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. 

Bad Tourists

Image copyrighted: Isadora Gruye Photography

We can’t leave our shine on the curb or shake the grey night rain from our shoes.

Written for Sunday Micro Challenge at Real Toads. The task: write about night rain in the streetlight using Ginsberg's American Sentence - that's a poem in one 17 syllable sentence. For this one, I used one of my own photos from my first rain soaked night in San Fran. B

Party Instructions

Eat the cake Magda, 

even if the flour and salt 

turn to paste on your tongue. 

And keep working the room. 

You’ve caught the eye of a single banker 

and a married baker.

Neither care that

you’ve crumpled your cocktail napkin

into a sweaty ball in your fist

instead of folding it twice over. 

Eat the cake, 

and dance alone. 

Your shoes are reading

This machine kills fascists. 

And you're making eyes

at a sweater vested 

jalopy owner who could 

smoosh your butterfly

good and proper

even with a mouth full 

of cake paste

and cab fare jangling 

in his pockets.

But you’ll eat the cake.

And come home alone,

still clutching that cocktail napkin

in your hand like you were saving it

for your scrapbook.

For my first Poems in April prompt at Toads, I wrote a new installment in my black birthday cake series. For this out of standard prompt, I asked the Garden Dwellers to pick an image of a protest sign and write a poem with the phrase that was in no way political.  For my image, I chose this image of my favorite protestor: Woody Guthrie. 

Pencilz Down

1. That patch of dirt out by the drive way will never be a garden because

1. you know science and science told you to stop trying to grow things where your heart wants to see dust. 
2. the king rats and mole people have claimed that patch of land for themselves.  You hesitate to play the apex predator card this far into the suburbs. Plus it’s sort of neat to see them come together for a greater cause. 
3. again, science, but different reasons.
4. again king rats and mole people but because of fear. 

2. You’re not worried about drinking 

1. city water from lead pipes. You dream big and risk it all. 
2. cocoa with marshmallows at your kitchen counter like a goddamn toddler who cannot hold her gin. 
3. Polonium in your tea. 
4. Tea in your polonium. 

3. When confronted with discussing your favorite book

1. moonwalk away. They won’t love it the way you love it.
2. say it’s a tie between the Velveteen Rabbit and the Lorax. Celebrate your subterfuge by moonwalking away. 
3. answer with the Economic Essays of 1848, wait for another communist to agree and make out with them profusely, then go for kebabs. 
4. be the asshole who admits that they love to read, but not books.