Sugar

Tell me your name--
like something sweet on a spoon,
still on your lips,
offered,
irresistible.

Tell me your name--
like something lethal on a spoon,
hidden out of sight,
indistinguishable,
prettily white.

Come down the Tunnel of Love--
no purse.
no wrap.
close your eyes.
come barefoot,
expecting glory, as the boldest explorers do.
______

for Hannahballistic's "Hungry Eyes" challenge at Real Toads,

and G Man's Friday 55 !

image: the Tunnel of Love in Kleven, Ukraine

 

Gift

It's time for MZ's "Words Count" feature at the Imaginary Garden With Real Toads. She says:

"Imagine yourself in the safest place you've ever known.  Let yourself sink into the details.  Feel the texture, the temperature.  See the angle of the light.  Breathe deep . . .

And, tell me about it in 53 words or less."

Okay. Here it is, in exactly 53 words!

"Gift"

She had a voice so right she could make the Moon sneak to meet her on the down low--

So new-car fur-cuffs fine she could make concubines cry and quit for jealous.

But that night, she soothed me sweet,

a mother for the mother-hungry...

the perfect gift, and I

never forgot.

___________

 

Ohmuhgaw !

It is mid-afternoon on a Tuesday at Danny's Coffee Shop.
Denise the waitress is doing her nails.
Chloe the serial felon is meditating to "Relaxing Sounds Of Ocean & Surf".
The Succubus is crashed with her face on the table, drooling, but she still has on her cool shades. Savanna the teenage runaway puts a sticky that says "kick me" on the Succubus's huge black wings.
She thinks this is enormously hilarious.

The kitten Giuseppe Verdi wanders up to a table full of girls, wanting the standard fuss and adoration he is used to at Danny's,
but these are popular girls from the high school.
One of them screws up her face and says, "Ohmuhgaw. Why do these places always have cats??"
There is a book sticking out of her bag. Perhaps it is ornamental. She doesn't seem like a reader.

Denise looks up from her mani.
Chloe's chi goes off center and she ditches the Relaxing Surf.
The Succubus wakes up and flutters her wings,
which sends Savanna off the deep end, laughing.

One of the popular girls notices the charged silence and asks, challengingly,
"Wut???"

Just then, a blinding black blur comes hurtling at their table and lands on it, scattering all the bottled waters and ipads. 
"RAWWWWWWWRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!" says the blur, turning in circles on top of the table, like a maniac.
It is, of course, The Queen of the Vampires, in black panther form.

"OhmuhGAW!" screech the popular girls, as the QOTV demolishes their booth.
"Eww. Why do these places--"
but she is interrupted by the QOTV clawing out her nasty overdyed hair.
Luckily for her, the cat is distracted by the book that the kitten Giuseppe Verdi has pulled from the girl's bag.

Together, they go from one end of Danny's to the other, destroying the book with unrestrained glee.
"RAWWWWWWWWWRRRRRRR!!!"
"rawwwwwwwrrrrrrr!!!" 
they say.
It was probably not a history book, but now that book is history.

"Ohmuhgaw," squeaks one of the popular girls from underneath a table.
Chloe the serial killer sticks her head upside down beneath the table and inquires,
"Tell me, lame popular girl, what was that book?!?"
Popular Girl's glossed lip trembles as she says,

"The Oxford Book Of Haiku".
_______ 

mad skillz

Forget the bathing suit--
burn it.
It is always stormy in my world;
the trees are like crack ballerinas--
never still.

I wonder if you could help me--
you, with your mad skills.
I don't like grease, unless it's in the pan;
but I do admire arcane knowledge--
such as rests better on a girl.

