Among the many numbers
\nof philanthropist whores,
\nunfinished names and eternal damnation.<\/p>\n
In a bathroom stall of a rest stop
\non a long, black stretch of highway
\nglistening under a steady, slow rain.<\/p>\n
An anarchic scrawl,
\nan epitaph to a dead man made famous
\nby something he once said about God.<\/p>\n
Someone who’d taken the time,
\never so carefully, to stay
\nwithin the lines of a single white tile. <\/p>\n
Night in a Strange Bed<\/strong><\/p>\n Stranded for hours in a half-dream, Below, I watch the same old grass There must be a misunderstanding, The uncompromising measure of its rhythm Each bleeding second Postcard From a Different Country<\/strong><\/p>\n From the entrance of this roadside Invalid Hotel, Inside, a yellow-haired girl who calls herself Ophelia The rest of the condemned are cloistered the owner calling numbers at the altar, The rooms I pass are adorned with red velvet curtains, not a damn thing we can know with any certainty In a bathroom stall of a rest stop An anarchic scrawl, By Andrei Guruianu<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4545\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nholding on to solitary shadows.<\/p>\n
\nfor so long that I’ve come to know
\nthe nature of each blade.<\/p>\n
\nI plead with the clock at my bedside.<\/p>\n
\npicking at the dark, raw like a fresh wound.<\/p>\n
\nfeels like agony in this aimless sleep.
\nA splinter caught in a derelict rain.<\/p>\n
\nI stand and watch the mud make rivers at my feet.
\nThe rain slides like grease down my neck,
\ndown to the small of my back.<\/p>\n
\nis standing at the window, drinking champagne.
\nShe says to the attending trees,
\n“Each day we die, and each day we are renewed
\nas from a mother’s kiss.”<\/p>\n
\nin the shade of corridors and garrets,
\ndark attendants to their own funeral scene.
\nFor a backdrop, pay-per-view sermons on modesty,<\/p>\n
\nwearing nothing underneath his robe.
\nThe man in a threadbare suit is going all in.
\nHe’s got nothing left to lose.<\/p>\n
\nand behind each one a different version of Ophelia,
\na brand new postcard vision of America.
\nThere are no exact words for such vagaries,<\/p>\n
\nthat at some point will not change into another.
\nOphelia slides an ice cube down her neck,
\ndown to the small of her back, where it disappears.<\/p>\n![\"andreiheadshot2\"](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/andreiheadshot2.jpg\")
\nABOUT THE AUTHOR<\/strong>
\nAndrei Guruianu is a Romanian-born writer living in New York. He is the author of a poetry collection, Days When I Saw the Horizon Bleed<\/em> (FootHills Publishing, 2006) and a chapbook, It Was Like That Once<\/em> (Pudding House, 2008). He is pursuing a Ph.D. in English at Binghamton University, and teaches writing at Ithaca College, NY. He is the founder and editor of the literary journal The Broome Review<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"andreiheadshot22\"](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/andreiheadshot22-150x150.jpg\")
Among the many numbers
\nof philanthropist whores,
\nunfinished names and eternal damnation.<\/p>\n
\non a long, black stretch of highway
\nglistening under a steady, slow rain.<\/p>\n
\nan epitaph to a dead man made famous
\nby something he once said about God.<\/p>\n