Sunday, June 9, 2019

Squad Goals (am I doing this right???)


Image copyrighted - Isadora Gruye Photography


I’ve been pissing in the river 
that brings me my dinner since 92.
This is not a metaphor
or fuck, maybe it is.
I’ll just lay myself out and let you decide 
what is muddy 
what is mantra
what is cotton candy whispers
on a ferris wheel ride that ends
with carts coming unpinned
and children falling
and news cameras rounded up
to tell us what is safe. 

I’ve been shoving over 
gum ball machines
all around town.
Cause I like the sound of hard candy
skittering to freedom. 
And the way babies laugh at it
And the way old men sneer at it 
And the way some people don’t notice
because they are fantasizing
about sandwiches and wearable technology
that knows how often their heart stops 
while they sleep
but does nothing to revive them.

I’ve been praying 
for cinder blocks to fall from sky.
Because cement showers
bring down watchtowers.
And I never did trust the watchmen.
Or how lightning greens the grass
Or how sweat cools the skin
Or how I clean chicken in the kitchen sink
flecks of flesh and bacteria
catching in the drain stopper
glistening and perfect
waiting to spoil.
Impossible to wash away. 



For Marian's prompt. The line about cinderblocks and watch men may be familiar.  I used it as the last line of a previous poem but wasn't happy with it there. I used Marian's challenge to use "muddy" as inspiration and rebuilt a framework where I think it fits better. 


Sunday, April 7, 2019

Etiquette for my funeral





So this has happened. 
I have shut my eyes for last time, 
and it’s a bit sooner 
than you would have liked. 

I think it would be fucking beautiful
if you could somehow 
get all the minutia of my life
to gather around me and join hands. 
That teddy bear I bought myself at 29
because I was going through a bad break up 
and wanted something soft to punch. 
The principal balance of my mortgage. 
The library card I spent months trying to get.
The tomato plants I tried to grow on the fire escape.
Have them all hold hands at my side
until there is a circle 25 miles in diameter
of all the worthless shit I ever wasted time on. 





For Marian's prompt at real toads.  Viva la. 

Thursday, February 28, 2019

Experiment in Haibun



Image copyrighted. Isadora Gruye Photography.



The stale gray cackle of TV gone off broadcast, and Charlie sound asleep in his armchair. Head down, lolling back and forth like a walnut stupidly free of its shell. 

Me and my slanted hope pace in the kitchen. I walk clumsy in these late hours. I don’t bother turning on a light. Instead stub my toe. Slam my palm on the kitchen table to hold in a yelp. 

Linoleum tiles
curl at the corners, and I
think they are laughing.


For the latest Season Your Poetry prompt over at toads. This is a Haibun which is a prose poem followed by a haiku metaphor companion. 

Sunday, February 3, 2019

Millenial AF




You thought it was romantic
to eat raspberries from the bush
in the moonlight. 
You couldn’t see the thorns,
and they shredded your palm warm. 
The taste of iron
greeting you in the night. 



Written in response to the Art Flash / 55 prompt over at Imaginary Toads. The prompt was to be inspired by the below image from David Bulow - https://www.instagram.com/bulow_ink/.  

The image reminded me of the wonderful yet perilous state of contentment.  That is was the starting point for this poem. 








Saturday, May 5, 2018

Pandora’s box is a circle

look, if you remember
anything about this town, 
remember stale yellow afternoons
before thunder rumbled in with night

remember crowded cafes
filled with the silence 
of fingers tapping phone screens

remember birds
singing through the night
terrified of what morning will bring

remember how summer 
steamed from wet sidewalks
and how you went home every night, 
shutting yourself into a rented room
to feel alive


for the Camera Flash prompt over at Toads today.  We were given a photo to respond to. The image reminded me of those afternoons when there is nothing to do but wait for night and see what unfolds.  

Saturday, October 14, 2017

Weather machine blessings



Wasn’t it
the rain that put shine
on the street
and made us
shiver closer together
locked step, arm in arm?  



Written for Marian's prompt at over at toads. She asked is write in the fussy little form of Shadorma, which is a six line not rhyming poem with the syllable structure of 3-5-3-3-7-5. 

Sunday, October 8, 2017

Opened ended letter to a lobsterman

Dear lonely sir, 

How do we square 
with the fact 
that those knots and nets
you leave in the harbor 
will never hold me?


Brief piece written for the first Camera Flash challenge over at real toads.