Whistling Past The Graveyard

 I had hired him for an hour in the afternoon

though gigolos aren't my usual thing.

I'm an Egyptian tomb of a woman.

Scarabs whisper to me about daylight.

He was intense, dark, beautiful, 

with a nemes crown and a heqa scetpre.

I turned to dust in his Cyprinum-scented arms,

and wobbled, satisfied, into Duat.

________

for Flash 55 at my BFF's place. 

nemes crown

heqa sceptre

Duat--the Egyptian realm of the dead

On The Thin Edge Of November

 On the thin edge of November

smoky air flirts with freezing and the stunned birds

seem to lean forward on the precipice of a warning cry.

Last night I dreamed of you,

my chest a redding leaf poised at a point of immobility.

A wind came up.

Windows grayed.

I rose, denying ghosts.

(Even yours.)

----------

for my BFF's Flash 55 bash.

Apes In The Coffee

There are apes in a woman's coffee.

"We warm ourselves against a hostile environment," say the faces upturned in the steam.

"Asian disciplines,

activism,

on-line broadsides,

these failed.

But this warm pool...is become our haven."

The woman's mind and limbs are heavy as asteroids, 

her heart a falling anvil,

her simian teachers ascended, sanguine.

_______

for Flash 55, hosted by the amazing Hedgewitch O' The Wilds, noted connoisseur of cofveve. 

__________

Silent Bird

There is a silent smoke-bodied bird

in a stone nest

on a broken branch

overseen by a gape-eyed imbecile.

"All hail," say purple asters.

Hollyhocks drip with faked tears.

Sunflowers babble.

In evening,

all blooms combust to ash.

A silent smoke-bodied bird 

lays dead eggs 

in a broken bell

with a millstone tongue.

Multi-mothered monsters calve.

______

for Friday 55, hosted by the haughty and magnificent Hedgewitch. ;-)

The Broken-Necked Swan

The swan with a broken neck

lies half-in, half-out of the water.

Yesterday, hissing, spread-winged,

she ran at a child who stumbled backward and fell.

The bird then returned, stately and gorgeous,

to its pond, calm and fine as Fourth of July morning.

A man wearing wet shoes sits silently nearby.

Someone has already called police.

_________

for my BFF's flash 55 party.

This Morning At Danny's Coffee Shop

A well-dressed bird talks on a cell phone. We only hear one side of the convo.

"Take the long view," advises the bird.

"Okay...just give me the nut of the problem." 

"They'll need seed money..."

"Piggy bank, nest egg...whatever..."

"Take a flyer? No...they'll take a bath."

"Yep, same old song. Bye, Robin."
________

A Friday 55 for my BFF at Verse Escape blog.

Today's birbs:

From Ashes

From ashes, 
roses,
carnations,
mint.

My trunk of failures overturned
by your need,
and my humbling sorrow.

What is plenty, in a desert?
The bowl of your need I filled with double portions,
secreting my heart in the stitching of a new shoe.

From ashes,
roses,
carnations,
mint.
From distress, alchemy--
lead turned to gold.
______

for my son Joe--we have always been there for each other; light in dark skies.

and for Friday 55, hosted by the best poet I know, who I'm proud to call my BFF, Hedgewitch.
_______

Mrs. Sartre At The Beauty College

I said to the stylist at the salon,
"All is darkness." 
From the pocket of her smock, a candle
with which she beat me about the head and shoulders.

"Behold, I give you light," she said.
"Crazy motherfucker!" 
Who hired this bitch?
Wax in my hair.
Will an indifferent Stylist mold me at Her whim?
________

for my BFF Hedgewitch's Friday 55 bash, and also for Play It Again (existentialism) at Toads. Also for day 12 of my 39 poems in 39 days.

Cirque du Folle

There are other things we can do
in this time of dead clocks.

We can interview the air, jammed with blackbirds.
We can discard our clock-lungs,
turn our hearts to fragrant bowers. 

