7 banal lines

 That spring the sky stayed gray, 

a grandfather dozing in a worn chair.

Our tongues turned to cotton,

our hearts ran out like tea from an upset cup.

It was the season of the broken brick,

the crushed bloom,

and the stunned child, gaping.

______

for Dverse quadrille: "season"

Interview

It is not new

this interviewing of myself.

In a dark or dull hour

ghosts rent my tongue,

black flocks rend my mind's sky.

I called a nightmare by name

to break its back.

Making a paste from fury and innocence,

I conjured a papier mache landlord,

all purpose, no heart.

The renters scattered.

The birds flew into a vortex, blind and damned.

Moving into my own skin,

I learned new oxygen

with my keys held tight between my fingers

just in case.

______

for Sunday Muse.

Remember

Remember the Alamo.

Remember the Maine.

Remember yourself, in my dream last night,

tilting your head the way that's done

when the next word is "no."

In our bed, Santa Anna's Mexican army.

At the breakfast table, saboteurs asking for the Tabasco.  

Sunken steel and mud missions know

how it was and

how I remember you.

______ 

a 55 for my BFF.

 

The Nun Who Escaped In A Fish Barrel

The vessel is weaker
than it used to be--
the page thinner,
the lover gone.

The light is lower
than in summer--
but the angle sweeter
for its brevity.

Cats care nothing
for pointless industry--
and yet they
meet every gaze.

In stillness, in silence,
in age this fire--
consumes me and shames
youth, that boastful pretender.
________

 
 

Fire Blossom

flame from friction--
i'm the backdraft baby from the oven mother.

she kept painting herself pot belly black--
i was born pink as a sea shell,
but the contact left me red--

red haired,
red tempered,
a real red headed stepchild struck sharply in the dark.

little marvel that you, dear later love, followed my smoky scent,
and, talons artfully crossed behind your back, declared me bright.

mommyless me,
furious turning-to-ashes me,
set your creative curses in my ear like diamonds,
and said, ah, my head is become a jewel.

like every pigeon of a huckster/devil/killer,
i thought it all came from you.

i was a bird looking with one eye through my heat-cracked varnish,
and oh how i sang for what i saw.

now i'm older,
my ledge is full of bones.
it looks like dance when i move around up here.

what i finally learned,
after loving you,
leaving you,
figuring you out,

is that the darkness in you that looked like home to me,
was just the product of my own burn.
i'm the light, motherfucker,
and you are only

headlights
sweeping, filling, blinding for a pitchman's moment--
and then gone, not even dark,
just non-existent like you were before i ever lit up your smile.
________ 

 for Susie's challenge at Real Toads