Paper Wings

Here are candy hearts,
paper wings,
sailing charts, and a thousand things

I made for you
in hopes they'd do--
oh can't you hear

how my paper bird sings?
______ 

For Karin Gustafson's "Flight of Write" at Real Toads. The artwork is hers. 

Be Careful What You Pray For

Be careful what you pray for
send away for
wait all day for,

Cos maybe God just wants you to peez shut beeg fat mouf. 

Ever think of that?
_____

For the "Peanuts" prompt at Real Toads. We could choose our own comic strip, so I chose my favorite one, "Pearls Before Swine" by Stephan Pastis. The crocs are always trying to eat their zebra neighbor, but are too dumb to catch him. 

The Retired Poetess

And lo, the heart doth open on golden springes,

Oh how fucking stupid. Lo. Really? Lo dee oh doe. La la la. Down shoobee doo down down. I wonder what Neil Sedaka's doing these days? He might be dead or something. Never mind! Write!

The heart, bedded neath its blanket of care, opening on golden--

No! It sounds like a burrito or a pill dispenser or something. I can't work hungry. What's in the house?

~one trip to the store, and fixing lunch, and eating lunch, and a nap, later....

heart cart fart part K Mart

Maybe if i walk the dog, my head will come up with something. Don't forget poop bags. 

~one dog walk later~

Lo, the

I wonder what's on Face Book? Ha! Talking cats, I love those. LIKE. Oh here's that silly woman asking to be friends again. She actually posts pictures of her bunions. That's low...

Lo, the springes of the heart open under Psyche's...

Psyche? Circe? Mars? March! I'm gonna march you down the aisle! April! You're the Easter bunny when you smile! Yeah, yeah, my heart's in a whirl--

Spring-ed heart, lo the ...cart? chart? Convenient Food Mart?

I'm hungry again. Then bed. Zac's tired. Wait, there's an "ER" re-run on. Oh wow, the guy's in a coma. That's rough. They say that waking up is hard to doooooo, I know it is, I know that it's truuuuuue... What about the poem? *yawn*

Zzzzzzz. 
_____


for Metafiction with Kerry at Toads.  

 



   

    

The Old Woman & The Sea (Of Mail)

A bit belatedly, here are 3 pix of some old bat leaving to deliver her mail route for the last time, 3 weeks ago. ;-)

Bye! Bye! (Won't she EVER leave?)

Yeah. Byyyyyeee. 31 years to get rid of that chick, jeez!

Rotten Fruit

Here is your rotten fruit
taken from a gorgeous vine--
the lush one, the lovely one
in its season--mine.

Roll the dough, crimp the crust,
spoon the rotten fruit inside--
bake it well, then go to hell
where with these sweets you may abide.
______

for Poetry Pantry #358.

 

Hates Haiku , Flies Solo

This is the sort of thing that has those bitches snickering behind their hands--
I burned the bed, including the one in my mind,

but I took one of them outside first,
so I'm not as rash as they say.

I have shelves and shelves of poetry--
my own and everybody else's.
"My love is like a red, red rose," like this, and like that,

What a load of crap.

Now I sleep on the couch, in case there's suddenly something good on,
or I feel like steeping myself in a trash novel all night
like some sort of nocturnal tea bag.

I'm always brewing something.

So fuck you, you with the soft lips; you with the strong arms. 
Here's the list, you're on it, get lost.

At 3 a.m. there was a show about dinosaurs.
They had shrimpy brains and big spikes and some had clubs on their tails.
Half of them were girls, all they cared about was
laying eggs and eating.
I watched that shit until the sun came up.

My friend says, "You could still meet somebody."
It's true, I could.
Here I am flying through space with my big bright tail.
Here I fly, with my shitty track record and my poems and my passion.
Here I come, down through the atmosphere, 
not looking for you, but on my way anyway.
_________

for Sunny's "sleep and insomnia" prompt at Toads. I love to sleep. I never have insomnia.

A Witch's Instructional

This is what it means to be La Bruja, the witch--
(swab honey on your ears before I speak, or they will curl like dry leaves.) 
It isn't like people think,
from storybooks and bullshit they've heard.
It's like this--
a candleflame-colored Moon rising 
through dreams and trees
into night sky, and not nearly so distant as it seems.

