Ten Years In Five Lines

babe, around my heart

a rusty saw tooth of words

both spoken and unspoken

venoms the sugar core--

the magnolia darks to blackthorn.

---------

a Wayra for Dverse Poetry Form.

note-the berries of the blackthorn (sloe) plant can be eaten, but the seeds are toxic.

Friday In Hell--A Flash 55

Nothing is constant in this world,
but if you live wickedly,  dependability awaits. 

Let me explain.

In Hell, the first thing you'll notice is that everyone loves--really loves!--your ex.
They don't have Christmas; instead, a constant Black Friday.
Above your head, music--exclusively "Friday" by Rebecca Black.

Friday...but not payday. Sorry.
______

for my BF's kick-ass Friday 55 

.

The Golden Duo

It begins and ends with the golden duo.
I can tell that you don't believe me.
I can see that you think I'm some crackpot, some hare-brained loony.

Wouldn't wanna be you
when they get here.

All this, these fields, that shitty old house over there,
the well in the yard where we used to play Lindbergh kidnapping,
it's gonna be a paradise.

You think I'm just some old biddie.
I've got the inside dope!

The man, he's as handsome as a Fourth of July sunrise,
as muscled and graceful as a Kentucky Derby winner,
and if he kisses you, well, you're gonna fall backwards, healed.

The other one, nobody can tell if it's a man or a woman,
but oh what a voice. Never talks, just sings,
and the birds on every bush and fence post just shut up and take lessons.

One gonna sing. The other gonna lay on hands.
I seen this once before, in the forties. They made me young again,
then I got old again, so I hope they hurry up and get here.

You watch. There's never been anything like the golden duo.
They make cats crap out diamonds and dogs quote Shakespeare.
They'll make your mama tall like she wanna be, 

And you? They could make you an astronaut or something fine like that.
You're already a brain 'cept for not believing me about the golden duo.
You wait. You watch. You're snotty quiet now, but when you spot 'em 

You'll crow like a rooster and lay an egg, both. You can thank me then.
______

Co-written by Poetic Naychur Cat (me), and Baby Puppy (Mama Zen's daughter.)

 

Internet Date

Out in one of those western states where nobody lives,
she clawed her way out of the dirt where I had buried her
during a desperate fit,
under a vulture sun.

Everybody out there has got a gun, and so did the lonesome rancher
she first kissed after spending the night in his pick up truck.
She fed him his own bullets like candies
and charged him for them, too.

Sweet girl.

She has your barbed bones, but her heart is a rattle gourd.
Out there, she got fat on the stupid and the slow,
then starved herself down to a focused edge.

Today, at the bottom of a drawer, I found the kimono I bought 
in the hopes that you would like me in it.
I never wear it anymore, 
not after the anthill ceremony you call fun.

Returning home, I took love out to the yard and chopped its head off,
fed it to silence, to injury, and to hopelessness.
It refused to die, but became something else--
this girl-- so I poisoned her with your every word and 
left her in the desert.

Now she's awake,
headed east,
one lung full of stacksmoke and the other collapsed and dying,

but still able to articulate her wild hatred and intention
for both of us.
_____

for Mag 278.

 

bone

i am the daughter of a bone,
i was born starving.

i shed my skin like a laundered swamp spirit--
i'm naked now, so kiss me,
fuck me,
make me feel like i'm worth something for a minute.

hold me, i'm a sentient plastic bag blowing on a branch.
i make a lot of noise,
but it isn't music,
no more than screaming is singing.

see the sun.
it mocks me,
it spins across the sky out of reach,
teasing.

little things rise green out of the dirt,
snow around their necks;
the pretty rising dead, out to visit themselves upon the spring--
they stab their way into being.
they pretend to recognize the air, when all they know is suffocation.

i am the daughter of a bone,
willing to do anything just to feel wanted.
otherwise,
i will crack the moon and call it my covering,

ill-white,
pulling but never having,
glowing but stone dead and more bitter than any man could ever understand.
______

for real toads mini challenge, april come she will.

Kimberly & the Atomic Bomb

When Kimberly saw the atomic flash,
she didn't really care;
it just meant no more Gas N Go,
no more washing her hair.

No more filling out college apps,
no more diet fads and
no more having to hear that one sucky song til she pukes.

She thought of the times her mother had told her
how she came before she was due--
so tiny and fragile and blue--
but she said she had known her Kimmy was a fighter and would prove all the doctors wrong by surviving.

When Kimberly saw the atomic flash,
she sat on her bed and looked at the backs
of her hands as if she had never seen them before,

And the moon glowed red over the Gas N Go
like a rose on fire in the night.
_____

for DOLN #65.

Easter Poem

The Easter egg which was not found
contained a letter from the hen who laid it,
saying, "Fuck your kids.
What about mine?"

The Easter Bunny was obliged to take tranquilizers
due to having rabbit ears
in a vulgar world.

At sea,
crossing the international date line,
the Christ was imposed upon to rise twice,
delaying the breakfast buffet.

I have lifted who I used to be
carefully
from a hat box high on a rack in my basement.
I loved you. I did;
but even when I stretched my arms up,
I couldn't pretend that floor was sky.

The Easter egg which was not found,
weathers the summer as best it can.
I now keep the letter
tucked inside my pretty, unworn hat,
while the hen and I
cultivate our special friendship.

We like primary colors,
not pastels;
and we watch, always,
for ships and their Aldis lamps
flashing light, dark, light, dark,
as if to tell of the one who went overboard
and his long, thirsty walk home.
_______

Black Lilies

She came,
Sweet/bitter, like blackstrap molasses.
Her skin was black tea,
Her voice was black earth.
She embraced me and that was the moon in eclipse;
She breathed in my bones, and my bones bent to her.

She stayed,
Like rain falling on the dark river.
She rocked me all night
As both lover and child.
She kissed me, and that was the moon in obscurement;
Her touch was black lilies, and her touch was light.
______

Farm Five

it's christmas time at farm five.
ho ho ho.
it's state-controlled.

in the window,
a candle.
an egg.
behind the pane,
a touch of plague.

come to farm five, just down the lane.
the ostler is mad, the butler insane.

it's christmas time at farm five.
religion is dead.
obedience alive.

on the door,
a wreath.
a cross.
behind it, more
untimely loss.

come to farm five, for mandatory yule.
with last year's host's head
skewered on the newel.

_____