Three Poems by Leeroy Berlin

the devil you know

there's a devil in the corner

in a dark, well-tailored suit

watching me. wears a fedora and

smokes a Dominican Upmann

eyes and ember glowing

he's not so fond of Zevon as I am

he follows me around

and likes to leap from the

dark places of the world,

grip me by the throat, and

make me listen.

there's a devil in the corner

he keeps telling stories

to no one in particular.

it’s just me, him, and the empty room

punctuated by a clacking keyboard

and a soft electric glow

that makes the folding chairs

and empty floor seem lonelier.

there’s a devil in the corner

he followed me last night and

snuck into the back seat of my car and waited

until I was whipping around the bend

he reached forward fingers tight

around my neck and screamed

because even the devil wants

to see an end to all of this.

there's a devil in the corner

and for now we drink together

and each beer wraps him in

a little more darkness

we're used to each other

and to the smoldering hate

familiarity breeds attachment

so I lift my beer and smile

Not tonight old friend, not tonight.

dead trees and ink

I'm sitting on the floor

surrounded by loosed sheets

printed with words I wrote

once

and remember

the tears

sweat

piss

jizz

and blood.

Writing one once

I tossed my laptop out a second-story window

furious that syllables refused to bend with me.

Another fell out, like some small thing lost in a suitcase,

from a week-long vicodin binge

self-prescribed for acute cardiac fracture.

I pick one up that's laying next to me and remember

how it stumbled from my fingertips

fifty-three hours after the last time I'd slept.

There in the corner I see the bastard

child of a bottle and a half of gin

and the realization that she wasn't coming back.

I poured into all of them

everything I knew de los cojones

but now I read them and

I don't feel what I used to feel

I see dead trees and ink.

It's like meeting a woman

you used to fuck

and when you told her you loved her

she left

meeting her years later and

you don't feel what you used to feel

you see this stranger who reminds you

that you can't get those feelings back.

miles of asphalt and heart-break

as I roll past Skirball

crane my neck to look

she lives down that road

half a mile, then a right

the house is just out of view from the 405

and it's not the smog

that stops my breath

or the shattering glass

crunch of steel

that stops my heart

but those things don't help.