If you are La Bruja, you must barter with every wild thing-- 
taking some of each, as they keep some of you.
Sorters appear,
you know the ones...
made of hair spray and bibles, scared of the dark,
rattling on about their birth right.
You will kill them,
whether you choose to or not; whether you feel good about it or not.
Ah well.

There will be those who come into the trees,
even into your dreams,
to avenge what you've done while you were sleeping, 
walking the stick path,
or baying at the moon.
All I can tell you is, wear a long cloak,
keep moving to the stone-feather pulse inside you,
and know the Moon saves her favor for you, not dwarves or fools. 
______

What I'm Made Of

Sugar and spice
and all things nice;
red strawberries and
shards of ice.

North wind, south wind,
night bird's call;
prayer and peaches and
folderol.

Some from the heart and
some for show;
wouldn't you, honey,
just love to know.
______

for "I Am Made Of..." at Toads.

Minutes of The Marvell-Herrick Society

Everybody talks about
miasma
buboes
mass death
like it's a bad thing.

Gray skies are gonna clear up--
put on a bird-mask face
with roses 
under your noses--
yeah that's the way.

Everybody talks about
crops
cows
heads with crowns
like that shit really matters.

Kiss me, honey,
Old Time is still a-flying.
It's not love
but it's not bad,
and what's the dif if we're dying?
_______

Gathering rosebuds while I may, for Mama Zen's "Words Count." And yes, I really drew the Death card. You expected I would get the six of cups?

 

 

Bell The Cat

Bell the cat, bolt the door, burn the welcome mat.
Shade the sun, don't tell anyone, and when you're done with that,
 
 
Tongue the bell as magpies coin the language she'd have licked
the honey from, til day is done and drowsed and silly and sick;

 
Promise her you love her more than Terpsichore and then
her fading scent will pay the rent when she has gone again.
______

 

 

 

Emilie Sagee's Complaint

I was framed.
I don't care what fifty people said--
that I marched right up to the pulpit and kissed the priest;
then laid one on the nun as well.

I skipped Mass that day and took a nap.
Why do people lie?
Besides, no twin would bother 
aping one so very dull as I. 
_________

for flash 55. 

 

The Ambitious Waste Basket

The ambitious waste basket perhaps read too much into it
when it was given a clean white scented trash bag to wear.

"He's going to marry me!" thought the waste basket, mistakenly.

Instead, every time he filled her, he emptied her.
He attached a miniature basketball hoop and did not desire
her molded plastic body at all.

The ambitious waste basket grew bitter,
and took to leaving itself in the hall and on the stairs.
Finally, her anger set her waste paper contents ablaze.

Her prince arrived and, calling out the most endearing obscenities,
splooshed a bunch of white foam into her, delighting her.
"He wants me to have his child," she concluded, erroneously.

Her heart and body melted, the ambitious waste basket could not even react
when she found herself inside a larger container and felt them both being rolled to the curb.
The trash truck arrived and she fell into it without a thought, because

The trash truck clearly wanted her, and held her tight,
though he smelled pretty bad and didn't talk much.
"It's just l'amour fou!" said the ambitious waste basket, quite correctly this time. 
________

My Other Hand

They tell me--I mean the throat clearers in their white coats--
that my extra hand is a blighted twin,
and that its presence on the right side of my back is not threatening.

The fools.
Hungering for love like anyone else, I gave in
to someone's touch. In mid-declaration, he found the hand
and jumped away as if electrocuted when he saw what he'd touched.

In church, wearing my customary black,
I pray, and in my prayer, I lie, giving thanks.
The horrid hand crosses itself at the moment of deceit,
and my skin crawls so badly that I nearly scream right there in the pew.

The worst part is that I can't really see it.
I twist painfully, my back to the mirror, but it curls away 
like some unholy creature avoiding teeth, or fire.
I curse it, sobbing with frustration, the hand mirror smashed.

At night, the hand traces letters against the skin of my back,
but the language makes no sense except to devils and Gypsies.
My mother brought the doctor, then the priest, upon finding me
blood-drenched and wheezing on the floor in the morning.

Who could blame me, for the knife?
Who could forecast that the thing would defend itself,
at cost of three fingers, one of them mine?

The same doctors performed surgery that afternoon,
pronounced the thing removed and benign,
but I know better, and carry the scars to prove it.
______

for my own Fireblossom Friday challenge at Real Toads: "It's Only A Paper Moon."