We can tightrope, half-awake
over the roofs of our old loves,

and fall into chimneys like bones into limbs,
fantastically existent, howling, dumbfounded.
_____

poem #5 of my 39 in 39 days.

for Friday 55 at Verse Escape, hosted by the incredibly fab Hedgewitch O' The Wilds.

Aphelion & Perihelion --- A Child's Anthem

I was a wall-walking ballerina 
dancing in an incinerator,
arms out, bending each way,
light as ash but not consumed.

Now I'm heavy as an old oak clock,
creaky as a forgotten stair,
yet somehow, I know the language of birds.

I'm hard to see in bright light
~always was~
but I shine continuously, weightless.
_______

for Friday Flash 55 at VerseEscape.

Photography by Christine Kapuschinsky Johnson.

Coffee Girl

I'm Coffee Girl from a pottery wheel
warm and curved and hanging from a hook
I know one trick,
to distract the honest eye
but every shell is empty.

Choose me
and you'll be sorry, though I'm
sweet on my feet,
I'm Coffee Girl when I fall
I run out right before your honest eyes.
_____

for Friday Flash 55 at VerseEscape, hosted by my fab BFF Hedgewitch.

Squirrel People

Squirrel people, weird mutants
crouch on rainy branches
cursing me,
cursing themselves.
"We can scale any obstacle, crack any shell,
but we can't open your fucking front door." 

Me,  I am smug,
reading by the fucking fireside,
my dozy comfort a finger at my arboreal lessers.
"Fuck you!" they say.
They are quick, resentful, sodden.
______

A 55 for Kerry.

untitled 55

Sound isn't what you think.
Your boot soles flat on the wooden floor
is how your feet make fools of your ears.

"Forever" is the froth
offered up by every stranger I have loved.
I turn to it like a bloom,
but fissures up my back 
is how time finds the fool in the room.
______

A 55 for Kerry.

Mulberry Rain

Rain falls from the leaves 

of the mulberry outside my window--

purple berries drop from its branches 

staining the walk--

my dog tracks them into the kitchen.

I love the rain--

my noisy neighbor stops working on his truck.

The rain, the berries, my dog

all soothe me,

but I am falling, too--

just slowly.

_____ 

A 55 for my excellent BFF.

 

Testament

I folded a love letter

inside a bible

and left them both

on a table

in the garden

overnight

in the rain.

As expected,

my new lover 

appeared

wearing the sun

and the wind

like epaulets 

on his shoulders.

With a strong open fist

he broke my loneliness.

A dove flies

to cold

lofty

Ararat.

_____

for my BFF's most entirely awesome 55 thang.

 

Crimson Amperage

In my fingers, a knife with two blades and no handle.
On the blades, blood.
Enter my relative, with ten mouths
who wears the knife as jewelry.

In my mouth, a scream with two pitches and no end.
On the sound, a honed edge.
"Hush," say the ten mouths
but I sing back crimson amperage.
_______

some cold steel 55 for my BFF.

Origami Angel

A local origami angel, 
aged out of foster care,
kept a treble clef  in a wicker cage
perched on a wing and a prayer.

I kept dying and coming back 
all that winter, every time we kissed.
In spring the treble clef infected us with sense,
took back its hour and scorned such pious ornithologists.
_______

a 55 for my BFF.

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.

 

Thought Broadcasting

"Nobody gets me"
is something the thought broadcaster never has to say.
She's a noisy spill, despite still lips.

She thinks, "I'm a bitch today. I need to get laid"
and some guy in China crashes his bicycle.

Diogenes meets her at the diner--
no texted invitation necessary.
She's his bae
bending spoons with hello.
_______

A 55 for my BFF.

The Other Sister

Born in a house of wind,

I leaned hard, a little animated stalk.

In a house of rain and mud,

Mother Rot stuffed endings in every word.

The Other Sister, the One Denied,

set the fields on fire

as signal and salvation.

Catching her scent on the gale,

I ran hell-for-Sunday

into the burning wild.

_____

A 55 for my BFF.