I picked up a
handful of marbles,
perfectly round,
smooth, cool,
clinkety clunky in
my wrinkled grasp.
Brightly colored,
variegated blues,
yellows, reds, plus
an amber cat’s eye,
a shiny steelie,
and a swirly snaky.
There was nothing
particularly
notable about these
colorful orbs.
Other than they
exist simultaneously
in the worlds of my
present and my past
as only childhood
playthings can.
Peace, people!
Twenty years spent digging ditches, climbing through
stacks of detritus, too tall to fathom, too many fathoms to ponder.
Some streaks of weakened light leaked past guarded columns of
life’s waste and want. “I still cannot see the end,” came the distant scream.
“Just keep digging,” called a calm response. “You’ll hit paydirt one day.”
The foreman urged patience and tenacity.
Those digging broke nails and fingers and backs.
“Come election day who do you reckon you’ll be voting for?” Digger 1 asked Digger 2.
Digger 2 did not pause in her labors. “I like that Trump guy.” she said.
“He’s gonna build a big wall to keep them illegals from stealing our jobs.”
“Yep. That’s how I see it,” spat Digger 1.
“Quit your jabbering,” smiled the foreman. “Keep digging.”
Slattern
Waits in a darkened doorway, hand on a cocked hip. Long practiced words roll off her lips.
“Want some company, handsome?” she huskily purrs. He shakes his head, another demurs.
She drags on her cigarette, poufs out her hair. Straightens her posture, drapes a bruised leg on a chair.
A noisy crowd leaves the theatre two blocks down. Exuberant young people out on the town.
Arms linked, hands clasped, giggling innocents still. She seeps into shadows, ashamed, a nil.
Imagines the life that might have been hers. Friendships and outings, instead of this curse.
An accident of birth, one careless stork’s drop. There, she smirks, go I, but for the grace of God.
I awakened to the sound of music with a heavy back beat: Thump, drag, thump, drag, thumpety-thump, drag.
Four behemoths surrounded me, circling closer at every turn.
Three were unholy physical specimens, long of tooth and claw. Fearsome in their intent.
The fourth was lame, addlepated, carefully moving one stumpy appendage in front of the other.
Snatching at the box of sanity I kept on my nightstand, I watched and waited for an opening.
When the crippled beast stumbled, as we all knew he would, I dashed between his grasping arms.
Stinging pain sang through my neck, a lucky blow rained down.
I screamed, a tuneless melody of injured flesh, and the beasts paused.
“Yes! Yes!” they all cried out. “Now the dance can begin.”
Hold my hand,
Say the right lines.
Give me something,
Solid to believe in.
Scramble my brain,
Realign the stars.
Make me question
Heaven and hell.
Parade my intellect
Along with my form.
Chastise my tastes
In music and art.
I’ll sip discreetly from a
Chalice of champagne,
Inhale collitas rising
Through the refrain.
Loosen the bindings
My soul in a slow burn
Chafe my wrists
Until feeling returns.
Don’t be surprised
If I don’t reappear
Even if I do
I won’t be the same.
http://youtu.be/lrfhf1Gv4Tw
peace, people!
snobbery is not my thing
until it comes to sheets
thread count, deep pockets
all the criteria to meet
yet a rift has arisen
in the sheet that was fitted
and three holes slice through
where they should be knitted
but quality bedding
is priced rather dear
so pieces i’ll
buy here and there
though i swear i can’t sleep
on mismatching linens
my sensibilities
they do offend.
The name meant nothing to her. She’d heard it murmured by others
once or twice, and whispered it to herself in the grayed shadows of night. But still,
the word was just a pair of syllables, having no weight or depth of their own.
Why then did she find her fingertips bruised, nails chipped and bloodied from
repeated attempts to scratch the letters into the stone she’d tucked inside her
pocket? Surreptitious strokes, thumb circling, reassuring.
a pickle for your thoughts
i like the way that sounds
for if one takes a pickle
and divides it into rounds
the sum of all its parts
you see is greater then by far
than one single copper penny
that under any circumstance
shouldn’t be eaten from a jar.
Peace and pickles, people!
Somewhere between
I want to and I did
were a lot of dead
spots filled with
I can’t and
maybe I shouldn’t and
even girl, don’t you dare.
I got stranded once
on the island of
I’m not worthy, but
the good ship
I believe in you
saved me and brought
me to safety.
Peace, people.
life on the road
long miles broken
up by convenience
store stops and
fast food meals
mile after mile
of asphalt and
cellophane wrappers
bottled water
and countless
bathroom breaks
every wendy’s
looks the same
silly little
pigtailed girl.
Praying for Eyebrowz 