Oberon and Titania Fight Over Who Does the Dishes
Lightening strobes through the blinds,
rain beats against the window,
the basement block walls sweat,
while egg dries on the plates in the sink.
Lightening strobes through the blinds,
rain beats against the window,
the basement block walls sweat,
while egg dries on the plates in the sink.
This year there was no money for expensive gifts
laser tag, bowling or skating.
Just a mowed yard, carboard box forts, sweaty friends
and water balloons
Pop was swilled, pizza gobbled, watermelon strewn
cheap red cupcake frosting battle wounds
mosquitos moved in to liven it up
and eventually fireflies
Some tears, there are always tears
laughter, making up
a half hazy moon hung in the sky
A perfect slice of life
Sadly every species has a Tarzan
in it, always trying to call
attention to himself
Body fat can act as a wick
That’s why I’m a poet
in favor of wars
Robert Crumb never drew a woman
I didn’t wanna have
relations with
Where I’m from, being buried
in a woman’s yard is innuendo-
it’s blues tradition
Sometimes I get
the most vacant stares
My soul is pained
(This is a found poem created from various comments Ron Davis made on different LexPoMo poems throughout the month.)
smearing on the charcoal mask
to pull from my pores
the remnants of the day
and month,
the cool dark soothes as liquid
which will slowly transform
into solid sheet to serve its purpose
this digital ink, too, I smear,
to push days into prisms
from which are emitted
principal parts,
colorful actors
daily deadlines turned
light to dark to light
before, under and beyond my eyes
as just yesterday marks my birth
and another year begins
and in my attempt to slow it down
to understand what the poet knows
that the scientist does not,
to pick out prismatic light
and confine and confer meaning
in so many words,
the faster the days churned on
and light spilled forth
everywhere
there is a difference between yesterday
and today
pure white and black contrast
that holds everything inbetween
and if that holds
then, too, will tomorrow be altered
all over again
by the light and darkness that touches it
this is the essence of the matter
to me;
that the delusion of distance displaces us
from living life viscerally,
that a thing can be measured
and yet that is not enough
and so these verses will slowly begin to cease
having served and swerved through
the colors of my world
but this coming darkness
is not an end,
but the natural conclusion
of the splitting of things
that long to be together
lights and colors, all
rushing to rejoin
in singularity
in what is observed
through experience as dense darkness
but in me is felt as bearably light
it is enough
to have written it,
to have lived it to write it
in the first place,
and knowing that, now,
the light from tomorrow’s sun
will lay before me again
a world of orgiastic color
My father bought me a Lemonade cup
a sleek black cup glossed with lemon yellow dots
He had it on the kitchen table
next to a handful of cough drops
saying that it was mine, my own Lemonade cup.
Lemonade always tasted too sweet on my tongue
Curling into my lungs,
drowning all my wrongs
and then the tears would go dripping down
salt tangling with sugar
in an inferiority complex war
making everything all the better
when in reality it’s so much worse
Bittersweet Lemonade
poured in every day
I drank and drank and drank
until you started to fade away
It was this
carefree lemonade that my mother poured into my cup
when I whined and cried in vain for a father that would never wake up.
He left without a glance back.
Turning dull eyes at TV Screens
hugging himself till the sky turns black
Blink
He no longer laughs.
Blink
He only lives in his past.
Blink
He forgets that I’m his daughter
Blink
He’s no longer a father
Mother always poured milk into my Lemonade Cup
saying all I needed
was to just grow up.
My orange cat
is getting old.
She is thin.
I can feel
her bones
through
what
used to be
thick, dense
fur.
Her ears,
diaphanous,
have just
a layer
of ginger fuzz
remaining.
She spends
her days
napping
on two pillows
at the end
of our bed.
She is bossy
in her old age.
Demanding food,
lapping out
the gravy,
and leaving
behind
the meat.
-Maggie Brewer
His only friends are gardeners
They’re the only friends he’ll have
Those whose thumbs will strike the dirt
With the skill of how to get to bloom.
In his last days he’ll let them sit with him
At the picture window on Delta Lane
And soon they’ll watch the fussy finch
Worry a ball of suet from the reckless jay.
With them pretend will fly, muscle and bone
Will melt away in nature’s disarray, their days
In Eden remembered as holy days and the arc
Of arms from table to mouth an endless
Spray of all the elements that sink to earth
And rise in whatever it takes for life to bear
June 30 fireworks
at the farm.
Spectacle without spectator.
The thrill of the spark
beckons and blackens fingers,
launch of flame
teases with danger of burn.
I am a lost witness of
verduous green blazing white
coral copper royal
against the fresh night,
pop and sulphur amid tree frogs
and the wind in my window.
Independence erupts
into cloud on homestead,
shroud of freedom
unshared.