Take a look, touch inside--
be a whisperer for my ride.
Smaller hands are better fitting;
prove that purring
suits this kitten.
_________

Book Review: "Raven Girl"

Raven Girl by Audrey Niffenegger

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is a fairy tale, written and illustrated by Audrey Niffenegger, author of "The Time Traveler's Wife", which I loved. In this tale, a postman falls in love with a raven, and they have an egg, from which hatches a girl who is human in appearance, but who feels like a raven. She grows up feeling shy and out of place, until finally, she goes off to college and meets a surgeon whom she asks to change her into a bird. Despite a hue and cry from classmates with no stake at all in the matter, she goes ahead. The doctor tells her that even if she is given wings, she won't be able to fly, because she is too heavy. Then it is discovered that she has hollow bird bones; that she is quite literally a bird on the inside, just as she has always known.

How does it all turn out for the raven girl? Read it and find out!



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in the season of catkins and maple keys

This year, my yard and walks are thick with maple keys
and catkins from the walnut tree,
washed in heaps at every fence and barrier.
They believe in time,
having faith in the thing they need.
Me?
I haven't got that kind of time, not anymore.

When I was young, I wanted the whole sky,
without an idea at all what it might contain.
Now, the dome of Heaven has become, for me, particular and small,
but as full as my heart, which is just a heart,
but as tempestuous within me as beating wings.

I would like to say, darling, that now is the moment
for a tender comfort in each other,
a whispering in the evening hour, as all the red goes for sunset,
leaving our blood light and calm at last--
but you, My Love, would call me out,
and I can't lie to you, even for the sake of pretty lines.

We have had to do what we have had to do.
Our patterns are not perfect at all,
and the things that have given us lift are showing the damage of their utility.
There is blood; ours and others', 
mixed with our markings.

Open your arms for me as I will, mine, for you.
We know that doing this is dangerous,
but like will always seek like,
because that is the way home,
even if we spin and roll in mid-air in the dare of loving.
The vain sunset is still there, a spoiled prima donna, 
but we have this moment 
to forget her.

I love you, in every imperfection.
I trust you to touch talons to my scars,
and to somehow soothe them despite all sharpness.
Here is where we have come to, and it is a fine enough thing.
Look at the maple keys and the catkins--
they are blameless, 
but the minute they leave their mothers, they are looking up at us.
_______

Ron, at Shutterbugs, has very kindly allowed me to use his breathtaking photograph at the top of this post. The image is his and may not be used elsewhere without permission. Please visit him.

maple keys

catkins

Book Review: "Bird of Paradise"

Bird of Paradise by Vicki Covington

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Honey Shuggart (now, there's a sweet name) is a Southern woman of a certain age, who has never had it easy. Her husband, whom she loved passionately, was a drunk who died young. She's never owned her own home, and lives sparely, as if to pick up at a moment's notice. She has waitressed and done what needed doing, always getting by.

Now, late in life, she has just a few things. She's always had the gift of voice, and sings in the senior choir at the Baptist Church. She has a grown son and a group of loyal friends, all as long on the tooth as she is. Honey's idea of cosmopolitan sophistication is Birmingham, Alabama, not that she ever strays that far. Her life is local.

So, when her sister Dinah keels over dead from a heart attack, while visiting the cemetery with Honey, it sets in motion a series of unexpected events. Turns out, Dinah had some money, something Honey has never had, and she leaves it, along with three fourths ownership of the family homestead, to Honey. The other one fourth goes to Dinah's late husband's grown daughter by a previous marriage. That would be Neva Joy, who wants to sell it.

Honey Shuggart is a woman who senses angels and believes in the Lord, so imagine her surprise when, at a zoning board meeting (to change the homestead from residential to commercial, to increase its value) she meets Judson, a retired attorney and avowed atheist, who has returned home after many years, to take up residence on Nectar Hill.

What do you suppose a woman who has stopped expecting anything from life except a comfortable routine of delivering meals on wheels, attending Wednesday night covered dish prayer meeting, and quilting on Fridays, does when life suddenly serves up all sorts of bounty? She might make it wait out on the porch like an untrustworthy stranger, or she might invite it in for casserole. Hon, you'll just have to read the book to find out.



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