Posts for June 8, 2016

UPDATE feelings
       SET (
             mood,
             current_thought
       )
       VALUES (
             “still in love, so very, very much”,
             “but you do the dishes”
       );

Although it may start quite benign,
with an order of words right to rhyme
bring in violation
to change expectation
and laughter’s repayment in a currency that is not valid legal tender but makes us feel better about the inevitable heat death of the universe. 

learning to let
your walls down
– Jessica Swafford 

There were no words in me tonight.
So I laid myself next to the earth
and let the slow respiration of the grass,
the grating rasp of the crickets,
and the discordant notes of the crows
fill me instead.

**Plus, I didn’t see the prompt. ^_^

a lone man yells “fire!”
so, talking heads fill the screen,
discuss its meaning

elephant, donkey,
they crush us all underfoot,
then gather our change

every mess a war,
each bloody word a skirmish,
every smirk a stab

little miss Muffett
sat on a tuffet—they say:
in a sheer, lace dress!

statisticians claim
four in five Twitter users
live with their mothers

if they could fist fight
the brass knuckles’d be brought out,
sponsored by Pfizer

Applause-o-meter—
the TV ticker proclaims
a sudden winner

on mute, it’s all sneers—
respect a four letter word
best left to shepherds

nowhere else to look
so we stare, frozen, transfixed,
awash in bleating

it’s all red and blue,
America’s color code,
darkest camouflage

Our cat stands on the bed, front paws firmly planted on the headboard. Unmoving, slitted eyes are fixed on the rose of Sharon tree swaying the thickness of a screen away. Sparrows hold a raucous meeting on the branches, their numbers ebbing and flowing with the topic. Instinct urges her to be part of the agenda. Instead of growls or whimpers, she vocalizes rolling, chirping syllables of desire. The tableau calls to mind a man widowed through a quarter of his life, quietly affixed to a park bench near the day’s end, missing the company of a woman. 

red winged blackbird descends
raucously ‘bove my head
reels of twittering pass
reaching to morning light.
raising my foreign words
replete with a smiling,
round face… i walk away.

There was a young lady named Sis.
Travelling the world was her bliss.
In Scotland she rode horses
then rode Mongolian courses.
Steeds in Kentucky she did not miss.

It is a summer day
and my six year old
is on the floor
dragging a brush
across a canvas
while I sit at my desk
trying to conjure
some art of my own.
A gray border
frames a sky-blue background
where orange and purple
jump out from the center
in long, thick strokes.
What are you painting? I ask.
A witch, he replies.
To see what he’ll say
I ask, what’s a witch?
You know, like on Halloween
he says, his eyes on his work.
What do witches do?
Magic, he says
his focus unbroken,
the brush still moving.
Are witches real?
I don’t know. No one knows.
Then he looks up at me
and says, witches know, and smiles.  

My sisters, all
orange-tape tied
quiver
with the pulse of chainsaws

distant, I think
but then

I feel the slice missing

between my own roots

feel my sap leaking
my sweetness slowly sucked
by the same gravity 
I once thought
connected me to Earth.