The Painting

The painting was a gift,

the kind you don't want

but have to accept with manufactured grace.

It's not the first such lovely

that I've had forced down my throat,

but it rankles more than most;

its mandatory display a knife

that never stops twisting.

And, there it hangs.

A loud declaration of wealth and taste.

A scream of influence and importance.

A nagging, insistent clamor for admiration and acclaim.

A demand for submission and gratitude.

I avert my gaze out of spite

and picture a wall

blank and mine.

A Magpie Tale
Submitted to dVerse

Wayside

If I give myself to any stranger,

and lie beneath their barren hands,

then I can close my eyes,

and I won’t see the sunrise

alone.

Just a morning

by the wayside.

And, if I give myself to quick emotion-

I'm easy to anger,

then I forget -

in a moment or two,

I won’t feel a thing for you.

I left my feelings

by the wayside

So, if I give myself to you tonight, boy,

and let you do all the things you say you’ll do.

You can touch me,

but you’ll never reach me.

I left that part of me

by the wayside.

For Open Link Monday at Real Toads

Navigation

Photo by Daryl Edelstein

You caught the moon when it fell.
It turned to a pearl in your hand.
Placed on my tongue,
it dissolved to salt and sweet.
Then, wrapped in constellations
from your head down to your feet,
you commanded me
to navigate
by the stars.

For the photo prompt at Real Toads

Footsteps Of A Cat

Her breath balances earth and sky.

Her toes caress the weathered wood.

The loft has never felt so high,

and fear has never felt so good.

Far below, where she once stood,

are those who watch her high wire act.

Faith places each step where it should,

soft as the footsteps of a cat.

That's how she came to crave those eyes,

and seek them every way she could.

Risking the fall, she felt alive.

But landing's price, she understood,

would bleed her, break her like dry wood.

A part of her, it welcomed that.

To fly, then go to ground for good.

Soft as the footsteps of a cat.

Ask her now the hows and the whys;

you'll hear no tales of reaper's hood.

She'll faintly smile and then reprise

the day that she first walked the wood

rafters of the big barn that stood

till time and tempest knocked it flat

and brought her high wire down for good,

soft as the footsteps of a cat.

So, should you stand where she once stood,

the curtain closed and stage gone black,

be glad you flew when fly you could,

soft as the footsteps of a cat.

A Ballade (that's French for "kicked my ass") for dVerse.

Also submitted for the "balance" prompt at Theme Thursday.

Sniff Row Manifesto

Silhouettes with strobe-light hair
and shadow necks that slip the noose
firm to flesh in floodlight eyes
and hang at dawn.

For the "futurism" prompt at Real Toads

A Sign

Pressed against the Kissing Door;

should I let you kiss me more?

Or heed the hard and hateful sign -

how worn the wood beneath my spine?

For Open Link Night at dVerse

Feminine (Over) Protection

I know the box said "Super,"

but this is ridiculous.

A Magpie Tale

Wallflower Row

Photo by Margaret Bednar

The Rapture came

and emptied Wallflower Row.

Wouldn't you know

I almost missed it?

I was slow grinding a boy

and enjoying myself,

when, all of a sudden,

nobody interesting was gone.

For the picture prompt at Real Toads

Need a Daphne fix?  A new column is up!

Maps

There are new maps
in your war-worn eyes

new maps
with strange names
and shifted borders,
and I am lost

lost and hesitant with my steps,
unsure that the old, familiar path
of "I'm Sorry, I Love You"
will get me home.

For the "borders" prompt at dVerse

Shakespeare's Fall

You like the way

I drop my g's

when I read Shakespeare to you

in bed,

the way my r's are soft

as the side of my breast,

and the way I lick my fingertips

before turning the page,

And I . . .

I like the sharp intake of your breath

just before Shakespeare hits the floor.

55 words for my G-Man

Locked Late

Your open cruelty
behind closed doors leaves its mark
on hearts locked too late.

Sensational Haiku Wednesday

Highway 53

Picture courtesy of ze Great and Powerful Google

There is a stretch of Highway 53

that God forgot,

hell wouldn't have,

and I called home 

for a lost year or two.

The half-mile that optimists claimed as "town"

wasn't much to speak of.

Meth cooking up in the weeds.

Jesus preached behind stained glass.

A single, screen door store

where you could get a beer

if the other two didn't suit you.

All of it strung together by the highway

that rolled out either side back into Nothing to See Here.

Except in the summer.

In the summer,

the sun baked that blacktop

until it was blister kiss hot.

And, for some reason, that burning blacktop

drew tarantulas.

Lots of them.

You'd start seeing them four or five miles outside of town.

Just a couple, at first.

Then, suddenly, you'd top a hill,

and they'd be so thick the road was moving.

And, someplace in the back of your brain

would just convulse.

Now, logically, you knew that those things

couldn't crawl up into the undercarriage of the car,

couldn't scratch through the windows,

couldn't get to the tender flesh of your thigh,

but the terror was pure and silver
and your foot was stomping the accelerator

and logic was drowned

in the rush of your adrenalin

and drowned out

by the crash of your heart.

Until you hit the town line,

and they were gone.

