Posts for June 2, 2018 (page 2)

Category
Poem

Second Night

Stars litter
The great black—
Blunderous yellow moon.  

Does happy rest
In moon and stars?
The sweet of kiss?  

Does it wallow
The waiting heart?
This umbral fever?  


Category
Poem

She Could Only Breathe When They Were Alone

She was never one to keep 
Her mouth shut about
The elephant in the room.
This pachyderm didn’t stay at home.
He moved right along with them
Like an unwanted cousin.
She wasn’t allowed to mention him
Ever.
She was so happy that he slept in her room.
She could always count on him.
Their secret was that they
recognized each other.


Category
Poem

exeunting

my body’s silence is a dissonant rhapsody
etched in ancient keeper’s tombs.
Glazed over by waxes of older rituals
and writs of passage from long before
you or I were born.

I think that might tell a story
lunging forward inside all of us
like the bus with the driver
who worked his second job the night before
and without slept powered the bus
through a red light
where automobile on automobile now pile.

is there a greater purpose to this all?
in this void that fills our lives
between the events of each day. some meaning
to the silence that is life’s greatest illusion?


Category
Poem

The Queen Speaks

It is 9:00 on Saturday night 
in The Queen City. 
My roommate wants to sleep 
and insists that I turn out the light. 



It is 9:43 on Saturday night 
in The Queen City. 
I am typing a poem 
in the dark.


Category
Poem

Love’s Taxicab Blues or Observations at the Gas Station

Parking lot on loudon
stays lit all summer. long nights
great whites swim through and watch. hungry.
how quickly the heads hang low and scatter
from passaenger seat i quietly eyeball 
long legged breezes step upon the curb
only to be told she thick. harrasment and humidity 
swallow up this kentucky evening. rorschach couldn’t make sense
out of this mess. I want to sail away
but those thoughts 
keep on passin me byyyyyyyyyyy


Category
Poem

Sanities Collapse Before A Horse Of Turin

Ironic pity
deconstructed sanity
beating a dead horse

Moralities gift
a cognitive dissonance
the crucified will


Category
Poem

An Angel at the Center

Today I am chewing cud, if you will, 

trying to rid myself of trite-isms.

I’m looking for the silver lining,

hoping to find the pearl of the world

even thought most folks

don’t give a tinker’s damn

about trites.  Yes, I am

categorizing, stereotyping my life,

if not yours, too, down-playing 

the real metaphysics of life. 

I’m somewhere between a rock

and hard packed clay, feeling all 

my buttons being squashed.

 

I’ll start bible cracking my poetry 

books looking for birth lines or life lines 

in single lines, short phrases, simple or

complex words, because I know

ain’t no pot of gold at the bottom

of the robin’s nest, but maybe just

a kernel of truth somewhere 

in the couch cushions.  I’m chewing

all this over trying to find the angel

at the center, elusive though she may be,

non-existent you might even say, 

 

but it’s a promising direction

if against the wind.  Besides 

Li-Young Lee says to look 

for the universals and seek hope

in all life’s misery.  I think I see that angel 

in the next watermelon rind. 

 

Melva Sue Priddy


Category
Poem

i like your face tattoo

my baby and i mean-mug a strung out couple in thorton’s
   that won’t stop telling me about how thick i am. 
she says “y’all happy ain’t you” in the parking lot.
and yeah

we all right.


Category
Poem

Human Again

It’s time to be human again
if only for the weekend
to stand too long in the sun
to have one too many drinks 
and stand in the sun some more

It’s time to be human again
and if only I could remember the name 
of that one guy who sang that one song
i can remember his face
just not his name
oh and that girl who was in that movie
that was a good movie
dang I’ll probably remember in 30 minutes
anyways

It’s time to be human again
if only for today 
to have lived all kinds of different lives
in all kinds of different ways
only to find ourselves here 
and aint it weird 
to start over and be
just as much the fool you were when you began
but that much wiser and no less stronger

It’s time to be human again
not somebody’s hero 
not one of those guys you see
jumping out of helicopters in the commercials
aiming a gun at some threat offscreen, saluting you with a grin
not just another kid with a fresh haircut straight out of boot camp

if only for the weekend
It’s time to be just the human I’ve always been


Category
Poem

Snowflakes

We’ve been living in this storm so long
That it has enveloped us completely
Now we are one and the same
Sucked into its vortex
Like some bovine in that 90s film
People will look back and laugh, but for now
We’re waiting for a curtain to be drawn back
To reveal the joke, but
We might be the punchline

***************
***************
***************

I’ve never seen
A bigger collection of flakes
All gently falling where they will
Looking so pretty and full of promise
Only to dissolve as they hit the tongue
“Why are you so sensitive?”
“I don’t know…why can’t you keep a promise?”
“You’re such a snowflake.”
“Better than being a run of the mill flake.”

***************
***************

Does anyone know
When the avalanche will start?