“LIPSMACK” is a compact neo-gothic character sketch that blends noir romance, modern decay, and fairy-tale distortion into a sharply stylized portrait of seduction and self-destruction. The tone is cynical, alluring, and darkly playful, while the voice carries the cadence of a modern folk ballad crossed with spoken-word incantation. One of the poem’s strongest qualities is its dense concentration of imagery, creating a vivid world where glamour and degradation exist side by side. The poem excels at mythologizing ordinary contemporary details, transforming cigarettes, bottled water, mirrors, and makeup into symbols of ritual, vanity, and emotional ruin. Structurally, the rhyming couplets give the piece a quick, chant-like momentum that reinforces its fairy-tale-meets-back-alley atmosphere. Written for the “A Shattered Cup of Doom” novella, this poem appears in the “Second Shards of Broken Glass” chapbook.
“LIPSMACK”
a wish upon a fallen star
cost everything you have so far
and all you take and all you spend
gets all accounted in the end
a midnight pumpkin princess car
a bat trapped in a pickle jar
across the lane a street light glares
a flash of lightning in her hair
her candle is a newport light
and bottled-water is her wine
the altar of her sex and lies
the church of many men’s demise
mirror mirror on the visor
who’s the fool, who is the wiser
lipstick lipsmack war paint red
poof the hair, puff up the head
who’s the blonde
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