Just . . . gone.

And, meth, Jesus, or a cold beer

sounded pretty damn good.

For Open Link Night at dVerse

Bubbles

Bubbles pop

like points

of punctuation,

like gassy leavings

in a landfill,

like vessels

in your asphyxiation 

eyes.

A Magpie Tale

Submitted to Real Toads

Marbles

Each day

we played

for all the marbles

till one day

I lost

all of mine.

The Angel

Photo by Isadora Gruye

No futures could be read

in the cloudless sky

so I asked an angel

on a pedestal nearby,

"What's the good word?"

She did not reply.

She's not much of a talker.

So, we shared the silence

through a shift of light.

Then I mentioned 

if she had no plans for the night,

we could go do something.

She did not reply.

She's not much of a talker.

But, she listened

without pity or pretense.

The way she listened

almost had me making sense.

When they came to take me to my room,

I promised that I'd see her soon.

And, I would have fought to kiss her

if she'd answered my goodbye.

But, there was no reply.

No reply.

She's not much of a talker.

For the picture prompt at Real Toads

You Did

I said
sing to me
obscenities
in every shade of blue.
Swear the sky cerulean,
and the ocean aqua, too.
And, you did.


I said
judge me
with your jealousy
in every shade of green.
Damn me with your emerald eyes
and all they haven't seen.
And, you did.


I said
humble me
with half truths
in every shade of gray.
Tourniquet the truth
until all feeling dies away.
And, you did.

For Imaginary Garden with Real Toads

St. Pauli Girl

The arrowheads that I hunted as a child are gone.
Dug up,
plowed under,
paved over.

Today, kids scavenge through wet leaves
discarded Frito bags,
and the occasional used condom
("Is this a balloon?")
for bottle caps.

"Look, Mom!  I found a St. Pauli Girl!"

The American childhood just ain't what it used to be.

Fiction in 55 for my G-Man

I interviewed Coal Black at Real Toads today.  Don't miss it!

Deflowered

Petals

fall

my shirt

he loves me

my bra

he loves me not

my jeans

he loves me

my panties

he loves me not

leaving a stigma.

For the Wednesday Challenge at Real Toads

I'm interviewing Coal Black over at Real Toads.  Don't miss it!

Plainly

"Speak plainly, poet,"
you say with a laugh,
and my words fly
like startled birds
so I kiss you.

Once-
quickly-
before you can speak.
Twice-
deeply-
until we sink
to the ground together,

and our lips' simple couplet
says more
than a sky full of verse.

For Open Link Night at dVerse

This Page

This page is old,
worn,
torn,
and wrinkled.
Erased clean through in places.

This page leaves dirty socks on the floor
and dishes in the sink.

At times, my fingers itch
for the feel
of a fresh, clean sheet.

But, as long as my pen bleeds
the same old stories
turning the page is a waste
of paper.

For Open Link Monday at Real Toads

Empty Sky

You kissed me
and called it a star.
I wanted a constellation.

You brought me the moon
in a jar.
I cried for Saturn's rings.

Wrapped in the Milky Way,
I demanded the sun
to warm me.

You emptied the sky,
but couldn't please me.
Now, there's nothing left to bring.

In The Wild

A female leopard

lives alone

and likes it.

She casts a solitary

shadow

on the savanna.

She is a ghost

of the gorge,

a wraith

at the waterhole.

Nocturnal

and nomadic,

she hunts,
mates,

and wanders the night

without 

ever establishing

a permanent den
until

she has a cub.

Finding the animal within for Fireblossom Friday at Real Toads

Black

Walking away
you made the blues turn black
and the rivers run red
as my first time.

Walking away
you shouldn't turn your back
on the girl you made
and then made cry.

Fretting your frets
and worrying your whimsy.
No queen in the hive,
the honey is gone.

Don't the spotlight burn
with the set list empty?
Turned your back on the girl
birthin' the songs.

Lord, don't it make the blues turn black?

A little jam for Poetry Jam.
Don't forget to check out my interview at Real Toads!

No Swimming

I wasn't prepared

for the curl of your river wet hair

against my fingers.

Or, for the thousand bits of sky

reflected on your skin.

And, as all of my years of kick and stroke and breath

left me

leaden,

you gathered me and whispered,

"Shhh . . .

It's only drowning."

A Magpie Tale

I was interviewed over at Real Toads today.  Mary did a fantastic job of keeping me from sounding like a complete moron.  Check it out!

Wish You Were Here

You are the dark laugh
at the bottom of the glass,
the icy glint of ten till two,
the telltale scrapes
of a key
trying blindly to find its way home.

Your are your own perpetual night
emaciating bone and blood
to attitude in thigh high boots
and sighs.

You are a mess
of merging melancholies,
pheromones, and phone numbers
sticking to the floor.

You are a Wish You Were Here  postcard
fluttering to rest
on the thrift-store rug
of memory
lying.

For dverse

Your Flower

I pressed your flower between the pages
of a book I hadn't written
as the words you hadn't spoken
worked their way into my ear.

Crushed by the weight
of all that hadn't happened
your flower fell to nothing.
Was it ever really here?