find their way
into your hair and a foot
steps on your house.
So much to learn,
so much to live,
so little time,
seems you've already started as
ten the number of yesterday,
twenty the fact today
in your vicious cycle of
drunk love and
never ending passions
I could stapel to the wall
with not one hand, but two.
Don't grow up too fast
where time speeds by
like a newly licensed
sixteen year old,
instead moment by moment
before it's too late
like a beer gutted cousin
that hugs the couch
with remote in one hand
and a Milwaukee's Best in the other.
And never forget the shit
falls down and never up
in the afternoon delight of
memories come and gone
that spells out hearts to the
paper they call your life
with a signature of ink
that can't be erased
even when you wish
me to drop dead.
Mourn your loss of innocence
like a porn stars virginity
because the world gets bigger
until you're over the hill
with forty kids because
you could never say no
to the bald-headed nightmare
that passed your way.
So cherish each second
like it were Johnny Depp's lips,
because we hold you as close
as a babe to its mother's tit,
suckling the milk of tomorrow
to grow with each passing year
until it comes time
when eternal sunshine
rules your days
and angels claim
this world's goodbyes.

My Own

by

Bryan Rindfleisch

Lost in a place
unlike my own,
words pass me by
on the street,
eyes wander
in exotic taste
of the lights,
of the billboard,
that whispers
promises of love
in a three day world
where angels wear
black dresses
and demons perch
on my bed,
smiling my dreams away
in the heat
of a winter's night.
Armed with
a child's innocence
I set off
into the sunset
of a darkened sun
in a quest
to quench a thirst
never, ever
to be satisfied
in this world
I call my own

Heretic

by

Bryan Rindfleisch

I'm condemned
to burn at the stake,
for a heresy
that you cannot see.

Instead you play your games
and leave me in these flames
for you're of a single mind
in a world where I don't exist
because you wear sex on your lips,
advertised in your hips,
like it's a gift you can give.

You have the eyes of treason
that spell out who you've done
as guitless and remorseless
as the soldier's gun.

For every night that you're gone
is another piece of wood
fed to my fire
until all that's left
are the ashes
that share your bed

Chapter 22, Page 734

by

Bryan Rindfleisch

flames caress your body
taking the shape
of a lover's touch,
watch you burn
as if it were sport,
calm and collected,
the way you sit
reminds me of a
kindergartner at story time as
flesh crawls off your skin
like spiders along a wall,
the smell of self-immolation
as heavy as a triple thick milkshake,
a voice that finds no words
in a New York intersection,
can't help but wonder
what you were trying to say as
the red, yellow, and orange
rainbow says your goodbyes

Rondeau of Red

by

Bryan Rindfleisch

The red of my canvas dies,
bleeding color as it dries,
one last time in bed we lay
as my red soon turns to gray
with the weight of all your lies

Recall how i stroked your thighs,
forcing out your sighs and cries,
but now i'm someone you play,
as the red of my canvas dies

You once claimed me as your prize
but that no longer applies,
you've gone and thrown it away
now there's a price you must pay,
for my watercolor of goodbyes,
as the red of my canvas dies

Louis XVI

by

Bryan Rindfleisch

Violent overthrow of my stomach
erupts in a crimson madness
projected by the instigator who lies
of wheres, whens, hows, and whys.
Loose with gold and favor
sets a stage of rebellion
for thy throne.
Meaningless chivalry on display
bought for a crown upon each day,
torment a torrent of portents
of a faceless mass yet to rise
that's held in disguise
in the face of indulgence and disgrace.
Hold onto thy head
before it is lost,
pray with your every breath
as if it were your last.
Convey a message to the crows
who will pluck out your eyes
and feast on your cries
before the rest of you dies.
Stand a villain for tomorrow
with your name a curse
on children's lips
never to be forgotten
that you were the worst.

Untitled

by

Bryan Rindfleisch

Lost in the grace
of guiltless nights
you find my praying
for one more day
to the silence
of an empty church.

Walking down the aisle
of broken pews,
dreams of you
echo in the walls
while whispers of tomorrow
shadow my every step
taken toward your arms
in this silence palace
that speaks of ever-lingering
forgiveness
found in your eyes.

Stained glass portrait
of ethreal majesty
paints your face
red with my desire
to lay with your virgin lips
upon the altar of my heart
that's been stolen away
by a smile
before our world
of angel's goodbyes
sets for another day.

N-ding

by

Bryan Rindfleisch

two words crawl
across the blank screen
like an infant
before it can walk.
Game Over,
Try Again?
No such thing as
a save point;
just A, B, and direction
in this world
where smiles are broken
at a half second fall.
Sick of a Princess'
plea for help
in her pink ballerina dress
and red lips,
dancing to the tune of
her own affairs
in the clutches
of a monster
of my own heart,
I sit on the couch
with a cheap Milwaukee's Best
by my side
playing a different game
where I can picture her face
on every duck
that crosses my path
as I blow each one
out of the sky.

