fierce
Charlie warley
mouse slayer
killer of birds
small gray mass
slant eyes itching
for a flash
flicker of wings
to press the beating
still
We trudge again,
The moon is sawed straight in half, velvetted
All else draped in orange glow
I think I messed up
my caffeine intake
with only one delicious cup
of honey infused Mexican beans
sipped at Pemberton’s greenhouse
sweat drenching my clothes
I planted 3 big pots in the afternoon
of hot peppers and bush tomatoes
they look so small and hopeful
I’ve arranged small geodes and witches stones
around them, to help retain water and kill weeds.
The week is moving by too fast
while I lay in bed
with a belly ache
the gloam blueing
worrying a little about the flies
hoping this limp-rag feeling
is gone by tomorrow
I never sleep the night before a trip
I lie in bed thinking about the things I could possibly forget
anticipating reunions and adventures
I think about how I’m going to miss my dog
and I wonder if she’ll miss me
from the boarding house we’re putting her up in for three and a half weeks
I feel guilty about it
but she barks too much for any of my friends to want to take her
I wonder if the people I’m visiting are going to remember me the way I was
the way I used to be
it’s been five years this go around
five years that have aged me
will I be forever a child in their minds
or will they let the new me in
accept my broken bits
and the new parts of myself I’ve grown into
I try not to think about the flight
if I dwell too long on the fact that I will be in a metal box in the sky
for ten hours
flying over an ocean
breathing recycled air
and stuck between a stranger and my sibling
then I won’t be able to force myself on that plane tomorrow
so instead I try to think about family and the people who will miss me
and the people who won’t even notice I’m gone
Two lovers debate
who cried more
during the proposal
They certainly love each other
A divorce would be all the more
tragic, then
I say it,
& I don’t know
if I meant to or not
But in my mind,
two lovers are destined
to sleep in separate beds
Look up, sudden stop
There, in the office window
Stare, staring
Push back some hair
Grey matted hair
Who is that…
Now I am…who?
Not so old
No longer young
Her new friend
The trenchcoat
Bummed off that last guy
Makes her tough, sophisticated
One final look
Nope, no other improvements
Light my cigarette
Atop soft wine skies
The cicada’s biwa coos
Her name a spoken secret
Oh tranquility
Where the glass butterflies lie
Sea of shallow crowds
Shivers of first love
Pierce like no other knife
Death of a biwa
A jealous murder
From a woman not adorned
Bloodstains like rubies
The red curtain calls
Shaking like black mountain winds
Behold the biwa
Shaking bloodied hands
It’s sound falling like new snow
Upon singing glory
With eyes like flies
Crowds eat the requiem whole
Swaying so gently
They no longer hear
The groan of spoken secrets
Only the biwa
Once there were two light blue flip-flops,
That walked beside the tall, tall treetops.
In a house up in the leaves,
Quietly as they could be
Watching the squirrels outside as they run and do hops.
Look, honey,
I am trying hard to trust you,
To show and tell you that you are
But love always comes
With worry.
The spider you hammered
Onto the deck with your Reeboks
Viced in one veined hand
Bled chrome green innards.
It came back one too many times,
Dew jeweled, tight rope walking
Over the broken pots of butterfly weed
Even after the downpour bent locust trees
Around the house and made the gutters
Roil and warp in the force of the rain.
That green spider came back because
There was nothing else here to do
In this neighborhood. No other house
Was quite like ours; pouring mosquitoes
From the pools of molded water collected
On the grassless dirt. You didn’t mind
Killing from time to time, though I’ve watched
You quietly scoop stink bugs in your palms.
They are the the ones weeviling holes
Through our mandavias, not the spiders.
The spiders eat the bugs that you rescue
From the dusty baseboards inside the home.
The spiders are the ones you should let
Crawl over your arms and web your hair
And eat the aphids from the petunia stems.
You swat at the mosquito drinking from
The crease at the back of your knee
And tell me that spiders bite,
Claiming that’s why you had to grind
It’s body onto the wooden deck boards.
I asked if you’ve ever been bitten
And you let the silence chew holes
Through the garden between us.
