Two Poems
Recurring Dreams Of Socialite Weekdays
Her hands were strong and calloused from climbing
out of windows and strangers' beds;
her voice lowered from a shrill falsetto
into a gruff whisper after days without sleep.
We stayed in the apartment, counting walls and comparing answers
for seven days and, when we emerged,
our fingernails, which had become stained yellow and sharp,
dug into each other's arms at the sight of neon signs.
Some nights we slept on rooftops,
enjoying the moonlight's uncanny ability
to make our skin softly glow, momentarily erasing
the scars and blemishes that made us blush in sunlight.
Maybe it was the thinness of the air above the city,
but we spoke like servants bow
and force laughter at their master's slightest quip;
even in silence the conversation continued
with sideways glances and electric energy
singing static songs of white noise,
the noise of creation, between our withered bodies.
I ripped away calendar pages, folded them into paper planes,
and watched my days float over factories before crashing
to the asphalt below.
Bright Young Things
We spoke sullen drama
in a cheap hotel room five miles from the city.
It was:
cigarette smoke, cheap wine,
and a mahogany coffee table
with an old
clay ashtray,
overflowing.
You said:
I've never felt so cliché.
Like an image clipped from a magazine
you sat with a curious plastic smile,
then hopped up to your feet,
fingers moving along the ivory keys of
an invisible piano,
hair tied up in a tight knot,
You said:
Watch me dance,
swallowed a pill
and smashed another wine glass
on the hardwood floor.
Patrick McGinty is a young writer, currently pursuing a degree at the University of Maryland. Many of the poems he creates deal with the grittier (though not regretful) aspects of life. His literary influences include Richard Siken, Ezra Pound, Charles Bukowski, and Leonard Cohen.