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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.  

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. 

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.