Three Songs On Obsession is a compilation of poems written by J. Dano Lampros and shared with The Ugly Writers under the theme PIYAR for the month of February

Whistling On The Cross: Why I Only Listen To Classical Music

The First Part:
I wonder if she’s still perfect
I wonder if she’s too reserved now for hair ties and ponytails
Cut jean shorts
Raspberry lip-gloss
Wet sand in her sandals
In her bra strap
Movies in her parents’ dark finished cellar after
I wonder if she still kisses the same
With her eyes closed
With her entire spirit entering
Crackling like burning paper or going silently like photographs
The process is inert but it leaves a chalky dust on my hands afterwards
Ash Like Ashley
Nothing’s erased
Everything stays

The Second Part:
The morning light has not yet spilled in through window all these years later
Ten years like time on a cross
At some point you try to lean to whistle
I laugh at myself writing about it like that but
It should have killed this fate in my chest by now
Helped me stop breathing or made my thoughts invisible
It should have killed itself
Drown in too much alcohol or driven of a cliff by too much speed
“Nowhere to run to, baby, nowhere to hide.”
The old songs haunt me
That’s why I listen only to classical music now
No words
Perfect
Thank God for the small indifferences
A mass in B minor
I grab the paper cigar box and rattle it around to see if something’s left
Turing up the radio
Walking towards the kitchen
I need coffee now
This is how I wake up

The Sun and Moon

My therapist crosses her legs
It’s cliché but it’s sexy
She’s sick of hearing about you
She tries to change the subject
I tell her about the ceramic sun and moon I got you in Cancun
Two faces making one circle
You had it hanging above your bed with a piece of fishing line
We used to undress and try to figure each other out beneath it
Pants falling on the floor
Sneakers waiting by the old wooden bedroom door
There are things I wish I’d told you but I still don’t know what they are
You’d think I’d have that certainty at least
But this time keeps punishing out more time
You sleep now in California
Far away from these dreary Boston skies
They cover up the sun
They cover up the moon
Different arms around you
You give yourself to him
I miss the old future
I miss the duck pond at twilight making up stupid songs on my beat up guitar
Your convertible
Being young
Touching you with a sense of completion
There have been others
Girls around the window like shades
They try to keep the light outside but it’s no use
Something always spills in
In summer
In winter
The seasons are an absurdity I tell my therapist
I know where the sun and moon are
Or at least
Where they used to be

The Dog Has Been Explained

You have raccoon hands
I know this
I know this without seeing them
They steal things off counter tops
Like keys and spaghetti and newspapers for the bus on your way out the door
You don’t need winter jackets anymore
Life is always green in California
The other side of the world always, it seems always
Wherever I am
I hate you sometimes
I wish you’d steal some of this garbage
The old songs I wrote
The new ones I can’t stop writing
I wish you’d steal this feeling in my stomach when I think of certain things
Certain times
Certain lifetimes ago that I don’t want to keep repeating
I get so drunk sometimes I cough up blood in the toilet
Lovely
I know
I think of you when I’m staring at the bowl
What have I become?
The blood flushes the cheeks are pale
The mirror says it’s time for a bath
I spit at it and go rummaging in the fridge for another beer
If you’re the raccoon I’ve become some other kind of creature
The kind that types and tries to say all the unsayables
The kind with its leg in a trap and the hunter never coming
I laugh
I shake my head automatically
This shouldn’t be funny
I’m insane now and finally
The dog has been explained
Ignore it for Christ sake I tell myself
Ignore it
And it’ll go away