Fox Hurries On Alone

Fox hurries on alone,
wearing a night coat made of indigo memories.
She is solitary and keeps out of sight,
but the moon that finds me, finds her, and says no word.

Here, the lizard on his rock,
head cocked to hear the mandolin the grocer plays
when the lock is on the door
and the bottles hung on yews gather spirits from his tunes.

A desert bird speaks your poems
along the edges of a sunset, and once again 
I hold my breath to hear them
as the fountain with its coins lulls the fox with Spanish songs.
________

for Play It Again at Toads.

I chose Susie's Amber Tamblyn prompt from 2016.

Courtship On The Edge Of The World

The girl whose face was time
was sought after for love, though she was immune.
Sailors dashed their splintering ships at her feet
and crawled the carapace of the rising moon.

Beauty is the star-marker, the sailors called,
and your visage the horizon we perish to unfurl.
She scoffed and said, my face is a mask
and you a troupe of clambering fools.

Behold, behind you, infinity spread!
cried the sailors as one, then fell down dead.

Dropping the guise, the girl confessed
my face is a cipher, the void my nightdress.
__________

for Sunday Muse #88. I have the flu so be kind, please.

A Message For Dumb-O-Crats

No need to fret about climate change.
You silly twit, you're just Trump-deranged.
"So what?" about fires, storms and floods,
"Thoughts and prayers" are more than enough.
If the water is rising right up the stairs,
relax, my friend, it's "alternative air."
We're sending cows--because we care!--
to the Arctic to be "alternative bears."
POTUS, most powerful man in the world,
takes no crap from a teenage girl.
So rest your mind, don't listen folks,
it's all a radical Democrat hoax.
________

Hoping you feel all better now, for Wordy Friday.

Behold

Behold my steed.
Behold my steed which I have brought into the house.
"Caroline," says my life partner.
"Caroline, for chrissakes," my life partner says.

Behold my steed's noble mien.
Behold his handsome visage,
a grosbeak upon his broad back,
eternity in his untroubled gaze.
"Caroline," says my only darling.
"Caroline, you clueless cow.
Get it out of here before it craps on the carpet."

Behold my armored breastplate.
Behold my pennant and standard.
Behold my raised sword, heavy and final.
"Caroline," says my flawless beloved.
"Caroline, what the exact fuck, honey?"

Behold my steed rearing up.
Behold the flashing of his mighty hooves.
Behold Saints Michael, Catherine, and Margaret
urging us on, invoking the grandeur of the Divine.
"Caroline," says my heart's other half.
"Christ on a pogo stick, Caroline." 
Behold the dear familiar lips.
Behold my knees sweetly buckling as I go weak at every word.
__________

for Sunday Muse # 87.

Book Review : "Forty Stories"

Forty Stories by Donald Barthelme
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've been reading a lot of surrealist-type writing lately and all of them harken back to that master of the form, Donald Barthelme, so I have pulled out this volume. I mean, why not just go for the Real Thing?

I bought a collection of Barthelme's stories off a paperback rack as a teenager and loved it. My favorite was a story about a human fly scaling a tall building with the help of two plumber's helpers (plungers). It was hilarious and different and as someone has said, merry and melancholy at the same time. I've been a fan ever since, and Barthelme has influenced my own writing more than any other writer.

In this collection, we encounter a trail drive of porcupines onto the grounds of a university, a group planning to hang their friend Colby for "going too far" with marvelous attention to music and refreshments, and a contemplation on what goes on the mind of a bodyguard. No two of the stories are alike, all are written with intelligence and style, none of them drag, and all of them are suffused with bizarre details and/or premises. That's the marvelous thing about Barthelme as compared to his imitators--he knows how much of that sort of stuff is enough, and doesn't wear out the reader with a barrage of it. He uses just enough acid-trip nuttiness, with just this thing or that things crazily out of place, to make it fascinating and readable and funny and even revelatory. Barthelme was one of a kind. Don't be fooled by cheap imitations. Highly recommended.

View all my reviews

Never

Never been sinful.
Never been kissed.
Just violets and daisies
in my little fist.

Never been angry.
Never been rude.
Never been flippant.
Got that, dude?

Always been quiet,
devoted, demure.
Always been pious,
patient and pure.

Never been sorry
cos I never been wrong.
Understand that,
and we'll get along.
_______

for Sunday Muse # 86.

Die Reise

Does it burn, dear, does it trouble you
to see these dropped stitches letting the wind in?
Walls disappear even as they shelter,
hollow as bird bones or violins
stacked each upon each like the worst regrets
of ghosts bewildered, emigrating
with dust of memory gilding frayed keepsakes
as we hold each other, advancing, disintegrating.
_________

the opening line is by Kerry O'Connor, used by permission as part of the mini-challenge at Real Toads, where she presides.

image: one of the lost suitcases of Willard Asylum