To Whom it may Concern

by

Bryan Rindfleisch

With a last breath
I bless the forehead
of a senseless mob
in a parish of the blind
that refuse the bread and wine
from a different hand.

Speaking the tongues of Genesis
they swim without legs
in a sea of broken voices,
brokering for the indulgences
of a mindless legislation
that burns itself at the stake.

For in the shadow of
the mountain of fear
I pray for the dawn
of a second coming
where conservative souls quake
with pointing fingers only
to be judged at the gates
by a Historian's hand.

Headlines (Dec. 3, 2005)

by

Bryan Rindfleisch

The front page announces
your minute of fame
before cutting into
"7 Marines Killed in Baghdad".
Those staring eyes
take me back
to my first accident, the
way I watched the car
break into me.
Your pursed lips
resemble the humming of the
deaf old man
that rides the
New York subway.
Can't tear my gaze away
from your coiled form,
poised to strike,
only you won't unfurl to release.
The way you lay,
it speaks cold words,
not meant for these eyes.
Red smears your face
like the lipstick
of an affair,
but a darker shade.
What was dream
in that last moment?
Were you kneeling
as we seen on TV
or face to face
like the movies?
I'd want to believe
you went down fighting
like Tom Hanks at the end
of Saving Private Ryan, but
all I can see is
a frozen portrait,
a casualty of patriotism
not of your own, but
of those that think
for your own 'good'.
Not just another face to me, but
still one more body chalked up
to the price of 'freedom'.

Serves You Right

by

Bryan Rindfleisch

Lies trace your lips
like a lover's touch
that swallows every word
you feed as if it were water
after a five mile race.
Your fingernails carve love
into an empty smile that
you leech off everyday
until it's broken like a
car on the side of the road.

Poison runs through your veins,
waiting for your next meal
as you watch him bleed
away his heart
in order to catch you,
only to fall victim
to your bite
that infects him with lust
as your venom
paralyzes his world
in your passive takeover.

Invading his every space
you raise your flag
as he submits to one knee
and cries your name
only to find a
vixen of un-virgin fruition
that spoils rotten at first touch.

In the end,
just a child,
without a mother's arms,
suffering bed after bed
to the haunting tune
of an organ's affair.

Hi, Welcome to ______

by

Bryan Rindfleisch

I wanted to be the knight
in shining armor,
a dream cut down by
fast food burgers and
under cooked french fries

service with a smile,
customre saisfaction
over all else,
mustard before ketchup
and pickle after onion,
cheese on the right
then pass to the left

Lose myself in the
golden arch of oppression
watching customers line up
for an early heart attack.
Super size me,
double quarter pounder,
with mayo,
and a diet coke

Hear my voice
through the lies of the
red-haired clown
who recites
"Thanks for coming to
________,
please come back soon"

But they don't listen
as they inhale poisons
more deadly than dioxin.
I wanted to be the knight
in shining armor,
settle for the black hood
instead

Falling

by

Bryan Rindfleisch

Walked the lonely road
of a Hollywood cliche
in this make believe world
of love at first sight
and heartless repentence
on a boardwalk night
that speaks of intentions
all too blurred by
a reality twisted
beyond the measure
of even a sonata's breath.

Traveled the solitary path
in a writer's first prose,
infesed with predictability
that finds itself crumpled
on the floor at day's end.

Ran door to door
to escape ectstacy eyes
and drunken arms
in a land where antiquities
better left forgotten
stalk a man's shadow
as if glued to the back
of his soul.

Waited a second lifetime
just to breathe again
and rest upon the trunk
of a first sunrise
on the streets of 9th
for a 5 o'clock talk
of criss-crossing coincidences
that start to spell out
the freefall of this heart.

Halo

by

Bryan Rindfleisch

Hallowed be her name
that rolls off the tongue
like a leopard’s spotted grace,
immune to the traitorous charges of
heartless abandon and
unnatural warmth that
spills over the edges like
a Chinese buffet.
Driving down the one way street
of her heart
do I brake for the reflection
of a smile
that changes the traffic lights
from red to green.

Rational, reserved, and controlled
is her name, but
blissful ignorance is her game.
Swift as an arrow,
quick as a fox
she pounces on my thoughts
to the tune of a lullaby
sung in the silence
of an empty church.
Sacred is her name
that speaks of the wishfulness
of a dying affair
set to the list of
a hundred Italian nights that
mask tomorrow’s face.

Matching wits against my reckless abandon,
a battle of epic proportions
between starry-eyed dreamers
that war for the sake of logic.
And when the smoke clears
there will always remain
imprints of drowning in each other’s eyes,
lost to the sea of yesterdays.