Poetry: Selections from Damian Rucci

You Never Realize You're Dancing Alone Until the Music Stops 

and you’ve been living in some kind of  mirage

playing dominoes with the devil 

you owe the sonofabitch about three fifty

but you both know neither of you are 

good at paying debts, the machinery of night

is the only music you need, the demons are on

now dropping from your shoulder to circle 

the room taking bets and hollering 

you don’t even think to leave the table 

all your angels must be on vacation or worse

have left your side to stay up all night 

with better company, who’re you to judge?

You’re on, you’re here now, the fire in your belly 

is out but you have lightning in your veins

sinister breeze on your scalp and a cock that could 

cut diamonds, but you’re girl is tired of your shit

too, asleep in the next room, your mama 

always told you no good man is awake at 3 am,

so what does that make you? Flipping tiles 

chain smoking cigarettes and haunting the house

even ghosts have an ambition to scare, you’re

a shell and the devil will leave you too as the sunbeams

wake the goodhearted from their sleeps

you’ll be walking to that same gas station

to get the same pack of smokes watching the same mothers

send the same kids to school and you will walk back

alone to sleep while the world is awake again

Anyway What I Meant To Say Was Fuck You

and fuck every crooked star 

that guided me further away when I was just looking for home 

and fuck every cobbled stone I stumbled over drunk

and fuck every dial tone that rang haunted 

when I tried to call out for help 

and fuck every poem that isn’t about me 

and fuck every girl who thought my heart was like an instrument 

my love is a brushfire if left unattended it can burn your fucking house down 

fuck the lies I webbed to preserve your mornings 

fuck the parking lot; the highway, the junkies 

playing percussion with their galloping hearts 

and fuck every whisper that sang of my sins

I sold the blue bird in my chest so we could eat 

the damned and broken already toast to my triumphs 

fuck the drugs that kept me from heaven

and fuck the drugs that got me there 

and fuck every sinister orgasm at three am 

fuck all those people who said we been living wrong

but they don't know how angelic and skeletal

we looked in your rear view mirror 

fuck every night I stood on the shoulders of giants

and fuck every morning id find myself again in the earth 

and fuck every hope I had to be among you 

fuck every  person who slept warm while I shivered 

the whole night through 

the only thing that hasn't abandoned me are my habits 

and fuck them too, I want to be pure as snow 

I want to walk with God through the ghettos 

and sink my teeth into the flesh of providence 

fuck every sunbeam that met my cursed flesh

fuck every songbird at six am that reminded me

I wasted another night chasing ruin 

fuck every dead artist I praised as a martyr 

fuck turning 30 I'm too old to die young 

Another Skeleton To Step Over

Diogenes could never tell 

the difference between the bones

of the slaves or of the kings

and what makes me any different?

The stories I carry in the shadows

of my bleeding heart aren’t novel

the cross I carry on my back is second-hand

I picked it up to see Missouri sunsets and rot

I walk the asphalt Via Dolorosa looking 

to feed my habits, my crown of thorns

is a crown of jackals, I’m never at peace

only when the moon hangs high 

and my memories play out in the shadows

vignettes of a past I’m not really sure of  

times when the breeze blew gentle 

on my back and laughter cured it all 

but I’m still walking, the houses I pass

are monuments of joy I will never reach

the people in the windows sit down for dinner

they toast to another evening, I look away 

I sing poesy and kick cans towards my undoing

the prodigal son returned and nobody cared

I sent myself to exile and came back a stray 

just another skeleton to step over 

another skeleton waiting to turn to dust 

Damian Rucci is a touring poet from New Jersey and the author of nine books of poetry. He is the founder of the NJ Poetry Renaissance and focus of the PBS documentary Voices in The Garden. A twice resident of the Osage Arts Community in Missouri, Damian has spent the last ten years bouncing around the country performing in universities, bookstores, dive bars, basements, and tattoo parlors. He is the host of ten poetry series including Puff Puff Poems and Poems & Punchlines.